Happy, Happy Dance!

Yep, super awesome news here today=)  You have heard of the best magazine for art quilting in all of North America?  'Quilting Arts' is the one I am referring to.  And each time they put out a new magazine, they have a 'Reader's Challenge' in it.  

The last one was 'Map It Out'.  I had showed my entry previously on my blog.

On a specific day, which was today, you go on their blog to see the finalists.   This is what I saw today.  (you are to look at the very last line):

We are pleased to announce the finalists of our recent Reader Challenge, "Map It Out."  We had almost 100 participants in this challenge and they led us north and south, inside and out.  Even to the moon!  It was very hard to choose but here's the list of finalists:

Judith Ahlborn (Crazy Map!)
Terry Aske (Where I Live)
Evans Fletcher (Direction Through Chaos)Jane Frenke (untitled)
Karen Hansen (Kayak Karma)
Sheila McAvoy (untitled)
Jane Rommel (Wrinkles Map Out My Life)
Sandra Schlagel (Kitchen Garden)
Nancy Smeltzer (A Sky Map of Somewhere Over the Midwest)
Jennifer Scantlebury Vienneau (By The Seat of Our Pants)
Jackie White (untitled)

So at this point I stopped breathing and read the whole thing over again.....twice.  And then the biggest grin spread across my face and I just started emailing my quilting besties all over the place!

Yesterday I had been lamenting to a good friend about the number of rejection letters I have piled up in a desk drawer designated just for them.   

Today, it was all worth it!

A Little Art Quilt

I had been experimenting around with little scrap triangles that were emerging from doing my Bestie QAL using the 'Swoon' pattern.  
When I make little quilts, it is nice if I can combine them with another purpose.   The Quilting Arts magazine has another challenge going on right now called 'Text Me'.  

I made this little quilt using my hand dyed fabric, ric rac and the left over triangles.

I did recut the triangles to make them fit a little better into each section.   I could see a larger quilt with perhaps some different ways to fill the shapes created by the ric rac.

I do adore working with ric rac!   The colours and different sizes and all the wonderful ways you can add it to your quilts.

Map It Out Challenge

Here is my finished art quilt for the 'Quilting Arts' challenge.

Here is the write up that goes along with it:  

I took an old out of circulation map and copied it onto fabric, then cut it up and stitched it back together a few times.  Added some colourful 'roads of life' to map my journey through life and quilted it with lines marking the roads I didn’t take.

I have linked up at Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting blog.

Quilting Arts Challenge

I have decided to try and enter more challenges this year.  One that came up is the Quilting Arts challenge.  I am an avid subscriber to their magazine and enjoy all the different opportunities they provide in their magazine.     This challenge is to produce an ATC - artist trading card.  The theme is 'What's In Your Heart' and it must be 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" and it will be swapped with another.

I have never made a quilt that size before.   I do know they like embellishments on their challenges, so I raided my kids tool boxes for unique embellishments.   Don't even ask if they are 3D, you know the answer=)

I started by cutting and stitching, recutting and more stitching.  I cleaned up the edges too.   How do you finish a quilt that size?  Please tell me that you don't actually bind it?

Then added my bling.

What do you think?   It is copper wire and copper looking beads that are attached to it.

Quilting Arts Challenge

My friend Cheryl over at the Quilting Arts forum is having a challenge called 'Earth, Water, Fire and Air'.   It is pretty open ended and you just have to make a quilt.

I had this really wild piece of fabric I had dyed and just didn't know what to do with until this challenge came along.   I decided to thread paint my version of fire.   The fabric reminded me of all the forest fires that happen each summer here in Canada.   They literally devastate huge areas of land.   The fires are certainly not pretty little campfires, but huge and massive and angry and destructive.   The fabric reminded me of that.  

I didn't draw out a shape, but let my hand and machine do the drawing.   Please feel free to comment.

Quilting Arts Challenge

I just finished a top using my fun Sugar and Spice fabric.   My goal is to get it quilted before I show it to you.   And let me say, the borders took forever!   No just slapping strips on each coast, (well not this quilt anyway=)

Instead, I will show you my little art quilt I entered into the Quilting Arts challenge.  I didn't get picked, but I do like the quilt.    The theme was text.  It was only to be 8.5" x 11".
I did some piecing, fmq, sharpie pen, shiva, and wool roving.