A Little Night Music

I seem to be continually beginning new things but rarely finishing them. I take comfort in the fact that I am not the only one in the world who does this.

So today, I will post about my second (and final) Project Quilting quilt.

Let's see, I'll cast my mind back...

The inspiration was Music. You had to choose a song title for your inspiration. I chose Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. This translates in English to be "A Little Night Music", which I interpreted as follows...

Navy background, creamy coloured moon in the centre, with randomly placed colourful "music" spots dancing around it.

No?

No. So I rearranged the spots, into what I found to be their natural order. (What can I say, I love rainbows!)

Yes. So I pinned them all. I should add that this is sandwiched all ready for quilting - backing, batting, top, held together with my wonderful friend, Quilt Basting Spray. Yay for the Spray.

I free-motion quilted the spots down, with matching thread for each colour. The central area needed something too, so I did some squiggly "rays" emitting from the moon. Yay for the moon rays.

That was the funnest part, as it was totally unplanned. I didn't know what I was going to do with each quilting line until I was actually doing it. What freedom to be creative!

The finished quilt, 24" x 24"

The back was made in a free manner as well. The central square is sewn from four new fabrics; the rest are repurposed pajamas.

The front's navy background and the moon are flannel as well; the small circles are all cotton. The binding was the lining of a favourite handbag. It had many compartments and pockets, so there was quite a bit of lining to be had.

But why mainly flannel? Because it was originally intended as a quilt for my cat Missy. But after I pinned it to the wall to get a good photo, I liked it being there, so it's staying up until I've got something to replace it with.

Besides, Missy is a long-haired puss, so just imagine all the shedding it would receive...

Hanging on the wall in the living room. Sorry Missy, you miss out. For now.

Project Quilting!

This is season 3 of Project Quilting (think Project Runway, but for the blog world, minus Tim and Heidi). I first heard about it a few months ago, after season 2 had finished, and have eagerly been waiting for the next one to begin. And it did, on 8 January. Thank you, Kim, for organising it all.

The first challenge was to use Architecture as the inspiration. In the rules it said to think outside the square and to do something nobody else would think of doing. So I chose to interpret this challenge on a literal level.

No, I didn't build a wooden quilt. What I did was arrange the letters in the word ARCHITECTURE into... an A-frame house.

I doodled, playing with the letters in the word, in an attempt to make architectural elements from each one.

My full-size paper pattern

A = A-frame house
R = a tree - the up and down parts are the trunk, with the round bit at the top making half the bushy part of the tree
C = I turned this into an ovoid window
H = a chimney
I = a skyscraper
T = a water tower, just like the one in a town I grew up in
E = a stylised view of an apartment building, with balconies
C = a tree
T = a TV aerial
U = a cross-section of a swimming pool
R = yet another tree (hey, R is a tricky letter! And, you need trees among all these buildings!)
E = an office block with lots of windows

Next I made a paper pattern, cut out each background piece in a light neutral, sewed them into rows, then into an equilateral triangle.
I cut out shapes, in realistic colours, and stuck them down with a glue stick.
Then I sandwiched some stiff batting and backing fabric with my A-frame on top.
Note: Quilt Basting Spray is WONDERFUL!

I wasn't sure if any of this would even work, but I was determined to learn something new and have fun doing it. Therefore, instead of using my "good" thread, I grabbed an old reel that I just couldn't throw away.

Note: If your sewing teacher ever tells you (like mine did, back in the '90s) to never ever use old thread, or worse, cheap thread that is "fluffy", then please heed her advice.

So, amongst a fair bit of re-threading due to snapped thread, I free-motion outline quilted/appliqued (both at once - is there a special name for that?) all the shapes. That was the funnest part.

Then trim, and bind.

And there it is, my equilateral triangle wall hanging that may or may not spell the word architecture.

Unfortunately, I ran out of time, and didn't get my entry in to be able to enter the competition. Everyone is given just one week to design and construct their quilt. I had all the ideas stewing away in my head, but typically left it until Sunday to begin implementing them (the deadline is Sunday at noon, but that's CDT, which is thankfully several hours into Monday morning here). By early Sunday evening I realised it just wasn't going to happen in time, so I stopped stressing about the deadline, but chose to carry on anyway.

Counting my fluffing-around-time, all-up I took two weeks instead of one. But I don't consider that strictly cheating as it wasn't entered into the prize-drawing.

And there are some pretty cool prizes, so go check it out!

******

Looking back, I've noticed the editor in me has, at every stage of the process, been re-reading, double-checking and just plain looking, thinking that I've spelled the word wrong. Even now.