Project Quilting Season 9, Challenge 1

Hi everybody! I am so excited to do this Project Quilting challenge. I've never done a challenge like this before but I loved seeing inspiration for past seasons.  And if I'm ever out of ideas (ha ha) when I'm not in S9 Challenge mode, I can look back and try those out too!

So here's my finished piece for the week.  It's 46" X 43" We'll deconstruct it & I'll tell you my journey next.

We got the challenge at noon on Sunday, January 7th.  I live in the central time zone so luckily i'm in the same time zone as Kim, our leader.  (If you are interested in project quilting challenges or finding out more, go here:  http://persimondreams.blogspot.ca/p/project-quilting.html). All week I was excited to find out what the challenge would be. I was excited to get started. I even cleaned my sewing area up! (I know, shocking!)    My plan was, I would get the challenge, brainstorm, do some sketches, pick fabric, and get started.

Get the Challenge & Brainstorm

     The challenge was "Hometown Proud". We could choose any town that we've lived in.  I am from Louisville, KY and I currently live near Chicago, IL. I also spent significant time in Raleigh NC.  I loved growing up in Louisville so I started with that.  I did some brainstorming with words first.

I had a lot of imagery to work with. The Derby is such an iconic event for the city but for my family, the whole Derby Festival was part of the experience.  More on that later...  

I also got some images offline for some ideas.

   

Sketching

Sketching is next. I am a terrible artist as far as drawing. I took some art classes in college and it was terrible. I loved doing it, but I can't draw.  Still, I found it helpful to sketch an idea on paper for a visual representation of what I was looking for.

Aren't my horses lovely? hee hee. 

So, I liked the Twin Spires with the balloons and the horse shoe the best.  Here's what it all means:

The horse shoe and the twin spires represents Churchill Downs & Horse Racing

The Balloons represent the Balloon Race which happens one week before the Kentucky Derby. My family always went to that. We got up early, waited at the fairgrounds and got to go on the field among the balloons while they were unpacked, blown up and flew away.

The Fireworks represent Thunder Over Louisville which is a fireworks event on the Ohio River two weeks prior to the Kentucky Derby.  It's the big kickoff to the derby festival.  My family liked to find places to go to watch the fireworks.

The blue/green grass represents the blue grass they always talk about in relation to Kentucky.

Picking the Fabric

A really important part of this season for me is to use scraps as much as possible. I have a lot of fabric leftover from other projects and I love the fabric, so I want to use it.  Using scraps also minimizes how much I spend on this challenge. So I went to the stash... I had some Kentucky Derby themed fabric leftover from a project for family.  I had small pieces but wanted to find some larger pieces. In hindsight I should have started smaller so my overall project would be smaller. Oh well.... I was able to find two pieces large enough for the twin spires.  I combined the rose fabric with very small pieces of the horse racing black fabric to show some depth.

I found some pretty green and blue fabric that I wanted to use for the grass. I also found another blue/green combination that I wanted to use for one of the balloons. I had some leftover blocks from a family quilt project and I figured they were fun and I could combine the to use for the second balloon.

Get Started... The construction

I started with the twin spires.  I looked up some pictures, cut out some shapes until I was happy with one spire. Then I tried to do it again :-) crazy.    Eventually I got twin spires that I liked.  I laid them out on muslin (creamy/white fabric). It didn't pop enough. So i found some black fabric and they popped. it was awesome.

I took the orphan blocks, sewed them together into a large square. Then I cut the large square into a portion of a circle.  I wanted it to look like it goes beyond the "frame" of the quilt.  For the basket i used some rust colored fabric. I used white thread to give some character to the basket and the ropes between the basket and the balloon. 

I cut the blue and green into squares and made them into strips. I alternated the colors and turned them on their side so its like diamonds.  I then cut that into a circle and made the next balloon.

When I originally created this piece, the spires & balloons were on two separate pieces of black fabric. so i had to sew those two pieces together. It was about then that I realized that the left spire was leaning. I tried to correct this later when I did the border since I didn't want to redo the spire.

Oh for the applique, for now I just did a top stitch using white thread. From up close its wonky but across the room it makes no difference so I left it.  Another member of the quilting challenge offered to send me a fusible product called Wonder Under which she says will help me. (Thank you!) so i'll try again with that later.

Next came the fireworks. YAY!!!!
the fireworks fabric i had was very busy - black fabric with fireworks all over.  I wanted a bundle of fireworks, but not all over the quilt. so I did some creative cutting to get sections of fireworks. I sewed these to the top in a few places. I even was able to get individual fireworks sewn in. These turned out great.  I polled my family to find out whether I had enough fireworks or needed more. I like asking their opinions when I can.

It was now that I realized the blue/green fabric i had chosen for the grass clashed with the other blue//green fabric.  I laid out a gray border and then the blue/green, but it still clashed, so i abandoned that fabric and will use it for a project in the future.  Ok so i added a beautiful gray fabric for the border.  It was finally time to quilt.

By this point it was mid-day Saturday and i was nervous I wouldn't make it in time. so i started rushing. This is when I really made mistakes I regret. i wish I slowed down and corrected. And I did in some cases. Where the backing bunched up, I tried to pick out the stitches and stretch it out. But I couldn't fix everything.  I should have spent more time basting the quilt (putting pins in to make it stay together). As a result of my rushing, my quilt ended up looking wrinkled and I couldn't iron that out.  Its a lesson for the future.    I was also sick for part of the week which prevented some mid-week work on the quilt, but thats still not a reason to rush so fast.  I also should have started with a smaller size piece. I still love it.

I was going to go with a black binding, but I had plenty of the fireworks fabric and thought it would look really neat.  I think it does look neat. I'm really pleased with it, even if it is wrinkled.

Challenge 2 comes out in one week. Now to rest..... Ha ha! i actually am going to a sewing retreat this week (Thurs thru Sun) so I get to prep for that and enjoy it.

It'll be a fun week.
Thanks for joining me for this quilting journey.