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From the Schooner Coast, to Paducah!

Got some great news this week, made official with the arrival yesterday of semi-finalist information from AQS (American Quilters Society):  my 20 1/2 by 20 1/2 inch quilt that I made for the Coastal Quilters Grocery Challenge, From the Schooner Coast, has been accepted in the miniatures category at Paducah! The smallest squares  finish at (shoot me!  WHY? did I do this…and believe it or not I could actualy see doing this again) 1 1/8″.  Yes, scarcely larger than an inch.  For those of you not in the U.S.  that is about 2.6 or 2.7 cm.  Small.

From the Schooner Coast (click to see a bit larger)

This quilt is a hybrid of a 9″ square art quilt depicting Camden Harbor and miniature storm at sea blocks.  I talked about the Grocery Challenge here (part 1) and here (part 2), but in a nutshell (this was something I thought up…imagine…an original challenge idea!) take a food or beverage from the grocery store as your inspiration.  You had to use at least 4 colors from the package (adding black and white was allowed), but so that folks just didn’t troll the aisles looking for a package with colors they liked, you had to add at least one motif or element inspired by the packaging.  For example, if you picked corkscrew noodles, you could quilt with a corkscrew design; or, if you picked Tabasco sauce, you could use a chili-pepper fabric.

I chose Shipyard Export Ale because I love woodblock prints and I love that the image is so “Maine.”  However, I thought the picture on the label looked like Wiscasset, not Camden, so I changed it a bit to look like OUR town and feature one of the local schooners (with permission of the captain). Here’s the bottle and carrier:

Shipyard Export ale, my "grocery" inspiration for the 2011 CQ Challenge

SO…. if you are lucky enough to be headed to the big show in Paducah, hope you get to see my little quilt.  I harbor NO hopes that it will win any awards…the piecing isn’t quite perfect and this is the quilt where I learned that I should have used the hopping foot to free-motion quilt, not the one that skims the surface.  Why?  The “skimming” foot got hung up on the thick intersections for those blocks.  And when I pulled/tugged/etc. to get the quilt under the foot, the stitch length became inconsistent.  But I love this little quilt of “home” anyway!   And I learned something new that I can share with my students and all of you!

 

3 Responses to “From the Schooner Coast, to Paducah!”

  1. Ilana Joffe Says:

    Sarah, that quilt is beautiful. congratulations. I won’t be going to Paducah but I’ll probably make it down to Long Beach and I’ll definitely look for your Rituals quilt.

  2. JACQUIE Says:

    Now if the Project Runway contestants could do as well when told to ‘take inspiration’ as part of a challenge!
    This quilt looked great when I saw it last year and I’m glad more people will have the treat! More good luck with it!

  3. Maggie Szafranski Says:

    Major congratulations! I saw your name on the list! I will definitely look for it at the show! I am going because my quilt “Circle of Life” was also juried in! I feel like I have won a prize with just that!