Yippee!  I finished a quilt this week.  This makes 3 so far this year, which has got to be a world record!  (At least for me it is)  Meet “Three Dimensions of Happiness” — my honeyman named it!

Last October, our quilt guild decided to participate in the Riley Blake challenge sponsored by The Modern Quilt Guild.  We each received 6 fat-eighths of fabric.  The rules are that you could make anything, but it had to be quilted, and you could add other solids and other Riley Blake fabric.  I had been working on a design for a baby quilt and decide to use the fabrics from this challenge for that.

I get ideas from the strangest places — sometimes I see patterns in nature, furniture,  architecture, or sometimes I dream patterns.  Much to the embarrassment of my husband (hey, what are wives for?), I often stop and take pictures of carpet, fixtures, ceiling beams, silos, or whatever catches my eye.  I am loving the modern technology that allows me to have a camera in my cell phone!  But, because of this, I have many more ideas than I have time to make.

So one evening Iast fall, I was watching an episode of Hawaii Five-O and there was a piece of art work on the wall in one of the scenes that I loved.  It was simple and modern and I thought it would make a good quilt.  Once I had the center made, I thought it needed a border and dreamed that a alternating white/colored border would look good.  So I just sewed some strips together, none of which were the same length, and then sewed them around without caring much where the colored pieces fell.  And… I don’t love it.  I think it may look better on a larger quilt, but I don’t love it here.  So, I’ll likely redesign the border a bit before finalizing the pattern.

I decided to quilt it in a spiral and I LUV how it looks.  But, I promise you, it is more difficult than it looks — especially in the center.   In fact, it just about killed me.  Well, not physically, but mentally.  Once I had 4-5 rounds done, it got much easier, but the center part was hard on my home machine.  And it pushed the fabric a lot since I kept sewing in the same direction.  I should have either pinned it more or used a spray adhesive.  Next time I’ll know and it will likely be less noticeable once I wash it and everything shrinks a little.

The binding is not part of the fabric that I got for the challenge, but it is a Riley Blake print called Shuffle.

Linking up with Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Link a Finish Friday at Richard and Tanya, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.