With the Modern Quilt Guild Michael Miller fabric challenge over, congratulations to our members who pulled together some fabulous quilted pieces by the deadline of 25 July. However the biggest shout out goes to Kim Simpson who made the final 9, as selected by the Modern Quilt Guild. So while she didn’t make the lucky group of 3, who win a year of free fabric, this is a magnificent achievement, particularly since Kim took the place of a member who could not meet the deadline, and whipped up her fabulous quilt “Squadron” in less than a month.
We asked Kim to tell us about her entry and having to meet a very tight deadline:
‘Originally I planned to make a quilt using all of the challenge fabrics with a lot of grey negative space and improv piecing. I didn’t like all of the fabrics as I find multi coloured fabrics difficult to use in a modern quilt. I chose to keep the coral and the grey print as they were strong, and to adhere to a limited palette. The navy and white are Riley Blake solids and I have a lot of these to hand so I could play and not worry about running out.
I use EQ7 quilting software which makes it so easy to choose, re-size, colour and rearrange blocks as much as I like. I decided on the Flying Goose block fairly quickly as triangles are a theme I’m enjoying at the moment (I’m sure in a few months it will be something else). I decided on the block size based on the most efficient use of the grey print for the middle triangle. The coral is such a great contrast with the navy; it was perfect forthe pop of colour that was needed. Using white as the background/negative space gave the quilt the clean graphic look that says ‘modern’ to me.
The short timeframe actually worked well for me as I had no time to second- guess myself. I finished the binding 2 hours before the cut-off time; I was very glad of the time difference! I received an email from Jen Carlton-Bailey of the MQG at 2am on the 30thJuly …I did not go back to sleep! I was really surprised to make the top nine, and as I didn’t even expect that, not making the top 3 wasn’t a disappointment. The 3 that won are wonderful quilts and are well deserved winners.
The blocks are 10 inches square and the quilt measures 60.5 x 60.5 inches. It is quilted with vertical lines spaced 1.5 inches apart and the binding is machine sewn. The backing is Widescreen in Grey by Carolyn Friedlander.’
Once again, well done Kim.