Challenge Quilt

I just took my MQX Challenge quilt off of the longarm. I know the judges will have a grand time with this one! I've never done trapunto before, never done a challenge quilt for a show and have never entered a quilt in a show, so I call this quilt "Courage". My big mistake was using a thread in the border that was too dark, so in many areas there is the appearance of "thread build up" where I've overlapped the quilting design too much. This quilt is rather stiff...not a good snuggle quilt!

Next comes blocking, binding, rinsing in cold water to remove the blue marks, warm water to remove the water soluble thread, adding three dimensional flowers and maybe a few beads. Of course, I've also never blocked a quilt and have no idea whether to bind first or block first, or how to go about blocking it! This is definitely a quilt of firsts! And it has to be in New Hampshire by April 3rd. I think I can, I think I can...

Saturday Afternoon...

It's a beautiful Saturday here in South Jersey...sunny, temperatures in the 60's, but far too wet to work out in the yard! Besides, with it dipping back into the 30's this week, I don't think I want to get anything started out there!

So, instead of playing outside, I've been playing inside! I've finished the first layer of quilting for my MQX challenge quilt. What you see in the picture is the first layer of batting on the back. It's a thick batting and I've done the quilting in water soluble thread. I will trim away all the areas that I don't want to be trapuntoed, then will put it back on the longarm with another, thinner batting and backing, then quilt it again. I've named this quilt "Courage". It's the first time I've ever entered a quilt into a show to be judged. It's also the first time I've ever done trapunto. It's taken a great deal of courage for me to get it this far...now I can't wait to get it done!

In the meantime, I think I'll load a quilt onto the machine that I can get finished quickly and will require a minimum amount of "thinking" to get it done. Sounds like my blue nine patch and some Baptist Fans will be the perfect thing to start!