I'm back from Quilt Market in Pittsburgh. I'll do a recap with a giveaway soon, but first I wanted to tell you about the progressive quilts we made at MidAtlantic MOD.
This was my idea because I’ve watched some cool traveling quilts and really liked the idea, but wanted to do it in a more compressed time frame. Basically they’re similar to a traveling quilt or round robin, except that each was put together during the weekend. Those that signed up had some fabric sent to them with the “theme” and then had to make a block, section, or several blocks at home. Then at the retreat it was passed around and each participant worked on adding their block and possibly more for at least an hour. At the end of the weekend one participant would win it at random. I worked on all three.
The first theme was Low Volume/Little Bits. Low volume fabrics were sent (provided by Pennington Quiltworks) and the instructions were to add little pops of color in any design desired. It was interesting to see how it transformed throughout the weekend.
I LOVED the end quilt. My contributions were the words and the asterisk blocks and some layout of course.
Next we had the theme of Triangles. For this one a color scheme was provided. The various off-white Kona Cotton shades were sent as well as rust orange, cerise, gray, and navy fabrics.
This one didn’t get completed but it came a long way. There were several points it looked a total mess. But in the end it came out rather cool.
My main contribution was the wonky triangles in the top right, but I also did quite a bit of work on the layout including seam-ripping at the 3am to move things around.
Finally, we had a theme of Stripes. All of the fabric was Modern Solids by Alissa Haight Carlson provided by In the Beginning Fabrics. You were only allowed to use the fabric provided and could make anything you thought was stripes.
This was my original block:
And the final quilt is gorgeous. And I won it! Woo hoo! Hopefully I can get it completed in time to submit it in the group category of Quilt Con.
The whole process of making them was great fun. Discussing and changing things. We even ripped things apart or cut each other’s blocks. They’re so unique and I know no one could have come up with them on their own.
Check out #progressivequilts on Instagram for more pictures.
We'll definitely do it again next year, so any ideas you have for themes would be appreciated. :)
JT