Finished Two-Color Challenge

At each QuiltCon (annual quilt show of the Modern Quilt Guild), usually two challenges are offered to members. One is a challenge using a particular fabric line, this year from Michael Miller, and the second is a challenge presented by American Patchwork and Quilting. Ironically, I once worked briefly as an editor for American Patchwork and Quilting magazine (2001-2002). Though that's not why I decided to participate in this year's AP&Q's challenge. I just liked the concept of creating a quilt with only two colors, which I've never done. The colors could be two solids. Or, print(s) could be used, but prints with only two colors. Fabrics such as Moda Grunge wouldn't work.

I know I've already blogged quite a bit about this quilt, but now it's finished.

Gosh, I had no idea how difficult it would be to capture the "right" color of that burnt orange! I had to use the manual settings of my Canon S100 camera to get the correct color.

O-O Orange, 34" X 45"

"O-O-Orange" was totally inspired by the circle print and my desire to use different sizes of Clover bias tape makers. The size is small size, 34" X 45", because that's the quantity of fabric I had to work with. Remember, 2018 is my year of no fabric-buying.

Solid fabrics are Painter's Palette Solids - white and burnt orange. The print is Kaufman's Spot On, with #8 DMC pearl/perle cotton used for hand quilting all of it. There's no domestic machine quilting in this, and I loved every moment of big stitch quilting by hand.

I ghost-quilted a few circles.

This is my favorite circle.

I hand quilted the binding too!

First I machine-sewed binding to the quilt front as I usually do, trimmed the edges, and hand-sewed it to the back of the quilt. Then, I added the decorative hand stitching!

So, the binding isn't really secured by the hand quilting, though that's originally what I thought I would do. What I realized is that to hand quilt the binding in place on the front, I would need to machine sew binding to the quilt back first! Since I never trim the quilt edges first, I didn't have any way to guide where to attach binding from the back.

Every binding stitch was taken... One. At. A. Time. The good 'ole poke-stab hand quilting method.

QuiltCon is so competitive that having ONE quilt accepted is a big deal. At least, it is for me. So, for QuiltCon 2019 I'm hedging my bets and entering six quilts into the show, hoping one of them is accepted. As I have experienced in the past, it's more meaningful to attend a popular quilt show knowing I have a quilt on display.

QuiltCon entrants will find out in mid- to late December whether their quilts (including challenge quilt entries) have been accepted... or not. Quilters who have quilts that are not accepted usually repost Instagram pictures of them with the hashtag #quiltconrejects.

Receiving that "sorry" email, learning that a quilt isn't accepted in the show is tough to accept. I don't like to remember how I know the way that feels. Linda