The Good News.....and the last posting

Good news sometimes comes in 3's:

1. there were over 25 entries in the challenge!!! The voting was done by all guild members who viewed the quilts and chose a 1st, 2nd, and a 3rd.
2. Unlike American Idol or Project Runway - those who did not win do not have to leave the Guild. :-)
3. I had promised my two daughters that I would make each of them a wall-hanging for their new apartments - I have one done.

Actually - I have one more - yesterday was Nyia's (one of my grands) 3rd birthday.

Pictures of everything are here:

1st place - it is hard to see but the center squares have kimonos and the outside has fabric made into origami stars - incredible!




2nd place - this quilter did an incredible and very creative job with the two center figures - just beautiful!









3rd place - This quilter also used the fan theme with squares in between - beautiful quilt.

As you can see, my quilt was not one of the top three chosen. As with anything - you always want to win, but, for me, if I don't - I want those who did win to have been obvious choices, to have clearly deserved it and these quilts fit that criterion. The winners of the Guild Challenge were certainly deserving and all very talented quilters.

I did learn some stuff through this:

• it was fun to have a few focal fabrics to work with and I used only what I had (a real breakthrough)
• I did applique - something that I have not done much at all in the past and, surprising to me, I actually enjoyed
• I put together a blog - thanks Tracey C!

The last bit of goodness from the day was the most beautiful birthday princess in the whole world (ice cream stain and all).....

Thanks for checking in and for the nice comments!

Nancy

It is done!

The quilt is finished and I am proud to say I only used fabric, thread and batting that I already had...which should provide a little insight into just how much of that stuff I do have! Here are two pictures - one of the quilt and the other showing some of the back of the quilt. If you are interested in the interim steps - read the posting right before this one.

The challenge will be judged this coming Saturday 10/7 at the Quilting Guild meeting. I will take pictures of the other entries and, of course, post who won and how my quilt did in the mix.

thanks for reading.

Down to the finish line!

As I think I mentioned earlier, the final steps to completion include:


-Determining what the back will look like - it can be one solid piece or it can also be pieced. I chose to piece it. I used a large piece of fabric for the center, had some deep red fabric for the top and side borders and then appliqued circles of the fabric from the front onto each corner piece.

-Making a quilt sandwich of top, batting, back

-Deciding the design I am going to use to sew these pieces together (machine quilting). I decided to quilt the interior with gold thread in a swirling design and then to quilt the border in dark green with a more geometric design. I drew it on a piece of paper first, then stitched the larger lines and filled them in.

The last thing to do is decide on the binding - what goes around the edge of the quilt and covers all of the raw edges. I went with a gold fabric that would pick up the various golds in the quilt. You can see the gold in the picture to the left.

Apparently there is a limit to the number of pictures in one posting. I will post another with the completed quilt.