Choose Your Own Adventure

In the guild to which I belong, we do an exchange every year, past projects that I have made can be seen here and here and  here.  Those 3 quilts were all heavily quilted (that being my thing),  two of them were made for a specific person and one for a general swap.

We generally refer to this exchange as our Fat Quarter Challenge --a fat quarter is a measure of fabric, and indicates that we should generally be starting with about 4 FQ worth of fabric--and build from there as necessary).  For 2017 the formula was tweaked a little--we discussed making it a challenge in using a new technique, a color we don't normally use etc.  The group came up with a long list of potential challenges, and recognizing that what is challenging to one may not be challenging to another, we got to choose.  And so  the Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge was born.

  I chose to make this Spring Rainbows quilt from Moda Bake Shop.

First I set a restriction of only using stash--which meant the dark background because I didn't have enough light.  Then I decided scrappy, and the pattern was improv.  This was HARD for me, to be scrappy and improv.  I wasn't liking it AT ALL during the making blocks stage...but once I got them all together I was very pleased.  It is worth persevering through some tough stages and dislike.

 And then I decided to challenge myself by using my domestic sewing machine to quilt it, something I haven't done in 6 years, since getting my Innova.  (nothing is too small to load).   And, to step it up some more, I thought I'd try walking foot quilting and do a spiral, because I cannot do a whole quilt spiral on the longarm (at least not easily and efficiently).

Quilting with my walking foot got even more challenging, because it turns out my walking foot is broken (I've got it roughly taped together in the photo below), and I was using the guide on that for my spacing.  Luckily I found this weird foot in my drawer, and it worked to mark the spacing quite well.

 In the end I was very pleased with the quilting--it adds a lot of movement to the quilt.

And, I liked the improv scrappy top so much--I made the back improv and scrappy also.  I added two corner pockets and a little rod pocket, should the recipient choose to hang it, or else it can lay happily around on a flat surface.   

I count 6 'ADVENTURES' in this little project.  It was fun and kept me amused for a few days last summer.

I had to miss the exchange night, so I don't have photos of the other projects--only the one that came home to me, this lovely table runner made by Pat.  Her challenges were the use of yellow, and the straight line quilting.  I'm so pleased with it--many table runners are too wide for my coffee table, this one fits perfectly.