No Girls Allowed Quilt Bee 2 – Round Six
It’s been quite a long while since I had a post about the No Girls Allowed Quilt Bee. That’s mainly because I haven’t had a NGAQB quilt to work on in my hot little hands. Well that changed a few weeks ago, and you better believe I got gayly forward to working on it! This creation was started by Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios. Different members of the group have contributed various bits and bobs, but the latest was by John Q. Adams. When I received the quilt from him, I knew he wouldn’t mind if I took my rotary cutter to parts of his work.
“Gasp!” I hear some of you declare. Go on, clutch those pearls, but I know John can take it. You see, when I read Scott’s brief, he mentioned wanting the quilt to be mostly blue and green with the red acting as an accent colour. He also wanted traditional improvisation (kind of an oxymoron, but we’ll run with it), with the key phrase that caught my eye the most, “Virgin Islands.” As soon as I read that and looked at the quilt with this information, I couldn’t stop seeing an aerial view of an island community.
His original diamond shape and the linen cross forming a town square, with each scrappy layer beyond forming some sort of natural boundary: thatched huts, mountains, trees, jungle growth. Do you see it? So I went kind of literal, and turned the whole thing into an island by chopping off the corners and surround it with more Essex linen to act as sandy beach. I then used scrappy log cabins in blue to represent the ocean and waves licking the sandy beach. A bit of traditional with a touch of improvisation.
I wanted to give a gentle curve to to that long seam between the water and beach, but I could tell the quilt was already suffering from bias shifting. Better to try and lock it in place with some structure than to add more curves at this stage. Besides, I know Nicholas Quilts From the Attic Ball is an improv master and will undoubtedly take my intentions and flip them on their head. I have fears about going way too literal with my interpretation, so hopefully Scott will appreciate some of the scrappy beauty at least!
You did it! Traditional with improv but slice and dice worked. Bravo!!
You have guts Molli. I don’t always like the results when I rotary cut stuff like recently when I squared up a block which lost me the lovely sharp points off my maple leaf. But you have the gift of translation. A deep connection from your brain to the fabric
Great cut and reassemble! I really like to participate in a round robin where it is ok to cut into the work passed to me rather than just having to add a chunk to an edge. Please post the finished top once all of your buds have put their fingers and cutters on it. @susansquiltstudio