Pop Rocks - QuiltCon Michael Miller Challenge Quilt

Update:  I am happy to report that I released a pattern for Pop Rocks and it is available in my shop in both Digital and Printed Formats.

The deadline for entries to QuiltCon 2018 was last night and I was happy to be able to get my challenge quilt finished and entered in time.

I made a quilt I cam calling Pop Rocks for the Michael Miller challenge.  The challenge was to create a quilt using at least two of the prints from the Our Yard collection by Sarah Campbell for Michael Miller Fabrics along with any Cotton Couture solids.  My idea was to create a "pop" with the Our Yard prints on a monochromatic, minimalist black and white quilt.

The design began in my head as more of a quarter Dresden plate design with the curves going in random directions.  From idea to actual construction, I moved to more of a paper pieced curve design (which had way too many pieces per block) to finally a template based design using curved piecing.

I played around with the design in EQ8 until I was happy with the blocks and the placement of the Our Yard prints and then I set to work making the quilt.  Here are some in progress pictures as the quilt came together...

After the blocks were sewn together, I added a black border to help ground the blocks and extend the black negative space around the design.  The quilt top measured about 43" x 51".  I used Warm & White batting (by the Warm Company) for this quilt, I find that quilts made with batting hang really well.

I took a long time to figure out how to quilt this quilt and finally decided that straight lines would play with all of the curves in the blocks really well.  I started out creating 3 chunks of straight lines, with the lines within each chunk having varied spacing (shown in red).

Then I echoed the chunks with more randomly spaced lines (shown in green).  

I used a medium gray Aurifil thread in 50 wt (#1158) which showed up enough to give impact but also blended somewhat with both the white and black fabrics.  

I even was able to use up all of the extra Our Yard fabric in the pieced back (you can see the quilting a little more on the back too)...

Overall, I am happy out how the quilt turned out and especially how the yellow fabric pops against all of the whites, grays, and blacks.  I hope that Pop Rocks gets into QuiltCon 2018, I'll let you know :)

Have you submitted a quilt to QuiltCon?

Quilt Stats:

   Name: Pop Rocks

   Size: 41" x 53"

   Design: Original by me

   Fabrics: Our Yard by Sarah Campbell and Cotton Couture, both by Michael Miller

   Batting: Warm & White by the Warm Company

   Thread: Aurifil 50wt white 2021 for piecing, Aurifil 50wt medium gray 1158 for quilting

   Quilting Design: Randomly spaced straight lines in multiple directions

Here are some professional photographs by Amy Garro of Quilt Photography Co.