"Birds in Air" a small quilted throw

Birds in Air completely quilted and bound waiting for a wash and label

One last step, a label, to complete my Birds in Air throw quilt for the Madrone Road Fabric Challenge. The rules were simple, make a quilted project of any size or shape using the fabrics given out at DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting in December 2012 and any solid color fabrics. The challenge winners get your quilt project included in Madrone Road Fabrics booth in the Modern Quilters Conference  Feb. 2013. These have to be completed and photographs entered in a Flickr. group for judging by Jan. 31st. I will load my completed quilt tonight on the finished project Flickr.com group follow the link to see some of the many other projects entered in the contest.

Birds in Air photo from a book that inspired me to use this design for Madrone Road Challenge

This quilt top, is inspired by an antique quilt in one of my books from 1880. Since the challenge gave us so little material I decided small triangles of printed fabric mixed with white background would be a light and bight way to spread out the precious Madrone Road cotton fabrics. Planning was tough for me because of the math. I didn't know how big it would end up being and in the end I used two different sizes of triangle squares to us as much of the fabric as possible. The problem became how many flocks of birds would fit together to make a nice size quilt top. The original antique had big flocks of many birds and was a full bed sized quilt. With the little bit of fabric I had I could have made one big bird flock block but that didn't appeal to me when I considered the possible layouts.

First set of triangle squares were all 3 inch and fit together this way.

second set of large and small bird flocks laid out with solid candy blue Kona backing fabric

 Eventually I landed on adding smaller blocks down one side and the biggest squares were reduced to only 4 squares per set. This layout gave my project a nice spread enough to be a small throw.

swatches of Madrone Road and white background (sky) muslin

working on the embroidery label

finished label on the back 

crinkles after cold wash and a few minutes in a dryer

full front view of quilted throw "Birds in Air" 31 x 58 inches 

tiny quilt project

Madrone Road Fabric swatches plus white for quilting Challenge 

I have a new project finally underway, a challenge I mentioned earlier. It's the Madrone Road Challenge given out to DC Modern Quilt Guilder members who wanted to play with these lovely fabrics. To prepare over the past two weeks I have been practicing making half triangle squares with the Shoofly blocks.

practice blocks of shoofly design

The Madrone road challenge is going to be double triangle squares in a 19th century pattern called "Birds in the Air" It's kind of like flocks flying over head when I look at the simple diamonds of these triangle squares. I am piecing the Madrone Road fabric with pure white muslin to make it go further. I am not sure how big the finished top will be but it has to be done soon and quilted before the end of the month. I hope to get it near done by the DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Jan. 19th or perhaps I will finish there at the sewing day meet up. It can't be very big in the end with only fabric  6/8ths of a yard but it is fun to have a matched set of fabrics for a change.

preview of the birds in the air layout 

1956 Thunderbird with Dan Murray at NGA

Last week I went to see the great retrospective exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein a famous pop artist known for his paintings of cartoons at National Gallery of Art with my pal Dan and he drove us down to the mall in his coral Thunderbird. I couldn't resist a photo of the car in front of the picturesque Capitol. The show is great fun and got me thinking about updating my quilting designs. Dan agrees I have traditional quilting down and I can slip some modern quilts in my folio. Traditional is historic and that is my favorite thing still it is nice to live in our times and reflect what is around us in some way.