SFQ 2013 Guild Challenge

It was a great day at the guild challenge the other day.   I enjoyed looking at all the quilts and seeing how everyone interpreted the theme:  "America the Beautiful: Home Sweet Home".  I took pictures of every quilt, unfortunately some came out blurry. Below are some of the better photos. I meant to post these photos the other day, but I wanted to be able to write who won what with the pictures so I had to wait till I got part of the winners list.

3rd Place Best Piecing

Tied for 2nd place for Best Machine Quilting

2nd Place Best Use of Theme
3rd Place Most Unique Use of Theme

2nd Place Most Unique Use of Theme

3rd Place Best Machine Quilting

Tied for 2nd Place for Best Machine Quilting

This quilt won Best in Show.

1st place for Best Use of Theme

1st place for Most Unique use of Theme

1st Place Best Art Quilt

3rd Place for Applique

3rd Place Best Art Quilt

 2nd place for Piecing

2nd place for Best use of Color

My quilt won 1rst place for Machine Quilting

1rst place for Piecing

1rst Place for Best use of Color

3rd Place for Best use of Theme

(:   *YaY*  :)
(Ribbons were awarded at the end of the show, so I didn't have a chance to go around and get photos of all the other quilts with their ribbons.)

I think this one got third place for Hand quilting.

2nd place for Best Hand Quilting

2nd place for Best Art Quilt

1st Best Hand Quilting
1st Best Applique

Everyone did a great job. I loved seeing all the different interpretations.
These quilts will hang all summer at the Hartsville, SC Museum.
If you live near by, head on over to see them in person.
Quilts always look better in person.

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America the Beautiful On Display

Here she is... Miss America....  er I mean my America the Beautiful quilt.
It is officially on display at the Hartsville museum for the summer with all the other quilts from my guild,
with the theme "America the Beautiful: Home Sweet Home".
It measures approximately 70 x 47 inches.

To represent America I used several state themed quilt blocks:
Ohio Star, Carolina Lily, Kansas Star, Colorado Beauty, Texas Tears, Road to California, and Oregon Trail.  For the ocean, I used the Storm at Sea Block.  I made each block finish at 6 inches and shaped them to fit the different regions of America.  My two beach sections are crumb pieced with all the brown scraps I had on hand.

For reference, this is the original drawing I used to design the quilt.
The drawing has little houses scattered on it, but I opted to delete those for the final project.

For the past couple weeks I've been showing bits and pieces of the quilt before it was quilted.

Today I am going to show them again, but this time with with the quilting.

And with the lyrics to America the Beautiful, which was the inspiration for the quilt.

"Oh Beautiful for spacial skies...

For amber waves of grain...

For Purple mountains majesty...

Above the fruited plains....

America! America!

God Shed his grace on thee...

And Crown thy good with brotherhood...

From sea to shining sea!"

I am super excited about this quilt.  I love all the colors in it.

I enjoyed making all the different blocks and making them fit in their sections.

On the left in the above photo is the "Road to California" block.
This is the only block that didn't get a preview last week.

Since this post is already loaded with photos, I will save the photos of the other show quilts for tomorrow.

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Colorado Beauty - America the Beautiful

Next to the Oregon Trail block is the Colorado Beauty.  The block above is the closest full block on the quilt, even though I did cut off the bottom of the block with my camera.
There is no sashing between these blocks like the Ohio Star and the Carolina lily, but I used consistent fabric to help this block stand out a little better than the Oregon Trail.

Only three more days till I can show off the whole quilt!!

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Oregon Trail - America the Beautiful

I outlined this block in the photo to help decipher the actual block in the quilt. I used so many scrappy fabrics for this section, it makes it hard to see the block if you are not familiar with it. Another reason it may be hard to decipher is due to the shape of this section.
There is only one full Oregon Trail block in the quilt. The rest get cut off by other sections.

Reveal date is getting closer!  I am excited to show off the whole quilt and to see how the rest of the guild interpreted this theme.  I'll share some of those photos as well on June 6th.

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Texas Tears - America the Beautiful

To represent the lower west and the desert states, I used the Texas Tears Quilt block.

You may be able to visualize what the whole quilt may look like by now. But I still have the quilting to show off, which I'll do on June 6th.



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Purple Mountains Majesty

 Scrappy purple mountains.  I went through every purple I had to make these mountains.

Some were scraps that were gifted to me, some came from my yardage where I cut off  a 1.5 inch stripe.

In the top photo I was going for dark mountains in the front with medium in the middle and light in the back to show how things in the distance are always lighter in color to the eye.

I drew these pointy mountains on paper then paper pieced them together.

My goal was to have all the dark fabrics on the left since the sun is shining on the right.

While piecing though, I ended up flipping one around. Whoops!  I left it like it was.

You can see a hint of the Oregon trail block under these mountains.

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Kansas Star - America the Beautiful

This is another block in my America the Beautiful quilt.

It was made for my quilt guild's annual quilt challenge, "America The Beautiful - Home Sweet Home"

For this challenge I decided to make a quilt using my own design.  This section is the Kansas Star block and it represents the Amber Waves of Grain. The block measures 6 inches and I paper pieced it together to get nice sharp points.

I'll show more sections of the quilt every few days and on June 6th, the day of the Challenge reveal, I will show the whole quilt in all its quilted beauty.

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Carolina Lily - America the Beautiful

Here is my version of a Carolina Lily block representing the south.

Hubby said it reminded him of Christmas, which it kind of does to me too, but I wanted the background to be green instead of white since the south is full of green trees.

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Ohio Star - America The Beautiful

Representing the upper Northern half  of my "America the Beautiful" quilt is the Ohio Star block.

Lots of green with some blue to represent lakes.  You can also see a hint of the "Carolina's" Under the Ohio Star. The curve of the river on the left almost makes it look like I used a fish eye lens on my camera.

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Rolling Hills

This is the first section I worked on for my guild quilt challenge, "America The Beautiful: Home Sweet Home". I had a good time collecting all the green scraps from my bins to make this section. They represent the Appalachian mountains that run up the east coast.

You can also see a hint of the sun rays and the start of my flying geese.
It isn't quilted yet in this photo. I'll save those photos for the big reveal in June.

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Guild Quilt Challenge

Every year my guild puts on a Quilt Challenge.
The theme for this year's challenge is "America the Beautiful - Home Sweet Home".
  I have been spent most of my quilting time working on my interpretation of the theme.
The Reveal isn't till June 6th, so until then I can only show bits and pieces.

   Today I want to show off one of my favorite parts of the quilt.
It is the storm at sea section (with a hint of sandy beaches on the left).
I drew out the block on graph paper so I could work with a 6 block.
Then I printed it out and used the templates for paper piecing.  

There will be a total of 8 different quilt blocks in the quilt, along with some other techniques.  I'll show a little every couple of days and then on June 6th, I'll post a photo of the whole thing along with the other quilts in the challenge.

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