Progress Report on our Challenge Quilts

At our June meeting earlier this week, everyone brought their challenge quilts to show.  We're all  at different stages of construction, and a few were complete, or very close to being completed.  Here's a quick peek:

Maureen adding the dancing shoes to her piece, but wait til you see what she adds at the end!

Maureen's quilt top.

 

 Torrie's almost finished -- she has a change she wants to implement, then it's just the quilt label to add.

Torrie's quilt.

 Deb, of course, has been finished for awhile.

Deb's finished quilt.

 Kathleen, queen of fabric collage, is trying out "confetti-style" design with this one:

Kathleen's top

Kathleen's confetti-style tree tops.

 Sorry, Erika!  I can never seem to get a good photo of your quilt!  It's either out of focus, half-shaded, or something else, so I'm showing three shots of your piece, which is almost finished:

Erika's quilt.

Top of Erika's quilt, showing metal wire embellishment, followed by a row of gems.

Side of Erika's quilt with beautiful double-needle machine quilting.

 Lisa's quilt features a giant 9-patch.  The colored blocks are made entirely from the fabric swatches we exchanged, and the four white blocks are pieced to perfection!

Lisa's 9-patch perfection.

And Maya showed us the very elegant sample she made to work out her design plan.  Now she has to remake it to measure 36" x 36!  Everyone ooh'ed and ahh'ed at her creative approach:

Maya's sample web design.

I see that I forgot to get a shot of Chris' quilt. There's an earlier shot in the previous post, and since then, she's hand-appliqued the large autumn leaves to the background, threadpainted the leaf veins, and added scrumptious white velvet.  Wow-wee!

As for mine, it's still under construction and last night I started the sunset section over.  I had too much trouble piecing the extreme curves I'd designed (and I said I wanted a challenge!), so I got out my Setacolor paints and painted the sunset portion.  Now to catch up . . . two weeks and a day til the deadline!

Progress of members' challenge quilts

Here are the photos of other members' challenge quilts at our May 21st meeting:

Chris finished piecing her quilt top, and began hand-appliqueing the leaves.

It will be gorgeous when the rest of the leaves are applied!

Erika's quilt on the design wall.

 Apologies for the blurriness of these photos.  We were fast losing sunlight and trying to compensate by turning on all the lamps and overhead lights . . .

Top of Erika's quilt.  The row of single squares shows
all 12 surface-designed fabric swatches from our exchange.

Bottom of Erika's quilt.

Maureen's music-inspired piece also showcases
our 12 fabric swatches (center, bottom).

We didn't get to see everyone's work-in-progress, as some members were traveling and others' quilts were still at their homes, pinned to design boards or in too many pieces to transport to the meeting.  As usual, I seem to have made the least progress!  I can never seem to get cookin' until a deadline is looming too close for comfort.  And even then, I'm still changing my mind . . .

My painted and thread-painted bubble trees, where
the resist failed to hold back the paint!

Technique:   Working with a resist* in a small plastic bottle with a thin metal applicator tip, I outlined the areas that would become tree trunks, branches, the half-circle shaped "bubble," as well as the edge of the grass line.  (* I used Presist, a water-soluble resist that works on cotton fabrics.)  Once the resist was thoroughly dry,  I sprayed a light mist of water on the grassy area before painting it with diluted Setacolor paint, knowing that would help the paint blend.  I should have remembered to suspend the fabric onto stretcher bars (as in silk painting), and because I didn't, the wet fabric clung to my plastic-covered painting surface and the green paint migrated above the resist lines of the grass.  Elsewhere, I painted on dry areas and the paint stayed within the lines (except for a bit on the far left).  Once the paint was dry and heat-set, I rinsed out the Presist, then began thread-painting, a technique I love.
This was a fun experiment, though not 100% successful.    I overdid it on the smallest tree on the right. Earlier, when applying the Presist there, I had problems getting it to flow in a  smooth, thin line.  The resulting blobs meant that after rinsing out the Presist, the white areas to be thread-painted were much wider than in the other two trees.
And after this experiment, I realized that the scale of the trees was all wrong.  So it's back to the drawing board.

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

For the Fiberexplorations group, this month marks our third anniversary!  I think that's cause for a celebration, and our monthly meeting is tonight.  Hmmm . . . cupcakes!  I still have time to make them.

Deb won't be at tonight's meeting, but she sent me a photo of  her almost-finished (just needs more quilting) challenge quilt  to share:

Deb Sorem's Fabric Swatch Challenge quilt.

I think it's exuberant, fun, unique, and expressive of her personality!  Hope to get more photos at tonight's meeting.