Red and White

Happy New Year!

And down to business--time to catch up with some recent projects that couldn't be shown right away when they were finished...

One of the Milwaukee Art Quilters' 2011 challenges was Red and White. Probably half the quilting groups in the world played with this idea, in the wake of Infinite Variety, the spectacular red and white quilt show at the American Folk Art Museum in New York last spring. In our challenge, the theme could be expressed in any way, leaving media and technique wide open. Here was an idea I could get excited about! The finished quilts were due at the group's November 2011 meeting.

I knew my quilt would be pieced, and as the finished quilt could have a perimeter of no more than 120 inches, it would be smallish, so I could do some fairly detailed piecing. I've long been a fan of this pattern,

but knew the pattern as it existed made blocks that were way bigger than I wanted.

So, using the pattern sketch as my jumping off point, I drafted several different sawtoothy blocks in Electric Quilt for paper piecing and set to work.

Paper piecing is no one's favorite thing, but as a means to an end it has its value. The end I was shooting for was crisp points, and there would have been no way to successfully negotiate piecing the long triangles otherwise.

And that's a lesson I learned the hard way, but that's another story.

So paper piecing it was, and it was fun using stripes and other red and white prints from the stash to chop things up visually.

Once the blocks were made, I played with layouts and configurations,

finally settling on a setup that pleased me. Paper pieced blocks assemble very nicely, but then comes the character-building penance of ripping all that paper off the back. And it was typing paper...

Once the papers were removed, the quilting was quick and dirty, with red rayon thread.

All done:

Details:

Name: Redrum

Made for: 2011 Milwaukee Art Quilters' Red and White Challenge

Dimensions: 24" X 36"

Made from: 100% cotton

Batting: 80/20 cotton/poly

Quilting thread: 30 weight rayon.