My very first quilt on display in a shop!
This was a challenge bag – get a mystery bag of fabric, make something using all of the included fabric selections. I didn’t realize until I was driving home just how big this challenge would be for me. The bags are sealed in the store so you never know what the contents will be. I always open the bag in the car and brainstorm ideas on the way home. Usually by the time I get home I have an idea of what I want to do, and this time (with a short drive) was no exception. Except that I didn’t realize the scale of the finished product that I was planning, and just how big it was going to be.
I got started right away – I found a few different websites to create QR codes and found one I liked. From there, I took my created code and made a Photoshop Template so that each code square would be accounted for. Do you know that there are over 1000 little black and white squares in the center of this quilt that make up the QR code? (1089 to be exact).
I cut them out and pieced them together one by one in strips until the center was complete. The challenge fabrics make up the border fabrics (everything but the solid black and white) and the 2 fabrics on the back: the polka dots and the animals.
My final challenge, one the top and back were complete, was how to finish the project on time and deliver to the store before the cutoff. I did a straight machine stitch with Monopoly thread so it would be invisible front and back to not detract from the code itself, and I didn’t want stripes down on the back over the animals. I think it worked fairly well for what I wanted to accomplish. Working with the Monopoly thread was a little tricky, but once I figured out its quirks it was a little easier. Hint: go slow at the beginning and make sure you are starting needle down into the quilt, not before the quilt – on my machine, starting before the fabric just caused problems and I would need to correct a knot or rethread the machine.
Such an interesting quilt! You have great vision!
Thank you Maria!