Roaring to the deadline

CherryWood Fabrics held a contest.  Need I say more.  Ummm...yes - sign me up.   Of course, there was a nice lengthy time to enter before the deadline (a few months, I believe).  Per usual, I chose the work under pressure manner of creating - so in about 36 hours before the deadline - I was in.

It started like this.   It even came with a permission slip to encourage me to cut into those GORGEOUS fabrics....

And like a fearless lioness - I did just that. 

The theme was Lion King, The Musical.  If you had a chance to see any of their challenge entries from last year, based on the musical Wicked - they were amazing.  If you didn't catch it - by all means take a look.  Spectacular work.  I put the link below but you can google it and get even more things to peruse.

I was going to use the circle of life reference as my inspiration.

Finding all things circular for tracing

Lots of good choices for color

I toyed with this design but it was far too simplistic.  Didn't have enough "oomph".

So I mulled it over a night (wasted hours....) and then I got really juiced up and figured out a more complex and interesting design.  Which required...

A nice 9 degree wedge

The wedge really started working for me and I wound up with this:

 

I harnessed my super power : "working really fast under pressure" and the design began to form:

And eventually became this:

I called upon my secondary super hero power: "quilting the snot of out of a quilt".

And thus:

Mufasa is raw edge appliquéd with lots of tiny, slow quilting moves.

Totally worth the time....

Of course, what kind of sewist would I be without a little thread controversy....  Also per usual, I goofed a little (a lot) and had to do some unsewing.  Which leads me to my next tidbit to share.... I'm making seam rippers!!

I have learned how to turn these on a lathe and polish them into beautiful sewing tools.  If you've ever  held one of these in your own hand - then you know how good they feel.  If you haven't - you should absolutely take one for a test drive.  They feel luxurious.  I hardly minded unsewing while using this!!  More on this later...

So while the Mission Impossible them music played loudly - and despite the temporary slow down for unsewing, I was able to enter the contest (and I still had and hour and a half before the actual deadline!!!).

I'm pleased with my result (although those toes need some polish....) ...  What are you working on???

Wicked Challenge:Cherrywood Wicked Challenge 2015

Roaring to the deadline

CherryWood Fabrics held a contest.  Need I say more.  Ummm...yes - sign me up.   Of course, there was a nice lengthy time to enter before the deadline (a few months, I believe).  Per usual, I chose the work under pressure manner of creating - so in about 36 hours before the deadline - I was in.

It started like this.   It even came with a permission slip to encourage me to cut into those GORGEOUS fabrics....

And like a fearless lioness - I did just that. 

The theme was Lion King, The Musical.  If you had a chance to see any of their challenge entries from last year, based on the musical Wicked - they were amazing.  If you didn't catch it - by all means take a look.  Spectacular work.  I put the link below but you can google it and get even more things to peruse.

I was going to use the circle of life reference as my inspiration.

Finding all things circular for tracing

Lots of good choices for color

I toyed with this design but it was far too simplistic.  Didn't have enough "oomph".

So I mulled it over a night (wasted hours....) and then I got really juiced up and figured out a more complex and interesting design.  Which required...

A nice 9 degree wedge

The wedge really started working for me and I wound up with this:

 

I harnessed my super power : "working really fast under pressure" and the design began to form:

And eventually became this:

I called upon my secondary super hero power: "quilting the snot of out of a quilt".

And thus:

Mufasa is raw edge appliquéd with lots of tiny, slow quilting moves.

Totally worth the time....

Of course, what kind of sewist would I be without a little thread controversy....  Also per usual, I goofed a little (a lot) and had to do some unsewing.  Which leads me to my next tidbit to share.... I'm making seam rippers!!

I have learned how to turn these on a lathe and polish them into beautiful sewing tools.  If you've ever  held one of these in your own hand - then you know how good they feel.  If you haven't - you should absolutely take one for a test drive.  They feel luxurious.  I hardly minded unsewing while using this!!  More on this later...

So while the Mission Impossible them music played loudly - and despite the temporary slow down for unsewing, I was able to enter the contest (and I still had and hour and a half before the actual deadline!!!).

I'm pleased with my result (although those toes need some polish....) ...  What are you working on???

Wicked Challenge:Cherrywood Wicked Challenge 2015

Back to some improv quilting....

I probably need to make things people recognize more easily...

I'm hot on a new project and from my perspective - it's coming out beautifully.  When I showed my daughter...she looked a little puzzled.  I got one of those... "um, yeah, I really like the colors" comments with this really puzzled look on her face.

Alas, art is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.  So, let me explain what you are about to see:


I am a fan of @DailyOverview on IG (Instagram).  They post photos with a bird's eye view of subjects.  Two posts got my serious attention:

Oil tanker ships on the ocean

and

Container ships on the ocean

I was fascinated by the color of the water and the variety of color of the ships.  So of course, I had to make a quilt.  I sketched out my design - which incorporated lots of ocean colors.  From greens to blues - they are all found all over the world.

I think we often become desensitized by tv and the internet (and books) and don't realize those gorgeous colored waters really exist.  Living on the east coast of the US, I see the murky grey- greenish- blue up close.  I took a cruise many years back and spent half my time ogling the water.  I simply could not believe how amazing the colors were depending on our location.  So these colors are really out there - and they make me happy.

Thank you graph paper. I love you.

I thought it would be more interesting to use a transparency style layout so I could incorporate lots of ocean colors.   I decided a simple way to create this piece was to use 5 inch blocks.  Normally, I'd crank out my blocks off my Accu-quilt cutter but I was so limited on a couple of these fabric pulls that I couldn't afford the waste - so I carefully cut each out with one of my many, many, overpriced but completely necessary lucite rulers.

For the ships, I felt I wanted to use different scale representations and lots of directions as in which they might be going....  I think this is where I lost my daughter and perhaps the flaw in my design.  We'll find out when I'm finished - and it could even change from this....but it's where I'm headed right now.

I'm not trying to be abstruse...but if you haven't seen those Daily Overview photos...I can see where this quilt might be challenging to understand...  

When I'm done, if it's not completely clear...maybe I'll print a large label for the back - explaining my vision....

What are you up to this week?

And we now return to normally scheduled programming

A wise man I once worked for always use to say "If you have something important to say - please start at the end".  So more about this quilt as you read through today....

Quilting was temporarily put on hold for a couple of weeks for some home updates.  The fruits of my labor:

The Before of these two rooms

The After!!

Actually, the doors and jambs are still in the stain color.  I have to have a special "door painting" day to finish those.  I'm TERRIBLE at remembering to take a good "before" photo.  The room with the cabinets is my laundry room.  The walls were a stark white and I painted them the pale turquoise the week before.  Again...should have remembered to take the before photo....

And I did this...  Transformed these two Goodwill treasures into....

They were $15 each!!!

Lots of spray paint and some cushions from Target and WHAM!!!    Gorgeous sliders for my screened in porch.  

After all that great home updating...I got down to some quilting.  You may remember my Tulip Fields:

One of the many inspiration photos.

Work in progress


And then it became....

But it still wasn't right....

So I made a few more changes....

I like this.... so then it was quilting time....

Quilting didn't go too fast as I got harassed by Ping, a lot...

Who can resist this furry beast!!

Lots and lots of quilting

And then face binding (Thank you Mary Menzer Designs for the excellent  tutorial on Face Binding   Face Binding Tutorial   )

And then finally here it is.  It makes me smile.  I hope to see the fields in person one day.

What have you made lately that makes you smile?

I'll be linking up to some GREAT links parties - check out the bar to the right for the links each day.