do you like a challenge?

I do! I find if I have a challenge, I'm more inclined to try something new, or different colours, and I'm also more inclined to actually finish a project!

My quilt guild has a summer challenge each year. This past May we were given the following pictures, told to pick one, and then pull all the fabrics in our stash that matched those colours. I picked the winter scene with the blues, greens, cream and a bit of pink, and pulled out my fabrics. At the end of June we were given the next directions - make a quilt, any size greater than or equal to 9 blocks, 10" finished, using the Shoo Fly block and the Chain and Knot Variation block. We were given a diagram that we could copy and then colour in until we arrived at something we liked. The idea is to bring your finished top to our first meeting in September.

(sorry, picture quality is not great!)

I have EQ6, so I decided to play with my colour variations on there. That is so much fun! I'll never get anywhere near making all the quilts I "design" with it. However, I did come up with an arrangement that I liked for this project, and this week I've put it together. Here is the top all laid out

and here are a couple of pictures of it all sewn together. I'm pretty pleased with how it has turned out.

But, I had set myself a commitment that if I was going to work on this one, I had to get last year's Summer Challenge quilted for the same September meeting!

It is a very colourful quilt compared to this years, and I wanted to try some free motion quilting on it. I have Valori Wells' "Radiant New York Beauties" book and I used that as inspiration for some of my quilt designs. I've done some free motion in the past, but this is definitely my biggest project to date.
So far, I'm liking what I've got. I've only had to pick out two areas that just were not working for me and try a different design. I also need to make sure I take lots of breaks as I'm quilting as I get very tensed up, and the stitching gets jerky. Practise! and lots of it, to follow. Or maybe I just need to pour myself a big glass of wine???

Here are some pictures of my progress.

I'm hoping that I will have this finished by the end of the weekend, and then lets see What Comes Next!

Happy quilting!