Modern Mystery Quilt and good news!

Last fall, the  American Quilter's Society in their weekly OnPoint emagazine had a weekly Modern Mystery Quilt designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  I have always wanted to try my hand in the modern quilt movement (which I really think of as more of a minimalist look) so I downloaded the pattern dutifully every week. I did not start cutting and sewing until after I had all 6 weeks in hand.  Yeah, it is kinda like reading the last page of a novel to see how it ends before you start the book (I don't do that!).  But I will say that I had decided from the get go that I wanted to use a light grey as my background or field fabric (as they say in the modern movement) and I wanted to use soft blues and greens, something that looks like sea glass (or what this prairie girl thinks sea glass should look like!)

I had a lot of fun playing with the colors in this quilt!  I also amassed a large number of aquas! Having recently taken a class with Susan Cleveland and learned her Piping Hot
Curves technique, I decided to add red piping to my circles to make them pop!  I think of the circles as portholes!

 

My first thought was to use the open areas to do some intricate quilting.  But the quilt was telling me it wanted something different.  As you can see, I decided to do a sun-type pattern in the circles, with small circles in the central axis.  The rest of the quilt was quilted with long meandering sinewy lines to give the impression of rain trickling down a window!

On to the good news!  I entered two quilt in the Midwest Heritage Quilt Show at the Vermilion County Museum.  This is a judged show that runs the month of July at the museum in Danville, IL.  My miniature "Pieced Baskets" won a first place ribbon!  This quilt was started in a class that I took with Sally Collins. 

Sedona Joy, which was a 2012 Block of the Month through The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, won a second place ribbon! The original quilt was designed by Sarah Vedeler.  After month 6, I started changing up her design.  I had some issues with the set in seams, which then translated into trouble with getting it to lay flat for the quilting.  I am eager to see the judge's comments!