This is the first quilt I’m going to keep instead of give away.
I designed the pattern in my graphing notebook, then found fabric that went with my bedspread. Next time I’d do that differently.
I don’t know how long the piecing took, but quilting the top took around 23 hours. Firsts for this quilt include straight lines and creating a star stencil to trace onto the border (made from a piece of card in our junk mail).
Lessons learned:
Pick a pattern first, then find fabric that works with the demands of the pattern,
OR
choose fabric you like, then find a pattern that works with your fabric selection.
But DON’T
make up a pattern, then choose a bunch of fabric you like, and force the two to work together.
In this quilt, nearly all my fabric was a medium value with a few darks. I added the lights later when I realized the problem, but some of fabrics still disappear into their surroundings.
Boulder County Fair
At the suggestion of my neighbor, I entered this quilt in the Boulder County Fair, an event judged by the Colorado Quilting Council (CQC) competition committee. Because we were on vacation, I couldn’t attend the judging. But when we got back, we drove over to the fairgrounds to see how it did. I was pretty excited when I spotted my quilt.
It won first place for the ‘solo wall hanging quilted on a longarm’ class, and reserve champion for the whole wall quilt class. Fancy ribbon, huh?!
Backcountry Quilts 