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