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.
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:
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!
March 7th, 2012 at 10:04 am
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.
March 7th, 2012 at 10:58 am
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!
March 8th, 2012 at 8:53 am
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!