Waterfront Park Bunk Quilt

You have heard of “planned over” Vs. “left over” meals? Well, this is a planned over quilt. When I was shopping the Waterfront Park collection (by Violet Craft for Michael Miller) for the Bridge Challenge last year, two ideas were forming. 1. I was buying more of the required challenge fabric than I would use because I hadn’t settled on the design yet. 2. I loved the “Bridgetown” print, but couldn’t see it in the challenge bridge quilt.

So I bought “Bridgetown,” “Flight,” and “Domino Dot” in navy, planning to use it with whatever left over fabric I had after completing the challenge quilt, supplementing from stash if need be.

 

The navy blue large pieces above are “Bridgetown” (all of Portland’s bridges) and “Domino Dot” (in honor of the domino games played in the park); the red bird print on white is “Flight.” The fourth design is “Reflections.” From the many color choices (and variations of dark on light) I narrowed my needs to teals and reds for the bridge challenge, thinking they would also go well with the navy “extra.”

I cut the “Bridgetown” fabric into four repeats and used them as if they were a panel; adding a square to get from WOF to the needed 50-inch width was easy. Next came the checkerboard. To cut squares and arrange or plan on graph paper? Since I had some large pieces and would prefer to have left overs in large pieces, I decided to work with graph paper.

50 x 70

 

It took several plans to accommodate the colors in hand. Or I should say to deal with absence of colors. I didn’t have nearly enough red for most ideas, and also was short on navy “flight” and “domino dot” for some. So I opted for clustering with a wee bit of red in the blue section and dark in the lighter red section in an attempt to unify the whole.

This is the second of the three planned bunk quilts for the guild’s camp project (first is here). On to planning the third, then quilting both.

I’ll be linking with Le Challenge–January’s challenge was Dots–and Oh Scrap! for the portion that was made from left overs/planned overs. And yes, even though there wasn’t enough for a couple of my ideas, there are scraps left for another project. I’ll be mixing them in with my other scraps rather than continuing to work with a single line. No immediate plans for them. And Let’s Bee Social.

Advertisement

Bridge Time

Another one of those “plenty of time” projects rears up to say, “No longer.” Back in July the Portlan- Bridges-Now challenge was announced, and soon after, the required fabric became available. Here is the fabric I selected from Violet Craft’s Waterfront Park line. I had sunset thoughts in mind when I made the selections. One idea abandoned.

My Selections

The challenge requires me to use half a yard from the line, recent instructions indicate of one of the fabrics. There is no size restriction for the quilt, but it will have to be large enough to handle a half yard of one of these. (I had interpreted it as allowing us to select from the whole line when I was shopping and doing initial planning.) And the quilt needs to be inspired by one of Portland’s bridges and be modern.

My first step was to observe and photograph my bridge of choice, the Hawthorne Bridge. (photos here); the second was to start sketching. When I put it away, I thought I had a sketch and a plan.

I had decided that the red weights and the arches were the distinguishing features of the bridge. I had no intention of attempting photographic realism. The red domino dot would go in the upper X for the weight and the red and salmon bubble print in the lower X for the reflection. The arch would be made with the aqua and black line print and the reflection with the aqua bubbles.

When I got the sketch out, I didn’t like its top anymore. (It was only the two Xs.)  I added the supports and the pulleys at the top and was only a little bit happier with it. The main problem was that I was slipping more toward realism than abstraction.

So I’m allowing myself a couple days to redesign, then I’ll get to cutting and stitching.

Did I mention that it is due April 1? I guess that clarifies my goal for March. Not always this easy. Set goals and check out other goal setting and accomplishing at Dezertsuz‘s blog.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and later in the week Off the Wall Friday (button in sidebar)