Shoulda Putta Ring On It

Hooray! Last night, my quilt was selected as one of the 8 quilts from our guild to be entered in the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge! We had awesome participation this year...there were SEVENTEEN quilts entered!

The theme of this challenge was REPETITIVE CONSEQUENCES. The quilt had to have a repeating design element that was 'changed' in some way...shape, size, color, orientation, etc. Size requirements allowed no single side to exceed 60" but the quilt had to measure 180" around the perimeter.








I have been working on this for months and was SO excited when I finally was able to sew on the label!




However, I later found out I wasn't finished after all! But more on that later...






First, I'll talk about the design process.




Last November at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, I found a couple of fabrics in Wendy Richardson's booth that were the starting point for my quilt. One is this fabric used for the binding, as well as another one with 'dots' on it that was eventually used across the top and botton. Then as I shopped, I continued to buy fabrics that would blend with these first two.





Also in Houston, I found a Balipop (from Hoffman) in the colorway 'Spumoni' that had MANY colors in it, and I loved the way it blended with my inspiration pieces. This was a collection of batik strips that were 2.5" wide and the width of the fabric...about 44". I folded these strips and arranged them as if blocks, playing with the placement until I liked the design.

But these are only 2.5" wide. I hated the idea of cutting these beautiful fabrics up even smaller. I wanted to find a design that allowed me to use these strips as larger pieces.






I wondered if adding black might be a good idea. I put some scraps on the pieces and liked the way the black made the colors 'pop'. So my plan was solidified!




I cut two pieces from each strip and sandwiched a narrow black strip between them. This became my basic block.







Then I rotated every other block 90 degrees. This made it look like the blocks were weaving over and under each other. Perfect! The over and under of weaving is a great example of repetitive consequences!

The Balipop had 40 strips in it, and I decided that wasn't enough...I wanted MORE blocks. so I went back to the stash of fabrics I had picked up in Houston...there was a bundle of golds from WEBFabrics.com that would be perfect. Also, I went to my stash...finding a few batik scraps as well as a couple of hand-dyed pieces. This enabled me to 'grow' the quilt.

But it still needed a border. I found a piece locally that was just right. It wasn't what I went in looking for, but it ended up being better than what I thought I wanted! This batik had many colors in squiggles and circles, but was light overall.




I needed to press the seams in such a way as to NOT create bumps at the intersections. The seam allowances were pressed in opposite directions and opened at the block corners.










I added the border pieces, including a strip across the top and bottom of the original 'inspiration' fabric...the dots. This one was not included up the sides; it was supposed to be like wood frame at the top and bottom of a woven piece.




Just to continue the illusion of the weaving, I included strips of the black on the sides, curving from one row to the next.
These were not sewn down initially...just inserted into the seam between the border and the blocks.










I also inserted strips between the blocks and border at the top and bottom. At the top, I left gaps in the seam so that I could quilt the border that would be under the strips without having to dodge the strips.














I folded the black strips at the top downward to quilt the squiggly border, then inserted them into the seam gaps before quilting the top (dotted) border piece.



At the bottom the strips were just left hanging.









When it came to sewing on the binding, I had to spread it over a couple of days, because my hand began to throb! 180" inches may not seem like much, but wait until you try sewing that! Or maybe I am a wimp, because I don't do much hand sewing (or at least, I TRY not to !).










Well, a couple of days before this was to be turned in, I found out that I had NOT put enough info on my label. So rather than rip off the one I had already done, I made an additional label to cover the other one. For the guild presentation, we are supposed to cover our name anyway (so the voting will be 'blind') so this served that purpose also. Additionally, the quilt had to have a name, and I had just named mine the same as the challenge. So I created an different name and put the additonal info on this new label that is closed with a hook and eye.





The new label opens to reveal the name of our guild and the town we live in, as well as revealing the orignial label.
















This is the back of the quilt. This batik fabric came from our local JoAnn store.

















Ya know, it is so funny... Everyone who has seen this quilt comments on the rings. I put all this work into the design and construction, yet they love the rings! They were the easiest part!

The rings were also found at JoAnn Fabrics. I didn't paint them...they came this way. I just hand-sewed the black strips through the rings.













Here is a little of the quilting I did on this. I'll show more details in a future post...this one is getting quite long!


















My finished quilt, 'SHOULDA PUTTA RING ON IT'.

And, yeah, that song has been stuck in my head a lot lately!!!




To see pictures of ALL 17 of the submitted quilts, visit my album.