Escape to Cloud Nine - Project Quilting Season 2 Challenge Two

It's the name of the place that I LOVE ... I read the challenge on Sunday and started thinking.... What place should I choose? Where's my favorite place?..... Our favorite campground on the Mississippi River, the hunting and hiking land behind our house, a quilt retreat, a quilt shop, a vacation spot, my mom's house, my brother's house, my sewing room at our home, my sewing room at the camper .... I brain stormed while I cut strips for the background fabric. Then I started sewing strips and taking pictures ... I had lots of ideas....but couldn't make up my mind.


I even sent an email to family members to enlist their help with the brain storming. My husband said "What is the name of the creative space/place you go to in your head, when you are zoning in on your quilting and not paying attention to the real world?" Hyper Focusing??? Ritch suggested I name the quilt something like.... Hakuna Matata -- cause when I am "hyper focusing" that is where I go... when I am sewing, quilting, and creating. But he said that is not the right name! Has to be something about the creative space in your brain!!!


Then I did an internet search for names of places (towns and cities with unusual names) that might represent the name of the creative space in my brain. I read about the right brain and left brain and the parts in between that transfer the information back and forth. I thought I knew all about Attention Deficit and Hyper Focusing. I went Thesaurus.com and found tons of words that deal with imagination, creativity, and even more than I wanted to know! I found a site that had Quotes by everyone in the world. The coolest part is that I was reading more than I have ever read in years! Was that part of the challenge? Finally I decided that Cloud Nine described my creative space or place in my brain. So I named my quilt Escape to Cloud Nine because I love to go there.....


Tons of pictures on the Photo Gallery and Flicker.
Information - Project Quilting.

Project Quilting Season 2 Challenge Two -- I Chose the Border Fabric and started to Quilt

Just a peek at the corner of the Name of a Place Quilt after the first part of the quilting.  
First I cut the background fabric into a rectangle - about 17" X 24".
 
Then laid out some fabrics along the sides. I liked the soft blueish fabric the best. Works perfect for the border fabric. Cut the border fabric 3" wide. Stitched the borders on all four sides. Makes the quilt top approximately 22" X 29".


Quilted wavy lines horizontally with a cream thread. See the next pictures to see how it started. I used a double thickness of poly batting. Makes it really fluffy!


Started at the top and waved across the quilt.

Stitched the sides of the quilt top down tight, so it would stay in place nicely while waving across the quilt.


What's the name of the place? Not yet, next blog.... later today!


More photos of this and other projects at
Photo Gallery and Flicker


Information - Project Quilting

Project Quilting Season 2 Challenge Two -- The Begining steps for my Name of a Place Quilt

Update:
This is available as a PDF Downloadable Pattern in my Craftsy Store - Texture Quilt Pattern.

This is my background fabric... Follow the steps and you can make it too!


Step 1 - Cut strips from whites, tans and creams 1 1/4 inch wide to 3 inches wide. Plan to use the front and back sides of both -- meaning no right sides or pretty sides of the fabric. We want textures!
Step 2 - Randomly sew any two strips together any sizes on any side! If they are not the same length just cut them off and use the extra pieces on another strip.
Step 3 - randomly sew another strip onto the two strip sets. Continue to add strips onto them and sew some of the sets together - see next picture too.
Time to PRESS!
 
Step 4 - Now that they are nicely pressed and cut the sets of strips into long strips from 1 1/4 inch wide to 3 inches wide.

Step 5 - Cut a square any size -- I chose 3 inches. I cut about 10 - 12 squares to start the process. Might need more later.

Use the strips from the sides with your strip sets if you need a longer piece later.

Step 6 - Sew the strips sets on one side of all the 3 inch squares -- let's call it the right side. PRESS and rotary cut - trim the ends.

Step 7 - Sew another strip on one side of the square - let's call it the top side. PRESS and rotary cut and trim the ends.

Step 8 - Sew another strip on the left side. PRESS and rotary cut and trim the ends.

Step 9 - Sew another strip on the bottom side. PRESS and rotary cut and trim the ends.

Step 10 - Sew another side on any side and PRESS and trim and then sew another side on any side, until your block is the size you want it. Some will need two more strips and some will need four more strips. PRESS the blocks. I cut rectangles from the blocks - not squares and sewed them together in long rows -- see the next blog entry tomorrow.

Can you guess what it is, yet?


More photos on Flicker and my Photo Gallery.


Information - Project Quilting

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I thought a made a Baby Quilt ...Gabby thinks I made a Gabby Quilt!

These are the final pictures for the Project Quilting Season 2 - Challenge number 1 - Primary Colors Quilt. I had a blast!


It did push me to be a better machine piecer and quilter! I really enjoyed the process. It was a great quilt challenge.


It is so cool to see the photos of the work in progress on Flicker and now the final projects are coming in. What a color delight to see all the primary colors on display!


Follow the link on this blog to my flicker photos and I put more photos on my website photo gallery too! ENJOY!!!

Quilting is complete! Glad I took the challenge! What a blast!

What a blast!!! I definitely went outside my box on the quilting part of this challenge --- trying a variety of patterns and not afraid to make a mistake !!! Glad I took the challenge!

Project Quilting

The next step was the quilting of the borders and the lattice strips. I quilted the border with a free style Zig Zag pattern using yellow and red thread on the blue border and blue thread on the red border and yellow thread on the yellow border. On the lattice strips I quilted with a wavy line that joins a daisy at each end. I used the yellow thread on the yellow and green strips and red thread on the red and blue strips!

Back side of the quilt. You can see all the patterns and color changes on this side of the quilt. Done with the quilting... binding is next!

Wachuta Doodles - Starting to quilt the block part of the quilt!

I started to quilt my challenge quilt for Project Quilting - Using a form of Zentangle quilting which I personally named Wachuta Doodles.










I quilted on just the open blocks.... creating a pattern design in each block. Just had fun making patterns... the dot blocks - circular designs, the flower blocks - zig zag patterns and the plain white blocks - cross hatch and basket weave patterns. What a blast!
















More pictures from the yesterday's quilting at the end of the day will be on another post - maybe tonight or tomorrow! Photos in the Photo Gallery --- Click any of the photos and it will take you to the Picasa Photo Gallery where you will find all my photos - click on that and then on Project Quilting. Also photos on Flicker.

My Quilt Project for Project Quilting --- The next steps!!!

After work today I completed the quilt top - tomorrow after work I will quilt it!! Yippee...Here is how I got to this point... follow the steps below....

Selected the final fabrics for Project Quilting.

Cut strips in random sizes from 1 3/4 inch to 3 inches.
Lay them out to see how it will look....



Sew strips on one side of the block.

Sew strips on one side of the block.
Square up block at an angle to 6 1/2 inch square.

Lay them out in random order.. I changed the order many times before sewing them together. I should have just picked them up in any order and sewed them!

Sew the rows together unevenly to offset them.

More photos in the my Photo Gallery.

My Quilt Project for Project Quilting --- The Beginning

Project Quilting ---I am starting to select the fabrics and plan a bit! Yellow, Blue, and Red -- Reads solid with a little texture for interest!


OK Should I add more yellows and blues and reds???


How about adding secondary colors - Purple and Orange and Green? I don't know... maybe not?



Add fabrics with all the colors with white and black backgrounds and a bunch of strips of all the colors with more textures???? What should I do??



Add seersucker fabrics.......... I liked the idea of the white fabric with the colors and then I thought of all that seersucker fabric I have (which I will never use---- but I like how it feels)..... It will give the quilt more "feel texture" !!! And don't use the black and white fabrics in the picture above.


Add more white fabric to the colors? That might create a nice space to quilt on the plain white? I don't know?! I think I will add more texture yellows and a couple reds, with a touch of green to pick up the green in the tulips! What do you think?


I think this is it!! I will press and cut tomorrow and start sewing... ....have to do just a little bit each day, as the quilting business is busy in the winter months! Quilt, quilt, quilt.... then I can play! Maybe tonight I will dream about the way I want to sew the pieces together.... Sweet Sewing Dreams....



More photos in the photo gallery at www.craftysewing.com