Challenge Quilt and Days of Dyeing

QBTS  periodically  has challenges and I try to participate when I can.  I have liked a couple I have done and not liked some of the others.  This is one of those "some of the others".  The challenge for me was a difficult one.  You took one fabric (and only one as I read the instructions) that read as orange.  Could be anything.  You could only use a solid orange and white (or cream or a white with orange on it print) in addition to the main fabric.  The piece has to measure between 48 inches around to 144 inches around.  You could use embellishments as long as they were orange or white.  You could also introduce no more than 2 sq inches of another fabric.

I chose a print that was very even and a very poor candidate for stack and whack.  I had another print that was better but I would have had to do a lot of fussy cutting as I didn't have enough as it was in four fat quarters.

I did the stack and whacks and three came out with one look and four with another look.  The three and four were almost identical (not quite).  I decided to only use five of them and make a table runner.  You can't believe how many times I undid these which is so unlike me.  This was because I wanted to use just a tiny amount of the black between the blocks to give them an elongated Christmas bulb look I had seen on Pinterest.  I stayed within the 2 square inch qualification as each black square is 1/2 in finished!  I used some orange I had to finish off each end.  I am thinking I will  use more of the orange to do the binding.  

Well, here it is finished!  I followed the instructions.  I would have preferred, due to my scrappy nature, to have used a bunch of oranges (which I had) but the directions said "an" orange print.

Well, Dianne and I planned to do one of our massive overdyes where you get 35 different fabrics in two dyeing sessions.  However, when we got together, we decided that we would rather do some gradations and then maybe overdye.  We planned to do this original plan in two days as we are both a bit gimpy these days.  I ended up doing four gradations that first day -- strong orange, golden yellow (but starting with only a 3% concentration instead of my usual 6%), turquoise, and a mix of turquoise (2/3) and intense blue (1/3).    The second day we overdyed.  When you do these 8 step gradations, frequently there is little differentiation between those pieces sitting right next to each other.


My results were uneven!  My turquoise and turquoise/intense blue gradations were almost identical and I couldn't tell the difference when laundered except on maybe one piece.  I assumed that the ones that had a bit more mottled were the intense blue/turq mix but not sure as the color looked so much the same.  When I did the second wash of the orange and yellow, I threw in the turquoise as well which was a mistake as just a hint of the color greyed the yellows and oranges just a bit in the lighter hues.

One of the real successes for me was when we made a mistake.  Instead of adding plain water to the dry fabric before applying the color for the golden yellows, we used the soda ash solution by mistake.  This resulted in nicely mottled yellows which you generally do not get with yellows as the color seems to spread more than some of the other colors.  Turquoise is another color that tends to spread a lot and not get a mottled look.

Day 2 was overdyeing. I had dyed 35 yards the first day and overdyed 16 the second.  So I took a bunch of the turquoise and overdyed with sun yellow to get the yummy lime greens which are always useful.  I also overdyed several of the really light ones with neutral gray which is a very weak dye.  I also overdyed some of the strong oranges that were weaker with fuchsia which as usual totally took over but was not as mottled as fuchsia usually is because of some color already on the cloth.  I am going to take a couple of these fuchsias and overdye them with strong orange which in my experience gives the best reds ever!

I should also comment that we spray basted five of my somewhat large quilts.  We were both totally exhausted at the end of those two days!!  I am getting too old to be on my feet for hours at a time even with lots of sit downs!

My goal was to get a bunch of fabrics in lighter colors of which I have very little   --   although I certainly have tons of dyed fabric!!  I have already cut up one of the golden yellows as the first border on a quilt on my design wall -- the mystery quilt -- it is perfect!

The Color Quilt Almost Done and the Challenge Quilt is Done!!

The blocks are finally all done and the triangle inserts are all cut and all totally bias because of the odd shape of the rhombus.  This was not easy.  I finally picked a mellower yellow than I had before and luckily had just enough yardage to make the setting triangles.  

Here I have sewn about half the quilt together.  Matching the points was easier than I thought it would be and this step has gone relatively quickly!

It's finally all together!!  I really think it needs borders to kind of hold it together.  If I had used a dark triangle for the setting triangles, this probably wouldn't be necessary but I couldn't bring myself to do my usual dark outside!  

My first was a thin orange strip and then a dark green about the size of the strips on the rhombuses.  

I have finally decided to go with a narrow red strip and then a fairly wide navy blue.  This will make the quilt 72 x 96 which is a little bigger than the lap robe I had envisioned!!

This is the background for the challenge quilt for the Quilters by the Sea. The theme was "circle of friends" and had to be circular.  I remembered a Facebook post where I mentioned that I was glad to be back and seeing my birds again down here was like meeting up with old friends so that became my inspiration.  This is obviously a beach-y looking background.

 I printed a bunch of my pictures on fusible fabric and then carefully cut out the birds from the picture and fused them down onto the background.  This is by no means all the birds I see (in fact there are two more on the back but still not complete) but there was only so much room on the piece.  I used a thin Sharpie to put their names underneath.  It was kind of fun!  I may actually hang this somewhere.  I used a piece of painted fabric on the back and of course all the fabrics on the front are scraps of my hand dyes.  The background is pieced.  I machine quilted the background and then used the pillowcase method to put on the back (so no quilting shows on the back).  I put the birds on after it was all quilted.  This blog won't appear until after quilt club tonight as it is supposed to be secret!

More Quilts from the Quilt for Life Challenge

Ten more quilts were delivered to the Scarlett Thread in Webster to join the other thirty we have and there were some stunning quilts in this bunch as well. There are some talented artists in Rochester and many of these are outside the confines of the established art quilt community here in this area.

The theme of the Challenge was Tree of Life and the ladies certainly did add their interpretations to this. These next two were a bit similar but very different at the same time! The first one was done by Christine Schultz and the second by Cynthia Sennett Vassallo.


This was a quilt done by Janet Berlo who is a Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester. She is (or was) also on the Board for the University of Nebraska quilting center. There are all sorts of buttons and embellishments on this nice interpretation.
This was done by Joyce Martelli who is a member of our Rochester Area Fiber Artists group. The colors and design are wonderful.
This is my favorite of the entire series of quilts! It was done by a doctor here in the Rochester area -- Sharon Glezen. Where she found the time to do this, I have no idea but I LOVE it!!







To see all the quilts, visit my Picasa site which is http://www.picasaweb.google.com/elizabeth.brandkamp.

Women's Health Partnership Quilts for Life Challenge

If you double click on the slide show, you will go to the Picasa site and you can see who did each of the quilts and a larger version of the pictures.

These quilts will be auctioned off in a Silent Auction at the Harmony House in Webster, NY on August 16 and 17 during Webster Village Days. The proceeds will go to support the Women's Health Partnership which works to get Pap smears and mammograms for non- or under-insured women.



The women from the Webster Quilt Guild outdid themselves and produced this full sized quilt for the auction! It is even nicer in person!

There are a lot of beautiful quilts of all sizes and shapes and we hope they will raise a lot of money for this very worthwhile cause.

The Scarlett Thread, a quilt shop in Webster(http://www.scarletthreadquilts.com) is acting as a sponsor for this cause.