Design Board Challenge

Periodically I mention the art group that I belong to, Sew Eclectic.  We meet once a month to share ongoing projects, and to encourage one another in pursuing our "art."  I will admit to being a designer.  I have much more difficulty calling myself an artist. 

I loved putting images together for my design board, covering it with pictures of things that inspire me.  However the challenge this year is to use someone else's inspiration as a jumping off point to make a quilt. 

The first board I received in December was Sara Kelly's.  It is covered with pictures taken by her husband Gary O'Neill, (many of them in black and white), and inspirational thoughts from various creative minds.  hmmm.  It has lived in my Studio for so long, it feels like mine.  :)  And yet I had trouble acting upon the inspiration.

Maybe I'm stuck in a river rut, but it was the photo of the river that immediately caught my eye.

 It was all orange and blue.  Not colors that I usually work with.

I wanted to do something free-flowing, that gave the "feel" of the photo, rather than trying to realistically replicate it in fabric.  I was about 50% successful.  I drew my pattern on Thursday morning, cut the fabric Thursday evening, and sewed it together Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday morning.  I spent 7 hours working on it yesterday, and still need to quilt the grey rock in the top left corner.

still piecing:

 after quilting:

The bottom picture shows it hanging at last night's reveal.

Now here's what I call inspiration:

The Design Boards (along the table):

 The resulting pieces (minus the iris in the center):

It is exciting to see what my friends are making.  I am hoping that once the quilt show has come and gone I will have more time/inclination to devote to this endeavor.  I think I could get a lot out of it, but like anything else, you only get as much out of it as you're willing to put into it.

And on that, I need to go work on the quilt show.

Happy quilting!

P.S.  I think this project may have been my last week's goal?  I got close to finishing, I definitely got close.  This week's goal?  Gotta get the BOTV program together and off to the printer.  And make name badges, and get the BOTV blog rewritten and up and running and...well, it's going to be all quilt show, all the time.  Hopefully I'll have a minute or two to come up for air.  See you then!