Happy Saturday everyone! I hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying the beginning of your weekend. I know you’re all anxious to hear the winners of the Hardware Store Challenge so I’ll get right to it!

I’ll switch it up just a bit and go for the Judges Choice Winner first.

Starting with 3rd place, an average score of 8.425 is…

QUILTIES!

Here’s what the judges thought:

Judge 1: I love all your colors and the paint chips. I, too, love to pick up those strips. I love to pick up the folders that have all the different pallets of colors in them!

Your piece is not straight on the edges. Maybe blocking your piece after it is completed would help with this.

Judge 2: Great job of depicting the spray paint aisle. I like the look of the paint chips in their pocket. If the paint chips had been pieced from fabric, they would have made this piece into something more universal, and also more saleable. I like the paint tape inner border and the multi-colored outer border with the great corners.

The edges don’t appear quite straight. Blocking might help.

Judge 3: Love the paint concept. Great Job!

Judge 4: I so totally agree with you on the concept of fabric being more expressive than flat paint colors. So did Matisse, by the way, as he adored textiles and celebrated them in his work. I love the way you used color gradations and print variations in your progressive border. And your use of the blacks added great contrast in almost a graffiti style across the center. Placing the chips in the plastic sleeve really enhanced the contrast of the flat paint next to the textured fabrics, giving the piece visual depth and thoughtfulness. One silly but easily changeable thought: I'd reverse the order of the paint swatches, so the cool paint colors start in the left side by the warm fabric colors, and go in the opposite direction, to give contrasting energy.

Next, taking home 2nd place with an average score of 8.88 is….

ForQuiltsSake!

Here’s what the Judges had to say:

Judge 1: It is amazing some of the ideas the participants from Project Quilting come up with. I love all your embellishing on this quilt and would love to have it hanging in my home. Good job.

Judge 2: Nice piece. It has a nighttime feel. I like the way you threaded the cord through the drain and the effect of the yarns and ribbon. The rain chain batik is great.

I feel like you’re apologizing for not using the actual items on your piece. Absolutely not necessary. The items are intended to inspire and that inspiration can manifest itself in many ways.

Judge 3: Love the look of the quilt & the concept of it. Very well done.

Judge 4: It's interesting how your inspiration grew out of your materials, rather than the idea dictating the materials. Your design has a very pleasing balance, the way the visual horizontal line bisects the vertical free-flowing line, and in the placement of the circular elements. I'm glad you left the open space in the left side, enhancing the focal point of the fibers and giving depth in the absence of lighting. Perhaps a little mimicking of the circular reference in the stitching within that open space would give a nice balance of thirds, but that's a subjective idea. Some of the curves in the free-motion stitching could be smoother to reflect better on the circles, but I like the pattern.

And taking home this week’s 1st place from the judges scores with an average score of 9.125 is….

Marcia’s Crafty Sewing and Quilting!

Marcia will be receiving $10 to FabricsNQuilts and $10 do Dye Candy. (I did switch the public and judges prizes here since I don’t think Marcia should be giving herself a prize…)

Here’s what the judges had to say about this piece:

Judge 1: I really like this piece. I am so glad you went with the black binding. I think I read that you considered orange but the black really draws the piece together. I love the back of this quilt. It looks awesome!

Judge 2: I love the story. Great thought process. As usual your quilting is outstanding.

Love the color and movement.

Judge 3: I really like the look of your quilt and your concept behind it. It also reminds me of a windsock which you see handing outside at old fashion hardware stores.

Judge 4: Your conceptual idea is a wonderfully meaningful representation of the universal community of quilting. Across cultures, quilting and textile arts draw people together, and your interpretation demonstrates this within the unique theme of this challenge. I love the flow of the design with the colors across the piece. Your quilting skills are impeccable, with such perfection in the background quilting and a smart contrast of style in the wires. You've done a great job of mixing the theme of the global community of quilting, with excellent skills.

It is now time to announce the Public Choice Winner. All week a poll was up on my blog and it was up to YOU to choose your favorite. Getting 48 of the 178 (or approximately 27%) of the votes is…

Quilties!

Quilties will be receiving a Pattern & Notecards from Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting and $15 to FabricFascination!

And now, I’m off to get the names in the hat for my kids to draw the random prizes. Stop by later today to see more winners!

The Challenge:  http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2011/02/project-quilting-season-2-challenge-4.html

What the Judges Had to Say:

Judge 1: This is adorable. It is going to be an easy sell on Etsy if that is what you choose to do with it. In your story you state the washers are pretty literal but sometimes that is a wonderful solution to a great piece. I am with you; I love the mix of the metal and the fabric.

Another element of this piece that I find unexpected but love is the look of the polka dot fabric on the inner border and the binding. It so well echoes the flowers and makes them stand out.

Great job again, Kim. I love it!

Judge 2: You are so creative. The hook sun is inspired. Love the saw blade flowers with the washers stitched on in a way to give them extra dimension. You’ve added just enough washers to the border. I really like the quilting you did in the border. Kind of a minimalist approach using the pattern that was already there.

You used the right colors in your plus sign background to give the garden background your flowers needed. Love the mini flowers.

The difference between you and so many others is that you have the vision and courage to use red polka dots in a project like this. It would never occur to most people and adds so much more life that a plain red would.

Judge 3: Very colorful & bright with lots of things going on – just like a hardware store.

Judge 4: Your design does a fantastic job of using hardware elements like saw blades and washers and transfiguring them into fabric elements. Adding the metal washers afterwards doesn't end up seeming too literal and gratuitive, because at that point the metallic's provide a complementary sensation, instead of stealing the focal point. Metallic's and fabrics are a wonderful contrast, and you've shown on many occasions that you know how to balance these for optimal effect. Your choice of the red & white polka dot border and binding fabrics was a brilliant punch to complement the red dots of the flowers. And using the washers only in opposite corners gives movement to the circular design as it draws the eye upward - a symmetrical treatment in all corners would have failed to give that energy.

There’s still a few hours left to VOTE for your favorite!  The next challenge will be posted on Sunday here on this blog!

Well…here I am again!  My second go at WIP Wednesday.  I’ll give you a look at the projects that I am working on and of course one completed project from last weeks post.

Boxed In:

I managed to scrape together three more blocks from my layer cake of Dill Blossom Fabric.  I don’t think a total of 12 if possible with this color scheme (I’m sure you can tell, but I also dipped into some of my stash to make this work…)So…I’m going to move ahead with 9 basic blocks.

The next step I took was to cut all my blocks into quarters and I mixed them all up on my design wall.  Now, I have to create the sashing…

the Mystery Quilt:

No new progress this week.  My cold took me out of business for a few days so things didn’t go as far as I hoped.  Next step is still borders… 

 

Block-A-Palooza Quilt

Still the same as yesterday – 11 blocks.  Block 12 is going up tomorrow.  By next week I should have 13 blocks to show you! 

 

the Bloom Quilt:

I’ve been sticking to my goal of at least 5 yo yos a day and things are progressing.  Next step…more yo yo’s and probably adding a binding to the quilt.

Project QUILTING – Hardware Store

This quilt is no longer a WIP – it’s moved to the ‘completed’ pile.  I managed to finish my challenge piece and this is what I came up with.  Don’t forget – there’s still plenty of time to vote for your favorite and comment to win a fantastic prize!  http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-to-vote-project-quilting-hardware.html

 

The Secret Project

I do have another project that I have the fabric for.  I’m not sure if I will post about it or not since it’s going to be a gift and I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

Until next week…

The girls are at the sitter and I’m giving my voice a good 7 hours of rest – so I figured I might as well work on the 11th Block for the Bloggers Block-A-Palooza. This one comes from the FatQuarterly.

And here is Block #11! I mixed together my batiks, commercial prints and some hand-dyed fabric that I dyed myself. I really love the drama all different fabrics create in this block. My stuffy head did create some ripping but not as much as I had for Block #10…

I’ve finally made some decent progress on my third ‘Nesting’ Quilt. 

So, I put the strips together (as you saw in the WIP Wednesday post) and off the quilt top went to QuiltsbyBarb for a little ‘bare bone’s’ quilting.  In less than a week I had my quilted top back to me! 

So, I started to cut out my circles for my yo-yo’s. 

To begin…I starched the heck out of the fabric and ironed it.  I then found random circular objects around my basement in various sizes to use as my circle templates.  I traced the outline of the objects with a water soluble fabric marker. 

Then using my handy dandy teeny tiny rotary cutter I cut out the different circles. 

I definitely do not have all of my circles cut yet, but I didn’t want to get to far ahead of myself.  I figure I’ll get some yo-yo’s made and see what other colors I need.Here are just a few of the yo-yo’s I have done so far.  My goal is to make at least 5 a day…hopefully it will be more than that or this is really going to take forever!

I REALLY like what striped fabric does when it’s yo-yo’d. 

 

Make your own Yo Yos:

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/techniques/specialty/making-yoyos_1.html

Make your own Yo Yo (with a template):  http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=552