For Pueblo's Quilt Expo this year their theme for the challenge fabric packet was "Creativity Isn't Boaring" in honor of the Chinese Year of the Boar. I had mentioned this to several of the quilt guild ladies I meet with once a week, saying "what would you do with that"? I just was going "duh" as nothing came to mind and I decided I wasn't going to do the challenge. I only had 8 weeks to get the fabric, plan a challenge piece and do it. Well, the following week one of the ladies handed me this ziplock of fabric and said "now you get to do the challenge". Now, she did tell me I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. But, they know me and how I can't turn down a challenge. The fabric sat in the bag for 4 weeks before I took it out, I just didn't know what to do with it. It was all oriental prints. As soon as I opened the bag and took the fabric out, I knew what path I was going to take.
A pagoda was wanting to be made. Of the 5 challenge fabrics, I had to use 4 and could add up to 2 of my own. I used 4 of them and added 2. One was a focus print with flowers, cranes, groups of green for the trees. The "shingles" of the pagoda are the feathers from the crane. As each piece was made, the next step would come to me. I started only with a game plan of making the pagoda, it grew trom there. The pagoda, flowers, and the lanterns are sandwiched with timtex to give them the stability I wanted. Their is a boar quilted on the wallhanging, small meandering in monofilament thread surrounds it.
For a piece that I initially didn't want to do, I became very attached to it and it was very hard for me to hand off last week for the expo. I will be going up tomorrow, but I got a call today, from my friend that gave me the fabric, that I won 1st place in the wallhanging division! I am estatic! I will be going up tomorrow and I'm anxious to see how others have interpreted the theme.
For the non quilters who think I'm nuts when I say my fabric speaks to me, I feel bad for them. They don't know what they are missing by those voices only us quilters can hear.
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.jpg "2019 Sponsor - BERNINA Q 24")
