Tag: panels

Woohoo! At long last, here is my official WINNING entry for the AMQG panel challenge.  But first, here is the humble, unpressed beginning panel.

It was very tempting to just add some borders and do some fancy quilting, but I wanted to elevate it a bit.

After a LOT of math and sewing on the bias, here is what I ended up with:

I chopped up the flowers into 10″, 12″ and one 6″ finished pieces and set them a bit askew.  The brown fabric is a Stonehenge print that works well with the watercolor look of the original panel, I think.

When it came to quilting the individual blocks, I wanted to think outside the block a bit and extend the leaf or petal shapes outside the block with the quilting lines.  You can see it in the stems on the poppy and the leaf in the center orange flower.
To further emphasize it, I colored in the extensions with the appropriately colored Shiva paintstick.  It’s subtle on the brown, but that’s what I wanted.

For each of the flower blocks, I quilted within the shape of the flower, adding bits of texture like the pebbling in the center of the sunflower.  I wanted the flowers to pop so those have a bit less quilting than the background - a simple meander in the yellow background of the block.

Ultimately I wanted to try McTavishing since I wanted to use it on a pending project, and then I realized there was QUITE a bit of threat and repetition in it and I got a bit sick of it! I ended up using McTavishing at the bottom of the piece, then I morphed into feathers towards the middle of the piece with some more pebbling to fill in the gaps.

I am very happy with it, and I won first place by popular vote in the panel challenge. In my choice of prizes, I picked a twin-size batting so I can make even more quilts!

When I finished this quilt, I thought to myself, “This is the sort of quilting I should be putting on every quilt.” Not a slap-it-on meander, as is my typical style, but a thoughtful and sometimes skillful design that enhances the top itself.

Since this was for a panel challenge, I treated each panel section with custom quilting, outlining various elements and meandering in the background. The star-in-a-star got similar treatment with some little feathers in the star points.  The tilted frames got pebbles of ascending size (you can see it in the pink frame around the side bird).

Here’s a closer up shot of the big panel. Apologies for the harsh lighting, but it was the best what I could show the quilting on it!  The frame for this piece got big “L” loops around it.

And then, because I needed to stay in practice, feathers! Feathers that I made without marking, even!

Truthfully, this blue border was the last one I did because it was solid fabric and I wanted to be warmed up before attempting it.  The printed fabric borders hide goofs better.

I need to label this quilt, and then I’ll sit on it until the October AMQG meeting when we do our Panel Challenge reveals. I’ve got another panel to work with before then, too, but it will be simple piecing and some intense quilting as well. Yikes.