The Best Laid Plans….

The Modern Quilt Guild in late 2014 offered a quilt challenge using the Michael Miller Cotton Couture Spring 2015 Pastel solids.  The challenge was to use all of the colors in the Spring pastel line, the quilt had to be made of all solids, the design be predominantly Michael Miller Spring pastels and the full quilt to be made of Michael Miller fabrics.  Most of the bloggers and quilters I follow seemed to have a common reaction to the challenge.  “I don’t typically use pastels in my quilts” and “Reminds me of Easter egg colors!”  While I too don’t gravitate to pastels, my first thought was…’reminds me of winter!’

I do a lot of snow shoeing in the winter time. We live outside the city limits and have nearby access to State land with no marked trails or vehicle access.  We also have a black lab that lets it be known every Saturday as I try to sew, ‘it’s time for a walk!’.  When I saw the fabrics in the bundle it reminded me of the washed out colors I see in the winter, the opalescent colors of sun on fresh snow and the watery blue sky of the ‘dark’ part of winter, when we get barely 9 hours of daylight.  So pondering that theme I wondered what I could make from these pastels that would convey soft color and crisp winter.  Lucky for me, the day I was considering all this it was very cold.  Up in the sky was a sun dog.  I knew I had my idea!

For those of you who may not know what a sun dog is, a sun dog is a halo of frozen ice particles in the atmosphere that circles the sun.  A person only sees them when the upper atmosphere is very cold.  The bigger the sun dog, the colder the air.  On very, very, very cold, subzero days there are times I’ve seen them halo the sun and extend all the way down to the horizon where the bottom of the halo disappears.  When I see that I know I better put on my long johns! It’s going to be cold out there!

So then came the questions of how do I make a quilt with a Sun Dog as the main concept? I knew the sun dog had to be improvisationally pieced in some manner and it needed a source of light, a ‘sun’.  For the refracted light of the sun dog, I decided to create random sized triangles and diamonds made up of sliced and diced pastels and then arrange them in  a circle pattern.  The ‘made fabric’ would represent the rainbow of color you can see in a sun dog, colorful yet muted. 

But how should I make the sun?  I didn’t want a round shape and I didn’t want it yellow (even though that was one of the pastel colors I could work with).  That would be too typical and not fit the feel of the diamonds and triangles I was envisioning.  I settled on letting the quilting create a sun effect by doing matchstick quilting that would radiate out from the center of the quilt. Hopefully that would create a white star like shape in the middle and then I would  let the lines get further apart toward the edges of the quilt.  I knew quilting like this would be a challenge but I thought I could make it work.

I started the quilt in October. The deadline for submission was the end of November……no problem!  The quilt wasn’t going to be big, I had plenty of time.  Making the ‘made fabric’, triangles and diamonds took about a week of sewing.  Laying out the quilt top and piecing it took about another week.  Then I hit a road block, I needed more fabric.  No shop in town carried the line and at that time no shop in town carried Michael Miller Cotton Couture at all.  I had to order it.  I still felt I had plenty of time.  Once the fabric arrived I basted and started quilting.  Quilting took another week and to be honest, it wasn't turning out as I had hoped.  The 'star' was forming but the quilt was also starting to pull and pucker quite a bit per the matchstick quilting in the center and the wider quilting at the edges.  I knew that would happen some but didn't expect the amount I was seeing.  The Sunday before Thanksgiving I announced to my husband that I was done with the quilt and most likely would be cutting it up for something else.  I just wasn't working.

I put the quilt away to get ready for Turkey Day and enjoying our family home for the holiday.  While everyone was home, my daughters asked what I had been working on and I showed them the Sun Dog quilt. I told them of my plans to cut up the quilt and use it for pillows or something else. They both said they loved it the way it was and felt strongly I should finish it and try to block it flat.  Taking their advice into consideration I decided I would bind it after everyone left to return home on Sunday, November 30^th.  I would wash it, dry it, block it and submit it right under the wire….no problem!

Ah….the best laid plans of….what I didn't count on was on November 30^th I came down with something that felt very much like influenza……fever, chills, sore throat, aches, pains…you get the idea.  Needless to say the quilt did not get done in time to submit.  The virus I had, lasted through Christmas, which brings us to January.  After the holiday festivities were done and the decorations put away, I decided to bind and block the quilt.  To my amazement I was actually able to get it to lay somewhat flat!

While it is still not my favorite quilt, I have gotten quite a few compliments on it.  Also, like most of my self-designed quilts, I like the back of my quilt more than the front!  I need to take a lesson from that!

At any rate, here is my ‘Sun Dog’ quilt.  It is a hard quilt to photograph an the photo is a bit dark.   I hope you enjoy it!