Modern In the City Challenge Quilt

All during March I was frantically hand-quilting a twin size quilt that I can't show you yet, because it is associated with a book that is not yet published.  If you think frantically and hand-sewing are mutually exclusive, you are right.  Or at least they should be.  I forced them to go together and it was stressful.
Anyway, after I finished that beast of a project, I had about three days to meet a deadline for a challenge sponsored by my guild.  The theme was Modern in the City, which we were free to interpret any way we wanted.  The quilt had to be 36" on one side and 36" or less on the other.  Most excitingly, select quilts submitted for this challenge would be displayed at the International Quilt Festival in June!  All the quilts from our guild ended up being selected for the show.  So I'm going to have my first quilt hanging in a quilt show!  Very exciting.

I had a few ideas for this challenge, but went with the one that was simplest because I only had a couple of days to work on it.  I used this photo of my kids as inspiration.
Here is my artist's statement:
"One beautiful summer day in 2011, I was in Chicago with my family. We watched some friends play softball and then we walked to a restaurant for lunch. Somewhere in between, I don't know exactly where, we passed a colorful brick wall. I made my two boys pose for pictures in front of it. I loved the colors, individually and as a group, and I loved how randomly they seemed to be placed. I still have those pictures and I adore them. When I heard the theme, "Modern in the City," these colorful bricks immediately came to mind. They are emblematic of the fact that, for modern quilters, inspiration abounds in a city. There are patterns, shapes, and interesting lines at every turn. A day spent in the city with a keen eye and a camera could yield dozens of quilt ideas. I chose this brick wall as mine because the colors are bold and fun, and because it reminds me of such a happy day with my family.
For my quilting design, I chose a modern Chicago symbol, Cloud Gate sculpture, which is lovingly referred to as The Bean. I love the way the Bean draws people from all over the city and even the world. Its simple, smooth shape made for a pleasing concentric quilting design. I also like the way the curved lines contrast with the straight lines of the piecing."
Even though this little quilt was easy to whip up, I love how it turned out.  I think it's very striking.  I love the bean quilting!  Probably my favorite quilting I have done so far.  I hand-sewed a little skyline in the middle of the bean, too, which is a sweet little detail.  I can't wait to go to the International Quilt Festival with my guild friends and see our quilts displayed.

Winter mini quilt

I'm working on a series of mini quilts, to hang in our entryway, that I will change with the seasons.  The first one I made was for Christmas.

In early January I made a mini quilt that represented Winter.

I was working, again, with Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking II.  I settled on what she calls "the exquisite block".  Basically a square or rectangle base, with triangles pieced onto the diagonal points.  When the blocks are joined together, you end up with a series of little bowties or butterflies, or however you want to see it.

My goal for this piece was to portray the starkness of winter by using lots of white and pale, cool blues and greys.  I also wanted to express the warmth that we cling to during these long months, the warmth we find within ourselves, in the company of family and friends, or quite literally the warmth of our physical homes.  I added the golden yellow blocks and some yellow triangles emanating out from it to represent the warmth and light that keeps us hanging on until spring.

I quilted it with a series of zigzag lines, emanating out from the bottom right corner, to emphasize the placement of the yellow blocks.

 I think it all works.  I'm happy with it!  My only complaint is that it doesn't quite lay flat against the wall, no doubt because of some technical error on my part.  Oh well.

A couple of weeks ago I got to present this during Show and Tell at my guild meeting, and Gwen Marston was in attendance, as she presented a lecture and trunk show for us that day.  It was really an honor to show her my work, and I was able to chat with her after the meeting.  The afternoon as a whole was probably the greatest highlight of my quilting life so far.