The Quilter on Osage Hill

After much debating and encouragement by friends and family I finally entered one of my quilts in the Charlotte, North Carolina AQS show. I kept it under wraps for the most part not wanting to jinx my quilt. I was supposed to be notified on May 11th and when the day came and went and I hadn’t received notification I assumed I hadn’t been accepted. Much to my surprise, I received notification the following day that the jury had accepted my quilt for further consideration in the 2014 AQS QuiltWeek® Contest in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was truly blown away that my quilt would be hanging at an AQS show. There are several different Wall quilt categories; I debated between the Innovative/Art Wall quilt and Modern Wall quilt categories. In the end I felt like Innovative/Art category. Here is a picture of my finished Wonky Safari Quilt:

The quilt I entered began at Gwen Marston’s retreat in 2012. The theme for that year was medallion quilts.  This was the first “design as you go” quilt I had ever done. The idea is not to plan the whole quilt at once, but to start in the center and move out not thinking beyond the part/border you are currently working on. Although this was a little out of my comfort zone, it was a fun way to work without preconceived notions of what should come next, what size or shape or what the finished product would be.

My inspiration for this quilt was a beautiful Echino fabric my sister gave me. In case you aren’t familiar, Echino is an imported collection of printed and solid fabrics from designer Etsuko Furuya for the Japanese fabric manufacturer Kokka. The Echino fabric I chose to be my focus has a black background with safari animals and flowers. The colors on the background were vibrant and stood out on the black background. So, going into the retreat I knew my safari print would be my center, but had no other plan in mind. I brought a ton of different fabrics with me that had colors similar to the center fabric not knowing where it would go beyond the center. Here is a picture of the center fabric:

I really enjoyed making this quilt and used every inch of the yard of Safari print I had in the end. Every border in the quilt is in one of Gwen’s many inspirational books. I remember that before the retreat I had marked all the pages with borders and ideas that I liked in all Gwen’s books and in the end there most pages were flagged; those books are so full of inspirations. I remember Gwen laughing and saying it may have been easier for me to mark the pages I didn’t like. She has such a great personality; it is fun just being around Gwen.

Back to the AQS stuff; now that I was a semifinalist there were several things I needed to do to get my quilt ready. AQS sent out detailed instructions in their Contestant Guide. I had to make a sleeve for the quilt to their specifications. I also needed a quilt label. I must admit that though I know I should I  typically don’t make quilt labels. So, I decided to try printing a quilt label. I had heard it was easy and decided to give it a try. I bought the Printed Treasure printable fabric and designed a label in Word. I chose a funky font for my Wonky Safari label and printed it. This was all so quick and easy that I would definitely do it again. Here is the printed label:

At first I was just going to sew down the label, but decided I could do better than that and pieced fabric around the outside. I then turned under the sides 1/4″ with the iron. Then I blind hem stitched the label in place. I think adding the fabric added so much to the label. Here is the sewn down label:

I mailed my quilt last week and am making plans to go to Charlotte to see my quilt hanging in the show. It is such an honor to have been chosen and I can’t wait to see it hanging with all the other quilts in my category. Here is one last picture that I had to send in to AQS; it is a close up of 12″ of quilting on the quilt.

The AQS show in Charlotte is July 30-August 2nd. I also entered it in the Grand Rapids Michigan and it was accepted there as well so it will travel to Grand Rapids after Charlotte.  I’ll post a picture of Wonky Safari hanging at the show after I get back.

      Sew long from the Quilter on Osage Hill!