Quilt Challenge

I have been doing sewing classes at Hobbysew at Top Ryde once a fortnight since Dec 2011. I made some things for a friends daughter and she paid me by purchasing 10 lessons for me (so nice and not necessary) and I just kept it going. It is the highlight of my week when I go and I am going to miss them! With Stef being made redundant we have to economise and sadly these lessons are put on hold until we are gainfully employed once more.

I have sewn many a garmet, bag, cushion cover and goodness knows what else! The knowlege my teacher has is incredible and there is always an easier way that she will show you how to do things.

But I will return to them and if I need help I will time it for one of Chris's classes...

In February Hobbysew launched a quilt challenge across their stores. Each store had their own kits but the rules seemed to be the same. We had 3 kits to choose from, a flowery number (ick), one with cream/bright orange/green or a blue/green/earthy tone kit. I chose the last one. All that we had to do was make sure it was no bigger than X and no smaller than Y (I forgot to measure mine!) and use some of the fabrics in the kits. There was a $50 voucher for buying a kit and there is a $200 prize for the winner. These are store prizes so one per store (as I understand it).

I had NO idea what I was going to do and rocked up to quilt class with the fabrics and some other plain fat quarters I couldn't sell. That happened to tie in with a lady visiting from a fabric store and when I remember I will link her because she had a great range... She had some packs of precut leaves in autumn colours... they toned well with the backing fabrics and I happened ot have a brown fat quarter with me and in no time I had drawn a tree in chalk on the brown, cut it out, cut it in half and viola...

 Autumn leaves...  I wish I had take some close up pics before I handed it in but time was not on my side! I used a varigated thread (a King Tut brand) with yellows, purples, pinks in it, it looked autumny! Imachine blanket stitched each piece

One of the ladies at quilting pointed out that I had broken the cardinal rule of art with a 50/50 background so I added the botton strip and some stepping stones and it sort of works! I like the stepping stones, it's left over fabric from a monocrome swap and it's actually stones!

So the 3 challenge fabrics are there on the front and I added some plain to the (wonky) back and had a go and FMQ, not my finest work but I did enjoy it and can see me getting into it more as I get better with quilts.

I even sewed my name on the back too!

I don't expect to win but I enjoyed doing it and for $12, some thread and a headache with 4 attempts with the binding (and I am not 100% happy with it!) it was a whole lot of fun.