It’s been one of those weeks in Project QUITLING. Entries didn’t start coming in until Saturday so of course I sit and worry that no one will enter – my worst fear! But of course…I shouldn’t have worried – we have 13 amazing entries once again!

For those of you just tuning in you can read more about Project Quilting Here: http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2010/04/project-quilting.html

and about the fifth challenge of Season 2 here:

http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2011/03/project-quilting-challenge-5-flying.html

CHALLENGE WINNERS:

***See the bottom of this post for two minor changes made to this years prize/voting process

This week’s PRIZES!

The winner of the Public vote will take home $10 to SpiceBerryCottage and Downloadable Quilter's Cookbook 2009 from the QuiltingGallery

The winner of the Judges Choice will take home $10 to FabricsNQuilts and $10 to Dye Candy.

TWO randomly drawn (by my two beauties) participants in this weeks challenge will take home either $20 for Machine Quilting Services from QuiltsbyBarb OR a pdf of 2 maze quilt patterns from Lisa Penny!

Everyone that enters a piece for this challenge can decide if they want their name entered in a drawing for $50 off the 2011 Quilts by Barb Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend.

Voting closes at 7pm CST on Friday, March 18th

This weeks’ JUDGES!

Diane Lapacek

Barb Raisbeck

Lisa Penny

Guest Judge: Ryan Walsh of I’m Just a Guy Who Quilts

OTHER BONUSES:

Don't forget! Everyone that entered a piece for this challenge can decide if they want their name entered in a drawing for $50 off the 2011 Quilts by Barb Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend.

I will also be sending everyone their rank (somewhere between 1 and 10 – be sure you’ve emailed me (lapaceksorchard {at} gmail {dot} com) your email address) and any critique’s the judges have about your creation. The top 3 scoring projects will be posted on my blog next weekend.

PUBLIC WINNERS: YES, you can win a prize too! You’ll find out how to WIN at the bottom of this post after you’ve checked out each of our challengers entries.

And now here are all the entries – in no particular order…

***Please note – I have left the images smaller to help the blog load a bit faster. I strongly URGE you to take closer looks at the projects before voting by checking out their submittals on the flickr group:http://www.flickr.com/groups/1401824@N21/

THE ENTRIES:

Quilter: UpStateLisa

The Story:

This is the first time that I have entered project quilting so here it goes...

I designed my own geese on freezer paper and paper pieced the geese, leaving a gap so that I could machine appliqué one geese breaking away and going out on her own (yeah, maybe I am hoping it is me!). The goose that is breaking away is made with a commercially produced fabric which has metallic swirls, just to be unique as well. I apologize about the quality of the photo, but there has not been much light in the skies of upstate NY lately.

I used some of my left over hand dyed fabrics and took my older daughter's advice and used the orange and blue as the complementary colors. The geese, you may notice are slightly wonky in their direction, as I like to be wonky!!!

I also decided to create a quilt that wasn't entirely rectangular so as to have the geese fly off the quilt. In fact, the top geese is essentially a prairie point type triangle that stands up above the quilt!

I took a class recently (on a cruise ship, no less!) with Charlotte Warr Andersen and used one of her machine quilting techniques! I used a 40 wt sulky rayon for the quilting thread.

This "quiltie" measures about 13"x14.5".

Created by "upstatelisa", Lisa B. Filion, Queensbury NY

QUILTER: ForQuiltsSake

“Dancing Geese”

Made by Pam Geisel of For Quilts Sake in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Mar. 2011 for Project Quilting Season 2, Challenge 5, Flying Geese.

10” x 18.5”

My creative process and how I made it:

I actually spent a lot of time coming up with the layout for this quilt. Using my computer, I played with many, many different arrangements. One of the things I love about using traditional quilt blocks is the way different parts of the block are emphasized or de-emphasized depending on color and fabric placement. I knew I wanted the background fabric to be all the same so the triangle parts of the geese would be the focal point.

Once I finally came up with a layout I wanted to do, it was time to start playing with complimentary color schemes. I went to my stash to see what fabrics I had that I thought would work with and I wanted the fabrics for the triangles to be the same color but to range from light to dark. The color that provided me with the most range from my stash was yellow, although yellow is a light color so it doesn’t have a large range of shades. And if the geese were going to be yellow, then the background would have to be purple. I found a wonderful purple-y batik that had cream and yellow colored swirls, so it was time to get started.

I knew that I could fuse the triangles to the background but I was a little concerned about the background showing through the yellow fabric and I also didn’t want the geese to be so flat. I played around with some origami-like folds, kind of like making prairie points, only I didn’t realize that until later. The triangles are pretty small, only 2” on the longest point. (The 3-D quality of the triangles is more noticeable in the “Side View” photo.)

A few false starts on figuring out how to piece the background led to cutting the background fabric for each “stripe” and drawing the shape on the wrong side, much like using a template only I traced by placing the fabric over my full-sized diagram on my lightbox. Still using the lightbox, I placed the triangle in its proper place then sewed adjoining pieces and attaching the bottoms of the triangles at the same time. The points of the triangles were sewn into place during the quilting.

I made the top and left borders the same width as each other and made the right and bottom borders the same as each other but larger than the left and top borders and I added a light purple cord in the larger yellow borders to contain the triangle that extended beyond the background.

I decided to do some of the quilting with the opposite color, which is something I don’t do a lot, but I think it helped the design. I did some echo quilting around the triangles with a yellow thread and also stitched in the ditch on the yellow inner border and more echo quilting in the purple background with purple thread.

For the binding I used the same strip- facing technique that I used on the last challenge quilt “After the Rain” because I liked how well it worked.

Quilter: MoranArtandQuilts

"Homeward Bound"

It measures 21" x 26"

I'm disappointed in how the colors turned out in my photographs so they're not a very good depiction of the work. The purple actually looked blue at first so in trying to fix it, the thread colors look off.

I love purple so decided to use that and yellow as the dominant colors. Starting out with the traditional flying geese on the left I debated on what to do with the right side since my main goal in any work is to have a good composition. After playing around with the triangles as flowers, shapes and then birds, I decided on the birds that appear to be flying away from the traditional method. They were applied using raw edge appliqué.

I decided to follow through with this composition by quilting with yellow thread on the right and mimicking the triangle shapes. I then used a light aqua thread on the left with straight lines to carry over the aqua birds on the right tying everything together yet maintaining two distinct styles.

The binding is an aqua fabric with bits of the other colors in it, too, to also tie things together.

Catherine
Columbus, Ohio

Quilter: SpringWaterDesigns

Geese of Gettysburg

For this Project Quilting Challenge my piece is inspired by the many geese that would gather at my daughter's college campus at Gettysburg College. I chose Blue and Orange (Gettysburg College school colors, and complimentary colors on the color wheel) for the curved Flying Geese. The silhouette of the geese in the smoky brown color represents the geese that could be seen walking all around her dorms near the lake.

I went pretty far out of my box on this one. I've made many a traditional Flying Geese unit, but never made the curved flying geese which I drafted on paper, and paper pieced. Batiks were used to piece the background, and the flying geese are made from 13 different graduated colors of cotton prints and hand dyes, going from dark to light to dark again (The colors are very rich in person, my photography doesn't do it justice). I heavily machine quilted the background to make the flying geese pop. To complete the art piece, I stretched it over and mounted it to a 16" x 20" Artist Canvas.

Created in Jessup, MD USA. I'll have a blog post about my design process Monday on my blog:
springwaterdesigns.blogspot.com

~ Dawn Stewart
Spring Water Designs

Quilter: Aunt Cindy’s Attic

If You Want to Make God Laugh, Tell Him Your Plans

I had an idea for the challenge within minutes of reading it. I had it fairly well planned in my head, until I tried to envision the color combos. None of the complimentary color schemes worked out well for my thoughts. Plan one was scrapped.

I printed out some geese units, cut them out and started playing with them. I quickly came up with the cross scheme. I drew it out on giant graph paper and started in on the background. I liked the concept of something radiating from the center of the cross, but just adding yellow wedges seemed too simple. I also thought that going lighter in the center and darker towards the edges would work out well. I ended up drawing triangles in the middle of the wedges to give the background a flying geese feel.

I scanned the upper right and lower right quadrants of my drawing to create a paper pieced pattern for the background. I printed the reverse image of each scan to get the patterns for the two left quadrants.

The geese were traditionally pieced. My plan was to inset the cross into the background. I've not sewn set-in seams before. So I spent a good bit of time researching it and watching videos about inset seams. I set in the first corner and it looked awesome. Things took a turn for the worse after that. A lot worse. I ended up taking the entire cross out.

I went with my initial instinct and appliqued the cross on. Luckily I'd wanted to try a method using a fusible web with no paper backing and I had my chance to try it. The web is sewn to the applique on the front (right sides together). You cut a hole in the webbing, turn it inside out, straighten the edges out and fuse to your background. Voila! Instant turned edge applique.

I chose the colors because the yellow is so bright - I'm REALLY looking forward to spring. Also Lent started this week & purple is the color of Lent (also a color for mourning).

The quilt is approximately 17" x 20".
Created by Aunt Cindy of Aunt Cindy's Attic, Crawfordsville, IN

Quilter: AllThingsBelle

Sky Specimen

I'm Jennifer Rodriguez, art quilting in West Jordan, UT.

My piece is "Sky Specimen" and is approximately 9.5"x6".

This piece is inspired my love for specimen art and of course our theme, flying geese.

My father is a scientist and I grew up with specimen art in our home.
I love the mix of nature and art. It was my hope that this quilt captured scenes of geese flying in the sky.

Each "flying geese" was individually quilted and sewn down the middle to give the piece motion. The Kona white backing and free motion quilting was done to resemble puffy white clouds.

Quilter: Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting

Come Fly With Me

For Challenge 5-Flying Geese I based my Project for Project Quilting on the art work of graphic artist MC Escher (Maurits Cornelis Escher). I found the two pieces of artwork on Google images and decided I could place triangles in a similar pattern to create a cool design on the front of the quilted bag. I used orange and purple for my complimentary colors. Then I decided I needed extra borders to make it larger and added the strips in a log cabin fashion creating a step like design element to the sides of the bag. Then I repeated the V on the back of the bag - upside down. My original plan was to make a small passport bag for myself, but I was having so much fun with the triangles, I decided I had to make a larger bag. So when I quilted my large bag fabric piece, I also quilted a little flying geese design of on black and white fabric to use to create my small passport bag. My Fly Bag is about 14" wide by 15" deep. I used a poly batting to make it a little lighter as I will pack it full for flying. I don't have a passport yet as that is another long story... I plan to eventually apply for one, but it seems I never do it! Maybe next week!
Marcia Wachuta Boscobel, Wisconsin

Quilter: Dashasel

That's not my lion...

...its mane is too blue!

The title of this piece is "That's not my lion" in reference to the series of "That's not my..." baby books that my son loves.

I was excited that this week's challenge was to use flying geese! I had not yet made this more traditional block and thought it would be fun to use more traditional quilting elements overall. As I thought about what to create, I was (as I often am) inspired by my son. He loves all things related to cats, especially big cats, and I knew that I wanted to make him a lion. I went with blue and gold as my main colors (they were complimentary colors on the color wheel I looked at).

I decided to use one of my favorite patterns in flying geese-- that of the circle of geese-- as the lion's head. I had also seen some curved flying geese and wanted to give this a shot too, so I used this for the lion's tail. With both these blocks, I got to try my hand at foundation paper piecing (addicting!). In addition to the flying geese, the other more traditional quilting elements I used were prairie points (to "fluff" out the lion's mane and make the piece three dimensional) and a border for the quilt. I used simple embroidery to make the face and legs and ruffled some fabric to make its furry chest. I left the edges of that fabric raw so that it would fray and hopefully contribute to that furry look. I also embroidered three flying geese in the distance as another fun reference to this challenge.

I wish that I had had the skills and forethought to draft my quilt pattern out before starting, but instead, I improvised as I went along. The head was created first, then the body, and then the tail. It was a fun challenge to figure out how to connect them all and I'll admit that some (well, a lot) of seam ripping may have been involved :). Because of the numerous seams that go in so many directions, I decided to use random and wonky zigzags when doing my quilting. I also thought the zigzags created the illusion of the flying geese blocks, and at the risk of overkill, also used it in my binding.

This quilt is 21.5" square and was made in Milwaukee, WI

Quilter: Christine Hampton

Drunken Geese 1

Drunken Geese 15” x 22”
Made in Oregon, WI by Christine Hampton

I used a free paper piecing pattern from PieceByNumber (http://piecebynumber.com/pastbom/colorwheelpatt.htm) for my flying geese. The curved path of the geese reminded me of the drunkard’s path blocks, so I named this project Drunken Geese. The geese appear to be flying tipsy with a bit of a swerve on. I quilted it with freehand wavy lines across the center with blue variegated and around the border with orange variegated thread. This piece would look good hung either horizontally or vertically.

Quilter: Kathleen P

Under Construction

This is the story of a quilt back that became the front in a week I had no time for quilting. I was sitting around perusing some of my many (many) quilt books for flying geese ideas, and my sweetie glanced over my shoulder and said one of them looked like a detour sign. And from there I went to some of the nifty play mats I've seen on the Celebrate the Boy month going on elsewhere in craft-blog-land, and figured I'd make the kiddo a little construction site mappy thing-o, despite sealing my fate as the lady who only quilts for a 2 year old.

So I whipped up a few flying geese in construction colors, and a one way sign... and a few stop signs... and a stop light... and there was no room for a construction site. So I put it on the back. Which was now the front. I let the complimentary colors guide my choice of the negative space around the blocks: there's a lot of purple in here that I wouldn't have used if I wasn't trying to bring out the yellow geese arrows.

If this quilt had a middle name it would be Short Cut. I didn't have much time, and I knew I couldn't make it to a store this week, so I made do (hey, did you know you can brush your teeth and machine piece at the same time?). It's all flannel because I have a weirdly large flannel scrap collection, and lemme tell y'all I am DONE with the flannel! It's so annoying! And my scraps are all different qualities! Such the aaargh. There are so many things I didn't have time for: there wasn't much black, and I wanted roads but didn't have time to finish a middle line. Maybe I'll add it in embroidery. The quilting is minimal, and I got a little silly last night with some free-form arrows. With flannel that makes for some weird puffiness. I can add some more and I think it'll go down to a nice kind of puffiness. I would have liked to add letters to the signs and made some more yellow and black ones. I didn't love the black stop sign, but didn't really have time for anything else. (Actually I think a properly planned out traffic sign quilt would be a real hit for people looking for a boyish quilt design for a toddler--maybe we'll call this a prototype?) The binding is just the edges folded over. The photographs are extra haphazard today: it was either in the light or lying flat but not both.

But the short person for whom it was made *loves* it. The thing about making a quilt for a kid, or anyone, is that you think about that person. Turns out I don't want my kid to be a perfectionist. I love that he grabbed the top and curled up in it on the couch. He wanted the one way sign to be put up on the wall ("Use Duck Tape!"). He counted the stop signs. He proclaimed the construction side a farm and brought it stuffed pigs. Even though we want to raise our kids to have high standards about some things, creative play isn't one of those things. So even though the quilting isn't perfect and I would have redesigned some of it if I had time, it is successful, and it's a good lesson for a quilter too, since quilts have always been gifts: standards only take you so far. Sometimes you need to just pick up your tractor and pretend. And next time I'll make something pretty, I swear.

This is 25" by 32" and I made it in Oneida County, NY.

Quilter: Sarah B

Geese at Sunset

This piece measures approximately 17" x 9 1/2". I used foundation piecing (geese), traditional piecing (sky) and fusible applique (for the lower landscape).

The challenge combination of flying geese and contrasting colors immediately made me think of geese flying in the sky at sunset!

I always try something new for each Project Quilting Challenge! This was my first time using batiks or a true black. Even though I knew just what I wanted to do as soon as I read the challenge, time got away from me, so this also became the first time I think I've ever completed a full project in less than 24 hours, as I finally started sketching this one after noon Central Saturday (yesterday) and we lost an hour to daylight savings overnight.

I create in Colorado.

Quilter: Sally’s Angelworks

The Earth is the Lord's - Organic Quilt

Here is my Project Quilting entry for this week's challenge. It is also a piece of a collab effort to raise funds for New Zealand's devastating earthquake several weeks ago. Even in the aftermath of Japan's devastation, for those of us who feel helpless, this is my little part. I hope to have a whole line of quilts for charity in my Etsy store soon!

For our challenge we were to be inspired by flying geese. Lately I have been making block after block with flying geese...so at first, no inspiration! LOL!! But I remembered a block I did for the Blogger's Block-a-palooza designed by Monica Solorio-Snow (the Happy Zombie) and the way the geese looked to me like arrows. I loved that! For this quilt, I knew I wanted to have an earth in the middle, and the geese could point right to it! For me, that God is over all the earth and that everything is His is my comfort. I will probably pontificate about my religious philosophies more on my blog where it is more appropriate, but suffice it to say that He is what I want to focus on, to point to!!

I also love the colors!! I chose aqua and orange as my complimentary colors!!

This quilt is made from 95% organic cotton (Monaluna fabrics) and cotton muslin. I used Bamboo batting (so yummmy!) and embroidery thread for the earth, quilting thread for the outlines of the continents! I used a pigment pen for the Bible verse: Ps 24:1 "The earth is the Lord's...and everything in it." I quilted the flying geese in an arrow shape and free motion quilted the corners. (I'm sooo loving FMQ now!!)

I appreciate all of your comments and look forward to hearing what the judges have to say...

sally from sally's angelworks in Texas
this quilt is 9 5/8" x 9 5/8".

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Quilter: KimsCraftyApple

Not eligible for Public Voting Prize

Three Geese

Here's my entry for this weeks challenge. The hardest part of quilting for me is definitely piecing so this challenge was one of the more difficult to me. To get started I browsed flickr to see what flying geese projects are out there. From what I found, I was able to draw up a sketch for a fun table runner full of movement in color and pattern.

I did have a lot of fun putting together my complimentary color combinations. I wanted to add some 'dimension' so I choose three fabrics for each color - mixing batiks, commercial and hand dyed all together - so much fun! It took time and many different design wall layouts to create the flow of color you see in my final entry. I found my design wall and camera very useful for this part as it allowed me to step back and really look at what was happening.

I also had a few different thoughts for the spaces between the entwining squares but finally decided on this gorgeous brown print. I felt that it helped to mellow the piece just enough. To add a bit of a twist I added a lip of a brown mini olive branch-like striped fabric around each of the brown pieces. This was a bit bulky to sew but with a little water and the weight of my vintage iron I was able to flatten them down nicely. I used that same olive branch fabric to bind the quilt. One thing I learned was the proper way to bind and inside corner - it was a bit intimidating at first but the method worked really well and I think the result looks fabulous.

I used brown thread for quilting. I had thought of quilting each color with it's compliment but realized I already have a lot of different thing going on so I went with the brown to sort of tone things down a bit. I quilted in a fun wavy wrap around pattern in all the main portions of the geese and inside the brown squares.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I really wish the snow would melt outside so I could taken a decently lit picture but this will just have to do.

Created by Kim Lapacek in Poynette, WI

Approximate Size: 50" x 28"

Now for the PUBLIC Comment PRIZE!

The Easy to Sew Quilt Pattern

Fabric and Toes Photo Notecards

Everyone is eligible to win a Pattern & Notecards from Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting for this weeks Public Comment Prize!

TWELVE Chances to WIN!

Entry 1: REQUIRED! Leave a comment on your favorite entry at the bottom of this blog post (you can also comment on twitter/flickr/facebook but that won’t get you an entry) (or at least that you voted) and vote for your favorite on the poll on the upper left hand side of the blog. -***MUST DO***

Optional/Additional Entries – please note – if you want to qualify for these additional entries you must leave a SEPERATE comment for each with your email address– if you already follow or are a fan, etc just leave comments saying each. If you write everything in ONE comment you only will have ONE entry…

Entry 2: Follow my blog.

Entry 3: Follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/kimscraftyapple

Entry 4: Tweet about this fantastic contest with hashtag #PQGeese (important or I won’t know you did it)

Entry 5: Like Project QUILTING on facebook

Entry 6: add my Project Quilting ‘Grab my Blinkie’ to your blog or blog about my giveaway (link your blog or post in your comment, please)

Entry 7: Head on over to CraftySewing on etsy and let me know your favorite item in the store!

Entry 8: Sign up for my newsletter in the upper right corner of this page!

Entry 9: Blog about Project QUILTING and leave a link here to what you wrote.

Entry 10: Like Marcia's Crafty Sewing and Quilting of Facebook.

Entry 11: Follow Crafty Sewing’s blog.

Entry 12: Follow Crafty Sewing on twitter.

***Participants, Judges, and Sponsors in project quilting ARE allowed to enter in the public poll/contest as well.***

This means you have TWELVE chances to win! I need you to write each of these entries as different comments in order to qualify you for all twelve entries and include your email address. If you don’t include your email address I won’t be able to contact you when you win and I will have to choose a new winner. I will be picking the winner on Saturday, March 19th.

***Changes to Prizes/Voting this season***

1. One person can no longer win both prizes. If this does happen (as it has), they will take home the ‘JUDGES Choice’ prize and the person in 2nd in the PUBLIC vote will take home the ‘PUBLIC’ prize. As before, each of these winners will not qualify for the random prizes. I’m doing this just to spread around all the amazing goodies so many great sponsors donated!
2. The second is, I will not be listing myself (KimsCraftyApple) on the Public Vote. Since this is my ‘creation’ I will never win any of the prizes – I don’t want to seem like this is biased towards me at all. I’m doing this merely for the fun, the challenge, and the camaraderie. I will still, however, be showing off my entry AND sending it to the judges for their score and critique.

Challenge 6 (WOW – the last challenge) will be posted on Sunday, March 20th at NOON!