Progress on Family Tree Quilt

I am making great progress on the Family Tree quilt.
All the faces and leaves are ironed down.

There are 29 people on the quilt and each person has three leaves that represent them.

Each leaf is a specific fabric that represents a little piece of each person.
Since each person is so different and likes different things it makes the quilt look a little busy.  To help bring everything together I plan on using green thread to stitch down all the leaves, and brown thread to go around each photo.    That way all the unique personalities will be tied together just like a regular family.

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The Tree

The tree I designed to fit all the families for the Family Tree Quilt is all cut out and ready to go.

It isn't ironed on yet, for now it is hanging on with pins.

Today I will get all the photos and leaves settled in the right places and iron it all to the background.

I love how things are turning out.

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Family Tree Quilt in Progress

The past couple weeks I have been doing more brainstorming than sewing.  I have been trying to figure out a way to fit 29 photos on a Family Tree Quilt for a friend.  I had the background designed for a while.  It is a simple sky and ground surrounded by a piano key border.

I designed this in Microsoft excel of all places.  :)

The hard part was trying to figure out where to put all the branches and people to make it pleasing to the eye.  Each person will also have three leaves of fabric that represent themselves surrounding their photo. 

This is what I have so far, next is to draw tree to fit the people.

Then I can trim and reposition photos and leaves before everything gets ironed down with wonder under.

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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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