Wednesday, August 13, 2014

MQG Michael Miller Challenge

One of the exciting things about being a member of the Modern Quilt Guild is being able to take part in and develop my quilting knowledge and skill with the fabric challenges they run. Recently I took part in their 4th members challenge, 1st for me, sponsored by Michael Miller fabrics. I received a nice bundle of fabric from the Petal Pinwheels collection, a really bright, fresh and fun collection. The guidelines for the challenge were to make anything we wanted as long as it was quilted, we did not have to use all the given fabric and could add in any other solid or Michael Miller printed fabric.
So I spent a fair while brainstorming my ideas!
If anyone knows me the easy route would have been to make a quilted bag or pouch of some kind but I wanted it to be a challenge so I set my mind on a small lap quilt. The design was influenced from the seat covers on the London Underground tube!! When I travel down to London for my London Modern Quilt Guild meetings I spend a lot of time looking at those seats! They're not the nicest or I would say cleanest seats but I liked the pattern. So a bit of a hand drawn design and some kind of quilt maths and here is what I came up with.
I am really pleased with the way it turned out and was as close to the design in my mind I think I could have got it! I used nearly every piece of fabric and added a white solid for the background and grey solid for the binding. I am slowly getting to grips with the whole quilting process from making the sandwich to basting to quilting and I am really pleased with the spiral quilting and will definitely be doing this kind of quilting again! The only bit I need to get to grips with is basting on carpet!!
There were some amazing entries into the challenge and I love the winners quilts - so much quilty inspiration!!

2 comments:

dolores said...

Your quilt looks great...I recognize that pattern!;)

I use a huge piece of cardboard on the floor or on my bed for basting....go to an appliance store and get a refrigerator box...slice it open and store it accordion style under your bed or behind a door like I do!:)

Haberdashery said...

What a nice guild, interesting!, well I love quilting too, I usually do some when ever I have fabric to use with