Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Olympic Quilt Challenge

Moda Cutting Table is hosting an Olympic Quilt Competition.  The parameters are quite wide - the quilt can be about the Olympics, inspired by the Olympics, or something you worked on during the Olympics.  So I'm catching the spirit of the Olympics and submitting a picture for the challenge.

I made this star quilt in 2011 using half-square triangle units.  I sewed all 20 blocks into rows and finally finished my quilt top.  It didn't turn out as stunning as I would have liked it to so I stashed it away into the back of my closet.  I pulled it out for this contest - issuing myself the challenge to fix it.

I started by unpicking all the seams that joined the blocks together.  In some cases I replaced parts of the blocks so there would be better contrast  in hopes of making the stars easier to see.  I realize now that I didn't really have enough charm squares in 2011 to offer the value difference I needed. 

There was too much fabric in the blocks to merely toss them without a guilty conscience so I decided to do quilt-as-you-go and practice my machine quilting.  Trust me, I need LOTS of practice.

The first picture shows a couple of stacks of blocks sandwiched together with  a few more over at the table waiting to be glued into a quilt sandwich.  I thought making these smaller sandwiches would be a perfect time to try out the Elmer's school glue technique.  It worked great.




No comments: