Guild Quilt Show 2014 "Quilt The Music"

Our guild's annual challenge show (PPQG) was on exhibit last month.  The challenge this year was to take a piece of music and make a quilt to somehow illustrate it.  I entered three quilts.

This first one is small, about 11" square.  I belong to a small group and we all decided to make small wonky houses and use the "Little Boxes" song as our theme.  We had ten quilts to enter, and the lower right hand piece in the photo above has the words to the song printed on it.

I was assigned the color pink, so thats my little house right in the center.  It was fun to make--totally free form, no pattern.  It's not very visible, but I embroidered a little flower at the lower left, and that's a button green watering can near it. 

We all agreed to price our little quilt-lets at the same price ($25.00).  Several of them sold, including mine.  We'll be rolling in the money now!

The next quilt I entered was a baby quilt.  I blogged about this quilt here.  It is one of my favorite designs:  half-square triangles made from Bear Patch Bits fabric squares.

For the challenge I chose the song "Hush Little Baby Don't You Cry," and titled the quilt 

"Go To Sleep."

And my third quilt was a Quilt of Valor that I recently completed.  Since I had it available, I decided to enter it into the challenge using the song "Stars and Stripes Forever."  I named the quilt "Brave and True."

I'm afraid I don't have a "whole quilt" photo to show you right now, but here are some process photos.  Trust me, it really is finished!  I blogged about it previously here, while I was working on the quilting.  The top was made by the mother of a friend of my SisterStitches.  The mother passed away before she had the chance to finish this quilt.  I ended up with the quilt top and feel honored to finish it for her.

Wonky Houses Wall Hanging

I recently embroidered a small wall hanging to give away.  It is a pattern that I bought from Jenny of Elefantz.  Jenny is a frequent blogger and a brilliant stitcher from Australia.

I had such fun embroidering these cute little houses.  Jenny had four houses in the pattern, but I opted to use three for this wall hanging.

Here is the first close-up.  Notice the little "home" sign and the cute bunny.

Next close-up with even a wonky mailbox!

A super close-up of the third house, showing wonky windows and curtains, and the cute yellow flowers. 

Jenny's patterns are nicely drawn and easy to follow.  I ironed a light stabilizer onto the back, and traced the lines with my Frixion pen.  Then I embroidered the designs without using a hoop.  I find that gives me more freedom, and that it is easier to reach all areas of the design.  But however you like to embroider, I recommend giving Jenny's patterns a try.  She has quite a few, and they are all cute.

Some Embroidery Work

I recently finished this small wall hanging.  It is a pattern that I bought from Jenny of Elefantz.  She has loads of great designs.  You should check out her blog and website.  Jenny specializes in beautiful designs which often combine applique and embroidery. This particular wall hanging I made is only 11" by 12".  It is one of four little wonky houses in the set.

The light blue border is one of my go-to fabrics lately, by HarmonyArt Organic Fabric.  Maybe it's just handy for me, but I seem to be using it in quite a few projects lately.

Here is a close-up of some of the embroidery.  As you can see, it is quite detailed.  I have to say this was quite a bit of fun to do.

Wonky House Quilt Block

I call this my "Wonky (yes, that's a technical term) House" square. I made it for a President's Quilt. Each president of our Guild gets to choose a special/favorite block. Then as many members as choose to, make her one or more blocks to the specifications. Some people choose a specific pattern and request certain colors. Some people choose a specific fabric. Some people only give suggestions! This square is for my friend Barbara. She simply gave us a good-sized swatch of fabric and said to do whatever we wanted, as long as it finished 11 1/2 inches square. She offered rust-colored fabric and bright blue fabric. I chose the rust-colored, but had no idea what to do with it. Thought I might do a crazy square. But if she decided to use this quilt, and not just hang it, a crazy patch isn't usually very washable.

But I remembered this "wonky house" that I'd seen in Quiltmaker Magazine (#126, March/April 09). I used the rust fabric for the house. It's a fun square to make, because there is no pattern! You just cut strips and make it all up as you go. I think I'd like to make a whole quilt like this.

After I had the house/grass/sky section made, I wanted to use some more of the rust fabric. So I decided to add some fall foliage trees next to the house. I had this great wood-grained fabric, and just put together some of the smaller rust pieces with some green ones for the tree's leaves. I added a watering can button for the flowers, another button for the doorknob, and some embroidered smoke coming out of the wonky chimney. The last step was to embroider my name on the square.

Not sure if Quiltmaker has this pattern available online, but if you're interested, let me know.