Saturday, January 13, 2018

Project Quilting Season 9 Challenge 1 - Home Town Proud

I carved out a little bit of time and made a little bit of a quilt.

http://persimondreams.blogspot.com/p/project-quilting.html
The theme for Project Quilting's first challenge of Season 9 is "Home Town Proud" and since I have lived many places, how do I pick a Home Town? I thought about Cadillac, MI as we spent quite a few years there, I graduated from high school while living there, I got married there, our first two children were born there ... but we haven't lived there for over 24 years.

SO, I decided to go with the town I live in - Muskegon, MI.

For inspiration, I went through pictures that I have taken around town and came across this super fuzzy picture I took of the moon over the shoreline. We were out by the lighthouse, looking back and it was so wonderful a view that I took a picture - with my cell phone which has a lackluster camera. Thankfully, I could play with the picture in Photoshop and come up with something that I could work from:
I have to say, living near the big lake - Lake Michigan - is always an inspiration with so many possibilities for creativity!

I decided to piggy-back this challenge with an upcoming event in town, the Muskegon Museum of Art's Postcard Salon. This is a fundraiser event every year and I thought it would be a great idea to combine the two in this challenge, so I made a postcard sized quilt!

 I started much bigger than I needed to as I forgot to double check my dimensions and made it large enough for a 5X7 card, but needed only 4X6.
Working in a way that is very similar to my Cherrywood VanGogh Challenge piece, I started adding the highlights on the water and built from there. In fact, all but one of the fabrics is from Cherrywood Fabrics ... the moon is a batik.

I quilted the piece first with a translucent thread called Glitter from Superior Threads, this produced some shine in the water, on the lights and on the moon. I used YLI Wonder Invisible Thread Smoke for the rest of the quilting, giving the textural movement needed for this serene scene.

Shoreline at Dusk
I finished it off with a satin-stitched border in black. My Bernina does such a nice satin stitch!

#pqSeason9
#HomeTownProudChallenge


9 comments:

works4me said...

Beautifully done.

mjmads said...

Nice abstraction from your fuzzy photo! I am impressed by the clarity of your design given the tiny size of your postcard quilt!! Nice work.

Carla said...

Very pretty scene. Love the quilting. So much in a little space it's perfect.

Vicki @ DottyJane said...

Wow! Love it!

JeanAnn said...

Wonderful! You got my vote - great concept... great execution in fabric.

POLLYS POCKETS said...

I love this! Well done!

PersimonDreams said...

it's gorgeous! Love this!!

Sharon said...

Beautiful, Joy! Lobe the abstract aspect of it. Turned out gorgeous!

Sharon said...

Turned out beautiful, Joy! Love the abstract idea and execution. Very pretty!