Thursday, May 31, 2012

Kona Challenge: My Modern Peel Quilt is Finished!!!


Almost a year later to-the-day... I finished my Modern Peel Quilt. Happy Dance! 


Kona Bright Charm Packs from Robert Kaufman


It started with one Kona Bright Charm Pack and a quick sketch made at a stop light. I wanted to take one of my all time favorite traditional quilt blocks and tweak it.  



I re-imagined an orange peel block bold and graphic. I wanted to play with the scale, separate the peels and then bring them back together with the quilting. The top went together quickly. It was fun appliqueing all of the peels down and playing with the color placement. And then it came time to quilt it.


Spiral quilting


Ugh the quilting. Talk about biting off more than you can chew. Wow. The quilting turned out to be so challenging. I found myself stuck in between an awesome idea and my own humble abilities. I did not choose, a meandering stipple, organic lines, bubble quilting, all over swirls, random rings... no, I envisioned all over interlocking spirals. 

The problems came from the fabric being pulled in all different directions and handling the quilt over and over for each spiral. There was a ton of pleating, folding and buckling. It was awful. I should have saved myself and just stopped. I didn't. I cannot even tell you how many times I unpicked the quilting and started over, got frustrated, and put it away. Ok, it was at least five.


I was happy to have it stay on the shelf indefinitely. It was a quilting mojo killer. We needed time apart.


Every once in awhile someone would ask me... whatever happened to that cool quilt you started? Then I would feel a little guilty and rattle off an excuse and then change the subject.


Lame.



Fast forward to April of this year, my guild mates decided they were going to enter their (finished) Kona Challenge quilts into the local fair. They wanted mine to be included. Determined not to let them down, I decided to try the quilting again. I received some really great advice from my friends on different ways to attack the problem areas and lots of support and encouragement to keep going. They are the best!


Quilting is happening at my house!

Armed with a stubborn streak, a brand new sewing machine, a seam ripper, starch, steam, a walking foot, and lots of determination, I made it through and I finished it. Phew.



If you're in the Bay Area, please check out our special exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair featuring our Kona Challenge Quilts. For our challenge, we made quilts out of Kona charm packs sent to us by Robert Kaufman. The parameters of the challenge were to feature the Kona charms, use only solids, and make at least a baby sized quilt.



If you aren't local, let your fingers do the walking! Here are some of the other quilts made by members of the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild


Ruth
Tamiko
Colleen
Angela
Claudia
Jaye


My East Bay friends participated too!


Dan
Joel
Sharona
Margaret


Even more modern quilters participated in this challenge and you can see most of the entries in the MQG Robert Kaufman Kona Solids Challenge Quilts flickr group. What would you make with 43, 5" squares of color?  : )

41 comments:

  1. Adrianne, I REALLY love this quilt. The quilted circles are simply perfect and they add so much to the look of the quilt. Great work!

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  2. That is totally amazing!! Everything about it, the colors, the quilting, and the way it looks like really big flowers. Lovely!!

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  3. Love it to bits - simple, yet fascinating and beautiful! Such a winner!

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  4. I love the quilting on this! Glad you stuck with it.

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  5. It came out gorgeous Adrianne! I am so jealous of the new machine!

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  6. Your perseverance truly paid off! Beautiful! Well done you!

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  7. this is pretty awesome. it turned out great! i'm so glad that you stuck with it. i can totally relate, though. when i was still in california, i did the solids challenge with the LAMQG. i quilted that thing to death, and really, i still hate that quilt. http://sewkellysews.blogspot.com/2011/03/robert-kaufman-solids-challenge-over.html

    at least yours is a thing of real beauty, and you're happy with it. :)

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  8. "armed with a stubborn streak".... ;-) Beautiful!

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  9. Oh Happy Dance. It is just wonderful and the you pulled off the circular quilting, congrats. How fun to have them all in the fair together. Still drooling over your new machine.

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  10. Fantastic girlfriend! This quilt is so adorable I could squeeze it until I juiced it! did you hand cut each piece or use a machine? I so badly want one of the accuquilt die cutters ...

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  11. Encouragement is always key for those stubborn quilts!! All that hard work on those spirals paid off for you so well girl!!

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  12. That quilting really makes the quilt! Lovely!

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  13. GREAT work! I am sorry it was a pain, but the quilting is perfect. Thank you for making up the numbers so we could enter. I really want to hear whether or not the machine made a difference. Walking foot: yes. Starch (Mary Ellen's Best Press?): yes.

    Good job!

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  14. this is so gorgeous!!! love it!

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  15. That turned out so lovely! I'm glad you were able to finish it up.

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  16. This is so pretty! I'm glad you finished it. So gorgeous.

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  17. Completely lovely. I'm so glad you stuck with the spiral quilting!

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  18. Love it!! The quilting adds such a fantastic element to a great looking quilt!

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  19. Love it! And the quilting totally makes it even more awesome.

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  20. I'm so glad you stuck with it because the result was a gorgeous quilt. The quilting really brings everything together, too. Your shoulder must be killing, though!

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  21. Just lovely! And I have the exact sewing machine!!! Love it too!

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  22. Yay for persevering, it looks fab!

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  23. Looks fabulous! Love it! So glad that you persevered with it because now I want to ask how you did the quilting? You said you got some tips ..... I have the same machine and was trying to quilt circles and cannot for the life of me figure out how to make them look decent. Share your tips? Pretty please?
    thanks
    Pamela

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  24. I think your quilt turned out fabulous and you need extra pats on the back for sticking with it (five times)! It's a wonderful finish.

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  25. I loved it before, but now the quilting makes it even better! You must be so pleased with it!

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  26. this is so so beautiful=i just love it to pieces. it's one of my favorite things i've seen lately in blogland! kudos!

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  27. Oh, this is wonderful! Your quilt top alone was pretty, but the quilting is just absolutely gorgeous!

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  28. Your quilt is stunning! I wish I wasn't leaving the Bay Area to go home to Olympia on Friday otherwise I would go to the fair - my parents live about 5 miles from the fairgrounds!

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  29. and it looks fabulous! congrats on the finish.

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  30. your quilt is fantastic. good on you for not giving up on the quilting! it looks great. Orange peel is one of my favorite trad. patterns too. i just started an orange peel applique quilt as my summer 'made by hand' project. Thanks for sharing everyone else's quilts.

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  31. Despite the challenges you had, this quilt is AMAZING!!! The spacing between the peels is very striking. I love it Adrianne :-)

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  32. The quilting on this is amazing. It really makes the simplicity of the design pop!

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  33. Congratulations. Let's celebrate another finish. What a beautiful quilt. Love, love, love it. And your free motion quilting is absolutely stunning. Perfect FMQ for this quilt. Great job.

    SewCalGal
    www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

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  34. Your quilt i so fresh and fun. The quilting was worth it!!

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  35. I love the freshness of your quilt! And it is by far my favorite of all those listed above. Congrats on the ribbon!

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