It's Year 11 for Project Quilting!

For those of you who aren't familiar with Project Quilting, it is a challenge that has been run by Kim Lapacek for the last 10 years.  The idea is to make a project that meets the given criteria in one week’s time. Yep, one week!  From inception to completion, you have 7 days.  Some people do whole quilts, some do wall hangings, pot holders, mug rugs, etc.  Size isn’t important; the finished project is.  The project needs to fit with the weekly theme and has to meet the guidelines given by Kim: “Your project does not need to be a traditional quilt, but must meet at least one of these requirements: include patchwork, include appliqué, have 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine.”

There are 6 separate weekly challenges, and each has a different theme.

I won’t go into all the details here, but if you want more information, follow this link: https://kimlapacek.com/project-quilting

The thing I like the most about Project Quilting (besides the prizes, of course ^.^) is the fact that it happens at the beginning of the year, after all the hustle and bustle of the holidays.  It helps to brighten up those dark cold days of winter. 

This is my second year of participating, and I only wish that I had found out about it earlier.  I really enjoy the creative challenge that it presents.  You can read about my participation in last years’ event by looking at my earlier blog posts.  Don’t worry, they will be easy to find, since I haven’t blogged since the last challenge of PQ 10.  Yeah, I know.  My bad….

This year’s first challenge (a.k.a. PQ 11.1) is Notably Numeric.  The project has to 'feature numbers, counting, or mathematics in its theme or implementation.'

I only had a couple of days to get this first challenge done because the normal weekly activities are starting up now that the holidays are over. I also had to get the Christmas decorations down and put away, since we have some work being done on the house today (Wednesday) and the tree was in the way. So yesterday was spent getting everything Christmas-y back in the boxes and putting them back in the attic. On top of that, it just so happened that last weekend and this coming one are work trips for my husband, and I am traveling with him.  We left Thursday and came back Sunday evening last week, and the same schedule holds for this week.  That basically left one day for me to figure out what I wanted to do and to get it done. 

Because of those time constraints, I decided that I was going to have to make a small project.  I wanted something that would be useful, so I settled on a potholder.  My potholders are getting kind of grungy and worn. Washing them didn’t do much to change that, so a potholder it is!

What I really wanted to do was make a spidron quilt, but realized that 1.)  I would not have enough time to do it justice, and 2.) One with reasonably sized pieces would end up way to big to be a potholder!  I learned about spidrons from Cindy McCoy, who is the founder of The Quilt Pattern Magazine.  She used to have a website called Quilt Campus, and that is where I first learned about these complex mathematical shapes. She also published a pattern called Dragon Tails in the February 2013 issue of the Quilt Pattern Magazine which used the concept.

  

The word spidron was coined by Dániel Erdély, who was the first one to describe these unique flat geometric figures. There is an article in Wikipedia which gives a good overview of this fascinating subject.  It is also where I found this image.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spidron

 As I said, I realized that I didn’t have enough time to make a spidron quilt, even though it fit the challenge perfectly, and I’ve had it on my bucket list for quite awhile.  So on to Plan B.

Another pattern that has been on my bucket list is a quilt pattern that has interlocking plus signs.  Plus signs = arithmetic = numbers!   I tried to draw them out on graph paper, but kept getting stuck after two rows.  I knew that it could be done, but just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.  Off to the treasure trove of all information – the internet! I found quite a few examples and quickly sketched out a couple of ideas. 

Some of the examples of plus sign quilts that I found were made with charm packs and were way too large for my purposes.  Some were made with 2 ½ inch strips, which was better, but I wanted something more complex than just one plus sign on a background. I decided that the 1 ½ inch scraps that I have been saving could be put to good use.  Also, I wanted to use up some of those ‘What was I thinking” pieces. And also make it colorful.  Notice the red lips print?  I have absolutely no idea why I had that one!

So here is my Project Quilting 11.1 project!    It worked out to be 9 ½ inches square. A bit too big to be a regular potholder, but I can use it as a hot pad or as an oversized potholder.