Let’s start taking a closer look at the rest of the amazing pieces created for the ‘It’s Where I Live’ Project QUILTING Challenge.

Quilter:  Sharon H

Lake Michigan Sunset

Lake Michigan Sunset by Sharon in MI
Measures 18" x 12" and will be put in a frame
I live in Michigan not far from the Great Lake where we enjoy the most beautiful sunsets. My letters were N, G, M and I used neon orange, golden yellow, and medium blue. This is my first attempt at a landscape quilt and I learned a lot! I used 9 fabrics to build this scene and painted with 8 different color threads. I used a thicker satin stitch to emphasize the froth on top of the waves and thinner stitching lines to draw the colors of the sunset across the sky. I had a lot of fun painting with thread! Thanks for the challenge!

Quilter:  WayMooreFunQuilts

Where I live - The Sonoron Desert

I live in Tucson, AZ where the Saguaro (say Sah-whar-o) cactus is unique in the world. It grows in the Sonoron Desert which covers Southern Arizona and parts of Northern Mexico. These cacti can grow anywhere from 15 to 50 feet. They grow slowly from seed, and not at all from cuttings. The seeds are tinier than peppercorns. A record height Champion Cactus grows near Phoenix and stands 45 feet tall.

I live on Desert Highlands Drive in Tucson, Az. I chose Daffodil, Turquois, and Aubergine (fancy name for dark purple). I wanted to use the Sagaro as the icon in my piece with our beautiful Santa Rita mountains as the background.

It takes 75 years for one of these tree-sized cacti to grow its first arm and they live to a ripe old age of more than 150 years.

I failed to note that the size of this piece is 10 x 12-1/2" and it was made with fabric from my stash, so no expense was involved.

They are altitude sensitive because they only grow at 1,500 - 2,500 feet elevation. The seeds are spread by birds, bats and other night creatures, in undigested droppings. Often these seeds will sprout under a 'host' tree whose branches the birds were sitting upon. This nurse tree protects the tiny seedlings until the plant has matured and can withstand the desert heat, eventually out living its host tree.

Quilter:  Quilties

"Garden, Crop"

This is Project Quilting Challenge 3:5.
The theme of "Where you Live" is expressed in this piece through the lavender, my favorite plant in my garden, and my favorite crop of Iowa, the corn. I live on corn all summer.

I live on Eighty first court in Urbandale, Iowa. The challenge for this quilt to choose colors for each of the letters in your address sounded like it would be a tough one for E, U, I!! But when I found a list of colors on Wikipedia, it was actually really fun. I decided to choose three colors that I hadn't heard of before. Eton Blue (the greenish blue school color of Eton, a prep school in the UK), Ube (a lavender that gets its name from a purple yam in the Phillipines) and Icterine (a bright yellow - I had heard of an Icterine Warbler before, I just didn't know it referred to the yellow!)

Size: 13.5" x 17.5" by Emma Thomas-McGinnis

Quilter:  Dashasel

A Walk in My Woods

Project Quilting, Challenge 5
blogged: dashasel.blogspot.com/2012/03/project-quilting-challenge-...
Flickr Explore: March 11, 2012

In our area many of the buildings were built in the 1930s. With this in mind, I was inspired by the art deco architecture of the time, such as the starburst above the doors of the Milwaukee Gas Light Building. Coincidentally, the New York Beauty Quilt-along just started and this week Kim of My Go-Go Life headed up the first tutorial (it's a pretty awesome tutorial with lots of tips for those who even have paper piecing backgrounds). So with this in mind, I started making some of these NY Beauty Blocks (they remind me of the starburst).

My colors were based off my street and city names and state. These ended up being:
A: Aqua
M: Medium Candy Apple Red
W: Wild watermelon

As I culled my fabric, I realized that I didn't really have much pink! Thankfully I had a charm pack of A Walk in the Woods, which gave me a little bit of pink. I also had some Kona Cotton Pearl Pink for the background, so I figured I'd work with these.

The Walk in the Woods fabric line influenced my design as I decided that the "where I live" also should represent all the fun twists and turns in life. I wanted to literally have someone walking through the twists and turns. This turned out to be little Red Riding Hood (since there is a red-caped girl in the fabric line). And though she confronts a wolf in her fairy tale, I decided she would meet a Fox (because foxes are reddish [one of my colors!] and there really are foxes in my area).

I ultimately chose this design because the "walking path" (curves of the NY beauty block) don't always perfectly match and I quilted to make the path feel a bit maze-like at times.

Made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and measures 30" square. I'm also now completely paper-pieced out!

Quilter:  KatiesQuiltsandCrafts

"Oh those hills, beautiful Hills" Project Quilting Challenge

Main Street = Mauve (Mountain) - Mahogany (Bridge)
Milton = Magenta (Mountain) - Mint (Water)
West Virginia = Wine (Mountain

Although I live in Milton, West Virginia,, my heart is in Fayetteville - home of the New River Gorge Bridge. This place has abundant natural beauty. The 3rd weekend of October is the New River Gorge Bridge Day Festival. On this day every year, half of the bridge is closed off so that the public can come walk across it, and BASE jumpers parachute. During this time is when the fall colors are typically at their peak. It's a truly AWEsome sight to see.
I love it here. I fell in love here. I got married here. We go camping at least once a year here.

For this challenge I tried to "think outside the box." It's a challenge right?! So yes, I used gradated shades of hand-dyed PINKS for my mountains. I will admit it was difficult for me to use PINK mountains instead of green or fall colors. BUT, it's my quilt, and I dared to be different.

For each section of the quilt (each mountain, water, sky and land) I used a different quilting motif.
Big shout out to Leah Day for all of your inspiration!!
Sky: Poseidon's Eye (Leah Day)
Outer-most mountain: Micro Stippling
2nd Left mountain: Melt-y Teardrops or Mussel Shell (Leah Day)
3rd Left mountain: Tree Roots (Leah Day)
Left Front mountain: Chekerboard (Leah Day)
Right Front mountain: Hearts
Right back mountain: My version of McTavishing.
Water: Ocean Current (Leah Day)
Land: Pebbles (appropriate?) lol

so…the next quilt didn’t actually quite make the timeline of the challenge.  Which is just fine – just no prizes.  I’m so happy that it was still posted to the PQ Flickr Group as it truly is an amazing piece!

Quilter: I’m Feelin Crafty

'Rain'

Seattle, WA
30inches x 30 inches

I blogged about it in more detail here. 

***DEFINITELY stop by her blog and read about her postage stamp methods.  If I ever decide to attempt this it’s definitely the method I’m going to try!**** 

Miss Earlier Closer Looks? No Worries!

• A Closer Look, Part 1
  
• A Closer Look, Part 2