Octopus (So Far): Embrace Your Curves - EAA Quilt Challenge 2024

I was trying hard to make this idea fit the March Madness Quilt Challenge with the Roman Glass fabric, but it just wasn't quite working ...  Since this challenge only required the curves (as a motif or technique), and no particular fabric, I had a few more options to make this one come to life.

My husband wanted it -- otherwise, I don't think I'd want to spend so much time with "all those suckers." 

Don't you think that button fabric looks like Octopus suckers? 

I thought the hand-dyed green background looks like seaweed, or deep ocean.

This is just the fused stage.  There will be a border, thread-painting, and quilting ...

More to come ...  

Winter Nights: Harmonic Convergence: EAA Quilt Challenge #2: Black-White-Plus 1 Other Color Challenge

Winter Nights

For the EAA Quilt Challenge this year sponsored by my local Lakeside Quilt Guild, we have to come up with something that is no bigger than 30 inches square and uses black, white, plus 1 other color.  Other than that, we can do whatever we want with it.  It's always interesting to see what people come up with based on a few simple rules like this.

 

I decided to do a Harmonic Convergence quilt (a la Ricky Tims) 

I wanted to look at the book, but my local public library did not own a copy. Neither did any libraries in our local consortium. ;-(  I'll also try our quilt guild next month.  I did find some basic instructions online, though ...

Directions for Harmonic Convergence Quilts - from Roanoke Valley Star Quilter's Guild

Harmonic Convergence Calculator  - from the Roanoke Valley Star Quilter's Guild

I made a red one first (I'll post that later this week), but thought it might be disqualified since the dancing crane is stenciled on with fabric paint and not actually quilted in or appliqued.  So I thought I should have a second version -- just in case.  

A friend gave me the prompt: Winter Nights, and I ran with it ...

Here's the quilting from the back side.  I used a remnant of a Dream Wool batt, so it got nice and puffy with the quilting.

Stitch-in-the-ditch for the grid, and a Celtic braid for the border.  I thought that would evoke the wind blowing the snow around ... 

  

 

In case you were wondering how I did the marking for the Celtic braid in the border ...  Quilt paper!

The corners were the hardest part, but I worked through it ...

I stretched the design to make it fit the space in the borders I had to work with.   Stitch through the paper, then tear it off.  It works really well for me!

 

 

I used a varigated blue thread to quilt the borders.  It looks like white against the black background. 

I found this image later, but it's sort of what I was picturing in my mind, having grown up with Winter nights: 

It reminds me of growing up in the country with moonlight on the snow, shadows of the treesabove and below ... and a dark blue sky as backdrop.

We've had a lot of snow this month, and I am savoring every moment of it.  Winter is so much easier to take than a hot and humid summer.  Spoken like a true quilter with a bed piled high with warm blankets!