BQL Challenge – January

Back in 2007, Michael and I were getting ready to live in Oxford England for two months while he acted as a Research Fellow at Merton College. In getting ready for the trip, I came across a Yahoo Group (remember those) called the “British Quilt List”!!

In 2008, the BQL hosted a year-long, monthly challenge. Each month we were presented with a certain style of quilt and were challenged to make our own version. Oh did I forget to mention that these quilts were only 12-inches in size!!

It was a perfect challenge as it didn’t take forever to make but still gave me a chance to try new things.

The first one was free-hand circles…..

Since I decorate with blue items in January… my “January Blue” collection, I chose blue as my base color but used a little yellow to lighten the mood.

It was a fun start to a year of quilting!!!

Hemingway applies to quilters??

I accidentally posted this early this week and now it doesn’t seem to be showing up properly on the CORRECT day, so here it is again…….

My husband Michael LOVES to read the works of Ernest Hemingway and has often talked about his practice of preparing for the next day’s work. He would always write the first sentence of the chapter that he was writing on the next day……ie….he “primed” the pump so that he was READY when he sat at the typewriter.

During this creative season, I have talked often about feeling overwhelmed with projects…”works in progress” as well as “want to do”, and “have to do” projects. And, often the hardest part is deciding which to do first!!

As I am writing this, I am heading to a week-long quilting retreat and have picked a simple scrap project to work on while there. That way I can enjoy the sewing process while still able to enjoy the conversations and women that I will share the time with.

However, in following Heminway’s suggestion, I have already made preparations for my next project which will be started when I return!!

And the project is…..

……May I have the envelope, please!!!………

The SADDLE-BILL STORK from Mozambique!!

The patterns are in place…..

The initial fabric pull has been done…..

And I am EXCITED!!!!

Stay tuned for things to come…..

Hemingway applies to quilters??

However, in following Heminway’s suggestion, I have already made preparations for my next project which will be started when I return!!

And the project is…..

……May I have the envelope, please!!!………

The SADDLE-BILL STORK from Mozambique!!

The patterns are in place…..

The initial fabric pull has been done…..

And I am EXCITED!!!!

Stay tuned for things to come…..

Coloring the challenge

Now came my favorite part……adding color!! Since it was MLK day and an official holiday, I decided (at my husband’s urging) to take the day off from work and spend it in the studio!!

I first pulled all of my green fabrics that seemed appropriate….

but alas, there wasn’t an appropriate fabric for the dark background that I was envisioning.

So, I went shopping!! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find what I needed in the chain stores and our local shop has now closed (BOO), so I moved on to plan B. A phone call to Anita told me that she had appropriate greens in stock so I headed for a little shopping on her shelves, and came home with these….

…..AREN’T THEY GORGEOUS!!!!

The fabric that I had chosen for the background wasn’t quite big enough…exactly 4 inches short on one side so I picked another fabric (after many changes) and added uneven borders on the sides…..

….sorry the colors in the photo are not good.

Next I drew the bamboo poles onto freezer paper and got ready to iron onto the selected fabric. Unfortunately the fabric wasn’t long enough to make the entire stem so I glued the pieces together, making sure to place them in areas where there will be additional thread work…. I cut out the pieces….

….added a few leaves and voila….. Next came the rubber plant…..

Some funky leaves……

and I am out of time for the day, but it sure was a FUN one!!!

This should be good incentive to work hard and fast this next week so that I can get back to this project!!!

No fabric, but still a challenge….

On Sunday, I decided to get a good start on my Challenge so I cleaned off the design wall, including removing all of the strings…..

Next was to mark out the mandatory 40 inch square (I learned this simple technique from Elizabeth Barton)….. WOW….does that look like a lot of empty space!!!!

OK, now to put something on the wall.

I will be the first to tell you that I CANNOT draw, but I do know how to use the available technology and that is exactly what I did.

First I scanned the drawings that I showed on yesterday’s blog, selected the plant that I wanted and printed it out using the poster function on my printer (the larger pieces were printed on the 3×3 format)….

I started with the rubber plant…..

….and look, the size doesn’t look so vast.