Hoffman Challenge Response

I  wrote about the Hoffman Challenge and how disappointed I was that the whole show was not at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival in August.  See my post here.  I am posting a response that was written by Michelle Flores, the curator for the Challenge, on their Facebook page:

I very sincerely apologize for the poor communication process in concluding the 2016 contest.  It was not our intention to leave you hanging with questions about your artwork and the "next steps" of prizes and trunk shows. We've been running behind schedule and are working to catch up with all over the next couple of weeks. Winners were announced on the Hoffman Fabrics' website on the Challenge Facebook page, but I did a poor job of informing you about the unveiling of category winners. Click here to see the winning artwork. {Regarding} ROCKY MOUNTAIN QUILT FESTIVAL: I deeply regret the lack of notice on the Hoffman website / Facebook pages that this show in August would NOT be showing the entire 2016 collection. This year, there was a 40-piece trunk on exhibit. I failed to recognize there would be wide interest from many Challengers who regularly attend the show. I feel much remorse over disappointing those who attended.

This was Ms Flores' first year as curator and coordinator for the challenge, and I thought it was a gracious move to write this post.  I am hoping she and the people from Hoffman Fabrics will see fit to show the whole collection at Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival again in the future.

Time Off for a Show

My daughter and I went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival.  This is where the Hoffman Challenge traditionally displays all the entries that were accepted into the show.  Imagine our surprise to find hardly any of the Challenge...maybe 15-20.  I didn't count.  No dolls.  No apparel.  No booth for information.  On the way out we asked about it, and apparently Hoffman has changed things around and this was all they sent.  The lady at the ticket table said they were as surprised as we were.  What a disappointment.  I did take a few photos of some of those Challenge quilts, which struck my fancy.  I did not look that closely at technique; that's for the judges.  I apologize to the quilters whose hard work created the following.  The labels were so small I could barely read them, let alone take photos of them.  The chosen fabric was littered with butterflies in many colors, and there was a "light" colorway and a dark colorway from which to work.  At the Hoffman Challenge website you can see the winners' quilts and if you scroll way down will find the butterfly fabric.

The following is a selection of those we viewed in person:

There were lots of butterflies within butterflies.

I found this one charming.

Unusual, interesting.

Lots of color.

Accessory fabrics within the stained glass framework.

Neat idea that spoke to me.

Love the precision.  Nicely executed.

Ten individually bound mini-quilts stitched to the turquoise background.
Like an entomologist's display.  Clever.

I like the overlaid embroidery on this one.

This one made me laugh.  Cute idea.

I must say that standing within a booth with five or six butterfly quilts I began to feel like there were too many bugs buzzing around.  Weird sensation, but the quilters really created their quilts with realistic butterflies on the brain.  Very few used the fabric only for color or texture.

The rest of the show was made up of exhibits by different groups.  The highlight for me was a booth with three of Sharon Schamber's beautiful quilts.  The detailing was spectacular.  I could have stood there for the next hour just taking in her incredible workmanship.  This particular show is not juried so there were no individual entries or prizes.  The exhibit I liked best was done by the Rocky Mountain Creative Quilters.  I didn't think to take any photos.  I must have left my brain at home.  They have a fine bunch of talented quilters in that group.  I don't know that I could have chosen any that I liked best - they were all amazing.

Caveat:  You may note some quilts that look like they are hanging poorly.  You are right!  The bars they were hanging from sagged in the middle.  This made the quilts slide toward the center so fold lines were accentuated, which made some quilts look crooked and bent.  Many of the bed-size quilts were dragging on the bare floor.  What a shame!

Next week I will get back to the saga of my binding redo and share a gorgeous binding on one of Sharon Schamber's quilts.

Sew a happy seam this week.  I wish you inspiration from the quilts above and others that you may encounter.

More Hoffman Challenge Quilts

Today I have more Hoffman Challenge quilts.  If you didn't see the ones I posted last week, just scroll down to my last post.

More elephants.  I love this parade.

A colorful, pretty sampler.

Isn't this horse a beauty?

More of the popular elephant theme.

Whimsical and fun.

This was very unusual design with color that really caught my eye.

Lovely appliqué and nice quilting.

Great dancing gypsy.  I loved the use of the challenge fabric in this one.

The intricate design caught my fancy on this one.

An interesting "modern" quilt.  It was sad to see the obvious fold lines, and they were a distraction on many of the quilts.  I can only assume that they were packed too tightly for their trip to Loveland.  However, it was a great show.  It is fun to see how all different quilters use the same fabric.

Fenestra Rosa

 I am postponing my planned post as mentioned last week, but will do it next week.  There was a lot of interest in my Fenestra Rosa quilt and I had a lot of fun designing and making it.  It was for the Hoffman Challenge 2013 and won "Best Use of Challenge Fabric."  Below is the challenge fabric and for me it was love at first sight.

2013 Hoffman Chalenge Fabric

I am reposting the photo of "Fenestra Rosa" below so you can follow what I say about it.

I saw an Internet photo of a rose window from a European cathedral, which was the inspiration for this quilt.  I lost the photo and have never seen it again, but developed the design on Adobe Illustrator by starting with the large, circular window and building out from there.  As my ideas coalesced I decided it was time to try my hand at stained glass technique and what you see is what I did.  It is basically machine appliqué with with bias strips to cover raw edges.  I had fun making two kaleidoscopes from the fabric.  Can you find them?  There were so many interesting motifs in this fabric that I was able to use parts and pieces throughout the quilt.

Fenestra Rosa

The following problems and solutions are not necessarily in the order they occurred!

Problem #1.  I worried throughout the construction process about the way the edges would come together about 1/3 down from the top where the background meets the arch.  I marked and measured at every stage and was gratified that it followed my plans perfectly.  There is your TIP right there!

Problem #2.  I wanted a lattice on the bottom so I quilted it on black fabric and began to fill the centers with turquoise thread painting.  I may have marked it sloppily or it became distorted with the quilting.  Doesn't matter.  It looked awful even though I had previewed on a tester piece.

Solution #2.  I ripped out the stitching, but the fabric was destroyed after so much needle punching.  I finally took the rotary cutter and slashed off the whole bottom section, batting and all.  I made sure there was at least 1/4 inch of fabric on the top with which to attach a new bottom using "Quilt As You Go" technique (Amazon has several books on this technique).  I quilted the lattice over challenge fabric using the stained glass technique and then attached it to the top.  In order to avoid any gap between the two battings I butted the edges together and secured them with iron-on Batting Seam Tape.  The backing fabric is seamed together, the front raw edges are covered with a  1/2" black strip, which is securely quilted.  It looks better this way than it ever thought of looking before.

TIP:  Don't give up when things don't work out.  Set the quilt aside and turn your creative brain waves loose on the problem.  I guarantee you will come up with something.  If you are a quilt groupie it may help to share the problem and get suggestions from others.

Problem #3.  The challenge fabric is so pretty and vibrant, but it needed taming for use as the background.

Solution #3.  I put a layer of black tulle over the top background, and under the lattice at the bottom.  It tones the bright colors down just enough without detracting from its beauty.  As a result the stained glass window glows in contrast.

TIP:  Tulle is cheap and can be a useful addition to a quilt.  A dark color tones the colors down and is invisible over dark colors.  A light color lightens color and is invisible over light colors.  A neutral color doesn't change color tone, but can be used to corral a multitude of tiny pieces until they get quilted down.  Once quilted the tulle does not detract or distract and can be seen only if you look very closely.

Problem #4.  Making the binding strips.  That's a post for the future.

Problem #5.  The binding.  I didn't realize I had a problem until it was mentioned on the judge's evaluation.  I will share my findings on that problem next week.

Happy stitching.

Quilting the Spiral

Most of the spirals I have seen are circular, also called mandalas.  Most of them are placed on a rectangular background.  This results in a lot of negative space in the corners that is crying to be included.  Left alone, the mandala can look lost and cause viewers to lose interest.  There are a ton of ways to decorate the corners, but in this case my feature fabric had such lovely flowers and leaves that I created mini-bouquets in each corner and tied them together with a 1/2 inch border.

I learned the hard way how to quilt a spiral.  A friend suggested that I use wool batting because it "quilts like butter."  So I put the fluffy wool batting into my quilt sandwich and began my quilting.  I soon realized that my quilting designs on the spiral turned it into a flat and fluff mishmash gridded with seam lines.  It looked awful!  In despair I very carefully took out all my quilting and started over.  I couldn't figure out what else to do so I quilted in the ditch of every seam, and it looked wonderful.  I now do that on every spiral quilt, and have discovered that I can do some overlay quilting if I want to, but don't have to.

Quilting plays a critical part in filling up the negative space.  When I made this quilt I was just beginning to venture into Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) and had only done simple stuff.  I was just easing out of the broken needles-shredded thread stage.  I had not educated myself regarding the importance of the right needle, the available threads or the critical need for them to work together.

TIP:  Take time to learn about threads and needles. BTW I am a staunch fan of Superior Threads.  They have excellent quality thread and many opportunities for education.  Subscribe to their newsletter, which always has a funny joke or story, in addition to valuable information, and of course, deals.

You saw this quilt in my post two weeks ago, but here it is again so you can look more critically at the finishing.

Reverie

I was eager to try my hand at feathers, so I gathered my books, pencil, eraser and tracing paper to create a design.  I never thought to look on the Internet for ideas on making my feathers artistic and interesting.  Below, you can see the feather design up close and personal.  That is all there is to it.  I look back and wish I could do something more interesting, but I was already stepping up to a new level.  I did it, my FMQ improved, and I felt really good about it at the time.  It filled the empty spaces.

Reverie Feathers

I was terrified of those feathers.  I knew I couldn't backtrack accurately so I designed the feathers in a way that avoided as much of that skill as possible.  My stitches are not perfectly even, which takes a lot of practice on a domestic sewing machine with no stitch regulator.  I had trouble stopping and starting again without making a jog to the side.  I had fused the appliqué flowers in the corners, but didn't know if I could quilt through the fusible because it was a little stiff.  I bit the bullet and did it anyway.   These challenges improved my FMQ immensely just because I was trying new things.

TIP:  Look at other blogs, show quilts, and Pinterest on ideas for quilting designs.  Go ahead, fly out of your comfort zone.  It is amazing what you can learn to do, but you have to start somewhere.  You will quickly forget your fear.

I am not much of an embellisher, but I went ahead and hand stitched gold Razzle Dazzle thread around the center motif, the spiral itself and the binding.

My quilt went on to win "Best Machine Workmanship" in the 2011 Hoffman Challenge, and has been shown across the country and in Ireland.  It has also been shown in some special exhibits.  I am soooo glad I braved the unknown and stepped into new territory.  Pick up a copy of the Dec/Jan issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine.  My essay about this quilt is in the column "300 Words."

BTW I am entering this quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival  in the Original Design category
this week.  Voting will be November 1.  You can also click the button on the right sidebar.

Spiral Quilt

When I first saw RaNae Merrill's book, "Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts" I was so fascinated that I bought a copy.  I didn't get inside it for awhile because I kept looking at the cover photo trying to figure out how she did that quilt (why open the book when it is such fun to challenge your brain to solve the problem).  I was so thrilled when I figured out that the basic design was nothing but a pentagon and triangle kaleidoscope that I immediately sat down and read the book.  During this time I went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival where the complete gallery of the Hoffman Challenge for that year was on display, and fell in love with the fabric for the next year's challenge.  It wasn't long before I delved into the design process for a spiral quilt and bought the challenge fabric to use in it.  The rest is history.

Although variations are possible it is probably easiest to start with a wedge 1/6th or 1/8th of a circle.  Draw some shapes on it and use a mirror to see if you like the repeated design...or decide on shapes you think you would like to fit into the wedge.  They do not have to be even, but these lines will be seams and you must be able to sew them together.

Basic outline of one 30º wedge

I know, I said to use a bigger basic wedge than the example above, but I never start out with the simplest possibility.  Two of these, side by side, will make 1/6th of a circle and the larger number of wedges increases the design possibilities.  The process is the same.  For this first spiral of mine I chose only two shapes because I saw them in the quilt on the book cover, and thus could visualize the potential results.  Illustrator is my software of choice.  You can draw your design on paper if you prefer.

The next step is to draw lines that create triangles within one of the shapes.  There are several ways to do this, but I started with the pentagon and used the "Pinwheel Spiral" as below.

Step 1 (fig 1):  After you have drawn the outline of the pentagon use a ruler and pencil or the pen tool in Illustrator to draw a straight line from point A to a point on line BC about 3/4"-1" from point B.  The chosen distance for that point does not have to be exact but 1" (give or take) is a good place to start for an entry level spiromaniac.  You can measure the distance or guess.

TIP:  The lines you draw within the pentagon shape create triangles.  If you are using the computer I recommend that you draw the complete triangle with the pen tool on a separate layer so that it can be filled with color later.  If you are drawing with pencil this is not necessary as you can color in the lines with your choice of coloring implements.

Step 2 (fig 2 & 3):  Next you draw another line from point B to a point on line CD about 3/4"-1" from point C.

Step 3 (fig 3):  Now go back to where the second line crosses the first line (red circle on Figure 2) and erase or adjust the line so it no longer crosses over the second line.

Step 4 (fig 4):  Continue in this manner until your drawing looks like Figure 4.

Step 5 (fig 5):  Second round.  Continue as you did for the first round, but place the first point at the intersection of the large end of a first-round triangle (red circles) and the second point 3/4"-1"  from the intersection of the first and second first-round triangles.  Erase the overlap as you did in step 3.

Continue in this manner, completing 2 or 3 more rounds as you work toward the center.

Look at that:  it is basically a Twisted Log Cabin!  If your pentagon's sides are equal and every triangle's broad end is the same measurement, then the center will also be a pentagon.  My centers are always wonky because my pentagons are not always equilateral and I don't measure my points precisely, but I rather like the quirkiness they give to a design that is otherwise so ordered.  The triangles do not have to be perfect, but the points must be in the right place and the large ends must lie on the line of the previous round.

Give this a try.  It is fun, and while you are at it, work the triangle piece at the lower part of the wedge and fill it in the same way.

TIP:  You are designing your own quilt.  There is nothing wrong with adapting an idea from someone else, but once you get the technique down, modify it to make it your own.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will continue with the process.  These quilts are beautiful, but they require spending design time, pattern prep time, and sewing time, so I will give you a few days to work out the basics as described here.