Project Quilting Season 8 - Texture

I can't believe we are already in to February and challenge 3 of Project Quilting Season 8.  This weeks challenge was Texture.  Such a fun challenge that made me look for inspiration all around. 

My inspiration came from a few things.  On my sewing desk sits a Rubik's cube and an Alexander's Star.  The Alexander's Star has a great shape, with triangles facing all different directions.  These triangles look so much like flying geese.  Also, this week, I was making draft socks and filling them with ground walnut shells.  The texture reminded me of the sand on the beach.  Once these two came together my idea began to form.  

I pulled a background fabric that reminded me of mornings on the beach with the sun sparkling off the sand and pebbles sprinkled in.  For the colors of my geese I turned to my collection of sea glass.  I love the different shades of teals and blues that I have collected, even some green and white can be found in my jars.  

I began to build my mini quilt, starting with paper piecing curving and growing geese from my own patterns.  It is as if the sea glass geese are coming out of the sand.  

To add more texture to the sand I decided on a small stipple for the quilting.  Giving the feeling of the beach when the water recedes and a light texture remains on the wet sand.   

This Sea Geese mini quilt measures 19" x 21".  All the fabrics in it are batik, they add just the right amount of texture and variation to the colors that make them perfect for this mini.

Sea Geese
19" x 21"
Batik fabrics
cotton batting
Created in Lanoka Harbor, NJ

I just love how it looks through the back of the quilt with the sun shining, like stained glass. 

Modern Mini Completed!

So happy to say that I have finally completed my Modern Mini Quilt!  When I saw that Ellison Lane Quilts was having a modern mini challenge I had to jump on board and design one of my own.  I came up with this.

By the bridge that crosses the Cedar Creek at
Double Trouble State Park.

Now I decided to take the word challenge literally and go all out on this mini!  This mini quilt is made with hand appliqued hexagons  that I made out of quilters lame with paper templates.  Each hexagon is a different color.

Under the bridge.

After I hand stitched the hexagons on I decided to hand quilt the entire thing.  I began by stitching around the hexagons and then moved out in concentric lines, almost like ripples in water.  (I have a slight obsession with water!)  The stitching was done with a light pink pearl cotton.  (Did I mention that I love pink too?)

A nice up close of around the hexagons.

It took me a few days to complete the hand stitching and my goodness I am not sure if I will do this much of it again.

I bound this quilt with the quilters lame in the darker pink that I used as one of the hexagons.

A good closeup of the corner with the stitching. 

The backing is the same kona cotton in white that I used for the front and I used 100% cotton batting.  The finished size is 19.75" x 22.5". I added little tabs in the corners of the back to make it east to hang.

Hanging on an old building at Double Trouble State Park

Once it was all completed I decided that I just had to take the pictures by the water so I headed to the park and had some fun and almost dropped it in the creek at one point (and it is cedar water so that would have been very very bad!).  I'm not sure if you can tell that I had a lot of fun taking pictures of it at the park.

I think that this shows the stitching nicely.  

So now I will be linking up the the Modern Mini Challenge.  Go over and take a look at all the amazing quilts that were designed for this challenge!

Edit:  I am also linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.  More quilty goodness to admire!