Lake Oahe Walleye - A Blogger's Quilt Festival Home Machine Quilting Entry

Amy at Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival 2016. She allows up to two entries, and I am sharing my second entry with you today. There are eleven categories, so go check out all of the amazing and inspiring entries, and find out how to win prizes. (Don't forget to vote!)

My entry for the Home Machine Quilting category is my Lake Oahe Walleye. Designed and made for my father-in-law,

I laughed, cried and swore over this thing. It was one of those quilts you felt you should bring to church and have them pray over after you had finished, or at least burn some incense. You know, just in case.

It kept me hopping all the way to the end, even to attaching the binding. I cut off a corner and had to rip the binding out, cut off the piece that now had a hole in it, sew in a new piece and *then* finish attaching the binding. 

You can kind of see the ripples around the legs of the bridge.

The bridge is my artistic interpretation of the bridge in Mobridge, South Dakota that crosses the Missouri river. I decided it would be easier to stitch most of the bridge and only used fabric in the larger areas. 

I used my walking for most of the bridge. 

Plus, lots of zig zags.

The sky is just one piece of fabric and I searched for a long time for quilting designs that would make you think of wind and sky and clouds. 

I used a couple fabrics for the water, and wanted to make sure that I was quilting water, not waves, but the movement of water. I think the movement shows up a little better from afar. 

I also put in some weeds at the bottom, a couple little minnows that didn't come out particularly well, and knots in the wood. 

I used some landscaping fabric that had bricks, but I also chose to quilt in some pebbles along the bottom. 

The walleye was composed of a few different fabrics, some of them I used the wrong side of the fabric, and then quilted to help make him look fishy. 

I've been told you can tell it's a walleye because of it's eye. I'm not sure if it's true, but I'll take it. 

The borders were a challenge, simply because I don't do a lot of quilting, and I felt that the borders should each be done differently. 

Border 1 and 5 ended up being quilted with the same pattern, though. They are a small 1" border, and I didn't have a lot of ideas for it. 

Border 2.

Border 4. I did more marking on this quilt then I had or have ever done. In fact, I never mark quilts, but this one was important. :)

It turned out better then I could imagine, which doesn't usually happen, things are always better in my head, and should probably stay there. Lake Oahe Walleye, though, was totally worth the tears, blood, sweat, goosebumps and joy. :)

Colors are more true in this picture, you just can't see the quilting as well.

Thank you for stopping by! Don't forget to visit the other entries and spread the love. 

New to PBJ? You may like to check out my Picked By Jen section and/or find out a little bit more about me here and here. I have a couple of free patterns, here, one that would be a quick sew if you need something for fall. My first entry is here. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy Stitching!

Jen

Frayed Edges ~ A Blogger's Quilt Festival Original Design Entry

 Amy at Amy's Creative Side is once again hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This is the first year I have joined in the fun, and I am entering my Frayed Edges pattern into the Original Design category.

Frayed Edges is one of those quilts that started off as one idea and then morphed into it's own beautiful self. I start all of my patterns on graph paper, so when I put them into my program, currently the old EQ5, I will find that the original design causes a much better second design, which then becomes THE design. In this instance, those half square triangles were actually in the middle of the block, but when the block was put into the program, they ended up framing the squares beautifully.

To see other colorways from my testers you can find the original post here.

When I sent the quilts to the photographer I had every intention of having the red quilt as the front cover quilt. I love the red, but the blue won out, simply because of the bright, crisp feeling it gave off.

My photographer, Kelly, is such a huge contributor to PBJ. She not only takes amazing photos, she also sews amazing clothes. You can find her here. She lugs around a million pounds of fabric, otherwise known as quilts, multiple days to multiple locations, just to grab the perfect shot to show off the quilt.

When the quilt is bigger then the chosen spot, or...

when the sun doesn't cooperate (as in, shines fully on the quilt when just moments before it was behind clouds), she will still get that perfect shot. She makes me look good. 

This quilt comes in three sizes: 56x74, 74x92, 84x111
The blue and white was quilted in an allover snowflake pattern, the red in a floral.
You can choose to fussy cut the center squares (as I did for the blue and white) or follow the strip piecing as I did for the red.

Make sure to go back and check out the other entries and vote for your favorite!


New to PBJ? You may like to check out my Picked By Jen section and/or find out a little bit more about me here and here. I have a couple of free patterns, here, one that would be a quick sew if you need something for fall. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy Stitching!
Jen