Wooly Bear ++ Quilt Finish

I am happy to share my last QuiltCon entry today, Wooly Bear.  Wooly Bear is my entry into the Michael Miller Challenge category.

For the challenge, we were given fat eighths of four fabrics, three Hastdot prints and a peach colored Cotton Couture solid.  We had to create a quilt using using at least two of the given Hashdot prints and the peach solid in the quilt top and binding, but in addition to these fabrics we could also add other Hashdot print colors and any other Cotton Couture solids.

When I started to play around with the colors in designs, I could easily make all of the Hastdot prints work well together, but the peach was throwing me for a loop.  It just did not seem to fit in with the other colors (I think that in real life the peach is a little less bright and a little more pink than in the photo above).

None of my ideas were working until I thought to incorporate in an even brighter orangey color.  I added in the Cotton Couture lava and that seemed to calm the peach down in comparison.  I then added in some black just for a little contrast and depth.  I wound up not using the turquoise hashdot print.

I knew that I wanted to create an almost floating image and incorporate some curves into the design.  After playing around in EQ, I had my block design.

I first pieced random sized strips together on the diagonal and trimmed them down to 12 ½" square.  Then I added Drunkard's curves to two of the opposing corners.

Oreo "helping" me quilt

Once the quilt top was complete, I got to move on to the quilting.  For the background, I used a combination of large pebbles, teardrops, and elongated swirls using a matching Aurifil thread in 50 wt.  This was my first time ever using wool batting and I was really happy with how puffy all of the quilted shapes were.  I used Tuscany 100% Wool Batting by Hobbs and it basted and quilted wonderfully.

My initial thought for the pieced sections was to have dense straight lines echoing the seam lines within the blocks.  After doing half a block though, it was not turning out well.  The ruler work was causing some tucks and it was looking messy.  After a bunch of un-sewing, I tried again using a dense, small scale bear claw.

I used a lime green Aurifil thread in 50wt for the pieced sections (that matched the lime green hashdot print), which looked decent on all of the different fabrics in the pieced areas.

For the backing, I used some acid lime green Cotton Couture fabric.  For such wild colors on the front, I had to go equally as bold for the back :)  After quilting, the quilt measured 53" x 57".

Thanks for stopping by, I'll let you know if the quilt is accepted or not.