Addicted to Challenges

Life is going by in a blur.  The addiction to quilt challenges is an easy one to acquire.  You just need time (which I have plenty of now), material (my stash is always growing) and quilt shows or the web to find out about the close to home challenges.  I'm a quilt challenge junkie and loving every minute of it. 

For those of you who follow this blog know, I love to quilt.  It is a wonderful excuse to pass on cleaning the house, to look busy so the husband will cook, and the best part is supporting all the local quilt stores.  I must confess the last quilt store handed me a $10 gift card and I was scared to ask how much it had cost in past purchases to be handed this.

So here is the latest on the quilts that are in the making for the next three quilt challenges.

This one I've blogged about before.  I was so thrilled to have finished it.  This high lasted all of 48 hours until I realized I still needed to sew on a hanging sleeve.  Drats, so close and so far.

The hippie bus is hand stitched on ready to be ripped off when the quilt comes back home again.

The back of the hippie quilt.  The zodiac was another piece of material that was in the kit for this quilt challenge.  It never said in the rules where it had to go.  I think it looks perfect on the back, don't you?

The next one is a quilt challenge for the Silverton, OR quilt show in January.  This one has also been in previous blogs.  Every day I work at least an hour on it and it is slowly coming along.  

There is tons of thread stitching on it.  When it is finished all the yellow background material will be cut away. At this time I'm not sure how it is going to look when it ready to be attached to a background fabric.

Jenny, you had asked if there was a book on thread painting.  This book is a great resource on that subject.  Most thread work is done with the feed dogs down and a darning foot.  When a person has mastered this then quilt tops can be done quickly.  I have not mastered the subject and so I keep a regular foot on, feed dogs up, and slowly turn my material back and forth.  It is a great way to veggie or zen out.

The next quilt challenge is from the Stitchin' Post in Sisters, OR and it is for the first of April.  Sisters puts on a huge quilt show the week end after the 4th of July every year.  You are lucky if you can find lodging anywhere close to Sisters!  Jean Wells is a fantastic well know quilter who is part of the Stitchin Post.  To take a class from her would be like dying and going to heaven.  (I keep hinting to Bill that this would be the greatest gift I could have.)  

Oh, back to the challenge.  Simple enough, any quilted object with at least 1/4 of it in hexagons.  How hard can that be.  It is known as English paper piecing.  Grandma's Flower Garden is a well know quilt design using this method.  It can also be very time consuming.  So why not cut the time, bring the design into the present, and just have fun with it.

This is the first go with it.  Don't like all the bits and pieces of lizards showing. Of course, you could use a black marker and color over them.

But then there is the simplicity of fusible webbing.  Cut and glue, no turned edges!  A white background is so popular right now in the quilting world. mmm, still lots of times to play with this one.


Happy Creativity!