A quilt that stretched me

I love what Amy over at Park City Girl has done organizing an online quilt festival! Brilliant!
She’s a genius! I’m so proud to live in the same state as she does. 😉
So fun to look at so many beautiful quilts all connected in one location.

Since I too can’t pick a favorite
[kind of like picking a favorite child – different ones are favorites at different times :)]
I’m going to pick a recent quilt.This one was made from Moda’s new Arcadia collection and all I used was a Charm Pack, Layer Cake and Jelly Roll,
plus about 2 yards of solid orange for the front and the back.

Almost not sure which to call the front and which to call the back.
I kind of like them both equally!

I also used the jelly roll strips for a scrappy-pieced binding. and I love how it turned out.

This quilt was a total improv project one weekend. It was a really cool new experience for me.
I LOVED having the big variety of colors and patterns from the whole collection and pre-cut pieces made it go so quickly.

Also, this was the first quilt I’ve long-arm quilted myself in a LONG time. I am totally not confident in my machine-quilting skills. I am TERRIBLE at stippling, and since I have some kind, wonderful friends who will do a lovely job for me, for a very reasonable price, I usually take them up on that. But with this quilt, I was working on a tight deadline and I needed to get it finished quickly, so I took a deep breath, and went for it myself.

I like how this image captures the quilting. I totally went with my own style, using the front as my guide. Much more modern and geometric like the fabric style. And it works! I’m so pleased with it! Thank goodness “wonky” is cool, because the quilting on this quilt is VERY wonky!

This quilt represents accomplishment to me on many different levels. Not just because I tried something new and went out of my comfort zone in piecing and quilting style, but in the motivation and purpose it served as I prepared for Design Mom last week. That whole experience was completely out of my comfort zone and I had a ton of doubts and fears (and stress) as I prepared. But the work and the reach to try something new paid off! It was a really gratifying experience to expose myself a little more, and in the process, meet some wonderful new people. Awesome.

ps. in case you aren’t already aware, there is a giveaway below. it’s Wonderland. Mmmm.