Stackaderm, A Quilt that Never Forgets

To be honest, even though I came up with the challenge for the Project QUILTING Retreat weekend, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to make for the challenge. Part of what helped was that my friend Trish was in possession of the coloring books we used to inspire us for the applique portion of the challenge.  She brought the coloring books – Piece O’ Cake Designs – Whimsical Designs, Getta Grama – Swirling Designs, and Bethany Nicole Pease – Doodle Designs.  Without knowing that portion, it was hard to really think about what I wanted to do.  I had instructed the retreat attendees to pack an addition 5 to 6 fat quarters to go with the fabric we’d already be providing. I did the same.  These are the random fat quarters I picked  … I guess I found 8 – it’s really hard to leave 99.5% of your fabric stash at home when you have no idea what you’re making!!! After I helped anyone who needed it get started, I started to flip through the coloring books.  As soon as I saw the drawings of the elephants I knew I wanted to draw three of them.  I still wasn’t’ sure how I was going to work it into a quilt though. I started to think of other challenges I had to do.  My local guild is having a ‘modern log cabin’ challenge.  I pinterested (yes – it is now a verb) the idea of a modern log cabin around a bit.  I had JUST done two quilts last year where I modernized the log cabin – Modern Log Cabin and Propelled Pixels – how would I do it again? And then I saw it – the Pineapple block!  It’s a form of the log cabin!  I can do that.  So I did.  With my own twist.  I made three strip strata for each of the ‘pineapples’ around.  It was fun seeing how my randomly chosen fabric came together to create fabulous blocks!  And here’s the second block …AAnd the third block … the one thing I tried to keep constant in all the blocks was the black fabric with leaves always frames the elephants I drew.  Now it was decision time – how should I piece these together? I did make a fourth block … just in case I wanted to go with a square layout … Or maybe I wanted to piece them horizontally into an ‘Elephant Parade’.  But … the Stack of Elephants won the contest.  And soon after the name of the quilt came … ‘Stackaderm’. It was time to quilt!  I had brought along Angela Walter’s book ‘Shape by Shape Quilting’ and wow – did that help!  I broke my pineapple’s into triangles and went at her!Once the quilting was done I had to embellish – so I glued on some little square mirror tiles. It was the perfect final touch! And here it is!  ‘Stackaderm’ – started and finished in less than 46 hours at the Project QUILTING Retreat! I just have to note that it’s common knowledge that at a quilt retreat, “What happens at the retreat, stays at the retreat” but this ‘Stackaderm’ quilt ‘will never forget’ all the fun we had!

Linking up to TGIF Friday, Finish It Up Fridays, WIDTW, LAFF, Creative Goodness Party, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, and Fabric Frenzy Friday