Friday, June 6, 2014

Modern Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt Finished

I am very happy to show you my finished MQG Challenge quilt today, Courthouse Petals. The challenge was to create a quilted article using some fat eighths of Petal Pinwheels (and piece of fabric from another line) combined with any other Michael Miller print and/or any solid.



In the beginning, I was trying to design a quilt using only the Petal Pinwheels collection by Michael Miller.  I found this difficult as the value of the prints are all very similar so the quilts I designed in EQ7 all looked really flat.  I decided to add in the Kona Coal which brought depth to the quilt and good contrast to the Petal Pinwheels fabrics (I also purchased additional Petal Pinwheels fabrics for additional yardage and print variation).

My work-in-progress posts on the quilt can be found here and here.

After going through tons and tons of different designs, I settled on taking a classic courthouse block and updating it.  I alternated the prints and the coal creating a strong contrast and geometric shape.  I also varied the width of the different block layers, made the block really large (finishing at about 68" x 68"), and added some very dense quilting.



For the quilting, I wanted to add a lot of texture to the gray areas so I decided on a dense back and forth quilting design in a matching gray thread with lines are a little less than 1/4" apart.  Because there is more than 2 yards of Kona Coal used in the quilt, the dense back and forth quilting took me almost 11 hours.  For the print area, I used an off-white thread to blend in as best as possible and quilted using a small scale meandering pattern.  





This quilt was the first time I had not used Warm & Natural, but used a bamboo batting called Nature-Fil by Fairfield.  I was very pleased with the batting and how soft the quilt still is after all of that tight quilting.  I will be doing a full review on my experiences with the batting once I have a chance to wash the quilt to test it washability.

Here are some more pictures of the finish...




Thanks for taking a look!  This was a very fun challenge to take part in and I have enjoyed seeing everyone's creations.  It is amazing how starting with the same fabrics, quilters came up with such different ideas.

Quilt stats:
Design: Modern variation on a court house block
Fabrics:  Petal Pinwheel by Michael Miller and Kona Coal
Size: 68" x 68"
Quilted: Dense back and forth quilting in the gray areas using Aurifil 1246
               Small scale meandering in the patterned areas using Aurifil 2021
               on my Bernina 710

I am linking up to Link a Finish FridayWhoop Whoop FridayThank Goodness Its Finished FridayFinish It Up FridayFabric Frenzy Friday,  Sewjo @ My Go Go Life, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew She Can.






23 comments:

  1. Great finish! I added a gray to my challenge quilt as well. Your gray really helps make those pastel colors stand out. Good luck on the challenge!

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  2. I really like the fabric, especially the one you used for the backing. I think solid fabric for backing show quilting details very well and does not disturb from the beautiful fabric in the front. And I like red (or orange ?).

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  3. I like how you updated this classic design. The different widths of grey is a nice detail that adds some interest, and gave you a few more options for quilting. I hope it does well in the challenge, but either way you have a beautiful quilt!

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  4. Cheryl, you've outdone yourself on this one! That grey really pops, and you did such a fantastic job with the quilting! I look forward to your review on the batting. I'm still learning about battings myself :-)

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  5. Love, love, love how the pattern gets echoed onto the back by your quilting. Bravo! Congratulations on a beautiful design and finish!

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  6. That quilting looks amazing! I also love the addition of the darker solid. It adds nice definition and makes the colors really stand out!

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  7. Love how those colours pop, thanks to inserting Kona coal into the mix so judiciously, Cheryl. Mixing the sizes for those strips makes an interesting overall effect as well - it's like an optical illusion (very cool!). Then there's your quilting. Whoa. You really went for it and it shows. It adds amazing texture (can imagine all that quilting was exhausting... but know it was worth it). Congrats on a fabulous finish!

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  8. I like just about everything in this quilt, from the different-sized strips to the solid to really set them off. Your quilting really does pop on the back; love the quilting design!

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  9. What a fabulous quilt. I can actually feel the depth to it, if you look straight at it, it's like you're falling in..

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  10. WOW, simply wow. I really love your use of the Kona Coal, it makes the other colors pop!!! I also like the fact you used different widths. It is just so pretty!!

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  11. Love this! I really like how you varied the widths and your quilting looks amazing! I really like how it just pops off the backing. Great job!

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  12. Great job!!! Absolutely LOVE the colors :-) Turned out beautiful! Visiting (and new subscriber) from Finish It Up Friday

    ~ Jess ~
    Everything Is Coming Up Rosie

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  13. This looks beautiful and the quilting looks amazing!

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  14. Another fabulous finish! Lovely quilting too!

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  15. I love what you did with the challenge fabric. I considered Kona coal too but went with Iron, which is lighter. I'm still piecing mine. ..

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  16. Thanks for sharing your wonderful quilt at TGIFF!

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  17. Congrats on a wonderful entry for the challenge. I too found the palette to be a lower softer contrast than I'm accustom to using. The quilting is great. After years of only using W&N, I now find it too stiff to work with and much prefer bamboo. I bought an entire roll from a vendor at quilt show (Winline) and then reordered another online.

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  18. THat's a stunning quilt and the quilting is amazing xx

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  19. All that work you put in it looks amazing! The dense quilting really added depth to this quilt. I have used bamboo before, I really like the lightweight and the softness of the batting. A beautiful finish!

    -Soma

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  20. It is so beautiful! I really love how the prints pop against the coal, and the dense quilting looks amazing on the back.

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  21. Lovely, Cheryl, and I especially like the back - the design from the quilting and the bright color!

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  22. Hello Cheryl,

    What a fabulous quilt! The grey really holds the whole colour scheme together, and the quilting is just wonderful!
    I have started a new link up on my blog - Free Motion Mavericks. It would be great to see you there!

    Love from England, Muv

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  23. Beautiful quilt! Love the dense quilting.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment!