Quilt for 2014 AQG Quilt Show

It's that time of year again. Time to get an entry into the 2014 Arizona Quilters Guild Annual Spring Quilt Show. I didn't think I had a quilt to enter this year. Last year just wasn't my year to make quilts. What I did make were given as gifts and I no longer have access to them. As friends kept asking me what I was going to enter and the deadline's approaching, I decided to go through my quilt tops that need to be quilted and see if there was anything that I could get finished in time for the show.  (No, I'm not even going to go through my UFOs !!)

I came across three that could work for the show. One, with 3D stars in a multi-color batik on a black background, actually has the quilting started. However, I'm working with metallic thread and I'm not happy with the way it looks. The quilt design needs some revamping. So I decided to set this one back and finish another day.

The second one is a wool applique quilt done by hand with the blocks sewn together on the machine. It was designed by a good friend.  I have it thread basted to a wool backing. I'm afraid that having it hang for half a week will cause the wool to stretch. Maybe I need to remove the wool backing and put on a cotton backing, to prevent any stretching. However, I really like the wool backing on it. Hmmm....dilemmas!!  So.....I don't think I'll enter this quilt (this year, at any rate).

Cara Gulati's Radiant Suns quilt.

Finally, the last quilt is a one that I started when I was first learning to quilt over 10 years ago. I started it in one of the first classes that I ever took. It's made with curves and I remember being told that I should start with a drunkard's path as a beginner quilter. Since I had been sewing clothing for over 30 years, curves weren't a problem - bring on the harder curves. The quilt is made from Cara Gulati's pattern Radiant Suns.

I like the movement of the curves. I chose to do the red/orange suns in a rainbow of colors and the green/purple background in neutrals - whites, creams, browns, and blacks. Since I was new to quilting, I didn't understand "values" then. So my neutrals have the same values as my rainbow of colors. I was disappointed that my rainbow of suns doesn't pop as much as I had intended when I chose my color scheme. That contributed to never finishing the quilt. But the main reason, I never finished it is because I didn't like just the narrow border to finish the quilt. It seemed like it needed more (at least in my color scheme). I wanted to add a rainbow of scallops around the quilt outside the narrow border. At the time I created this top, I had no clue how to add scallops. I thought I could probably manage the actual scallops, but how do you finish them? How do you bind them? So I just set the top back and moved on. Now, some 10 years later, I know how to add the scallops and how to finish them. So I decided to put this quilt in the AQG Quilt Show this year. . . . IF I can get find my original fabrics, add the scallops, and get it quilted and bound in time!!

Circular Rainbow.  57"x 76". Cottons and cotton blends.