Styx - TMQG QuiltCon 2016 Charity Challenge Quilt

Each year as part of QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt Guild hosts a Member Charity Challenge, and my MQG, the Tasmanian Modern Quilt Guild decided to take up the challenge for the 2016 quilt show and collaborate to make a charity quilt. This challenge was open to any Modern Quilt Guild around the world who wanted to create a quilt using a restricted group of colours (primary colours paired with neutrals) and using improvisation with intent to create the quilt design.  

Our talented member and secretary (and very good friend of mine), Kat Jones, was inspired to design a quilt that would reflect a visual aspect of life in Tasmania.  Kat proposed the chosen concept based on the rear view of a logging truck, a familiar sight on Tasmanian Roads. Kat also volunteered to project manage the quilt construction. Without Kat's vision and direction this quilt would not have been born. Kat is honestly one of the most inspiring, innovative and original quilt makers I have ever met. She doesn't blog or have instagram, but you may recognise her name from the QuiltCon 2015 show - Kat took out 1st and 2nd place in the Bias Tape Challenge for her amazing quilts. The way Kat approaches quilt design is unlike anything I've encountered - I've included a few photos of part of her process in this post. 

So, back in September last year we held a guild sewing day where a group of our wonderful guild members spent the day making the logs under Kat's direction. We wanted this project to be a learning experience as well as a project to include all members. They learnt how to make bias binding and machine applique it into place.  Each person created 3 quarters of a circle, each with a number of rings to represent the log growth rings. They then improvised by slicing the quarter pieces into wedges and added alternate wedges of black background in order to form a full “log”.  To complete the block an oval of black was appliqued in the centre.

We thought improv was perfect for this project as the quilt concept is more effective if each and every block was unique, as no two "logs" are ever the same. Everyone had a fun day making the improv blocks and learning some new techniques along the way. The next challenge was working out how to piece them together; a jigsaw puzzle magnificently solved by the hand piecing talent of Shirley Jeffery (Member) and Kat Jones. Each and every block or partially completed block was included in the quilt layout.

Once Kat and Shirley had finished the monumental task of hand piecing the quilt top, Kat make the back, basted it and handed it over to me for machine quilting. I'm not going to lie - this was one of the most terrifying quilts I've ever quilted. It was an honor to be trusted to quilt it, but I was SO scared I would ruin it, and was also conscious of some very heavy time constraints (it needed to be done smack bang in the middle of what I talked about in this post) so I knew I couldn't do anything over the top complex. So it took me a little while to work out what I wanted to do with the quilting. 

When I'm planning how to quilt a quilt, I always try to choose FMQ designs that complement the quilt design or help tell the quilt's story. Since this quilt was (to me) about something I feel strongly about (logging of old growth forests) I decided to be a wee bit political with my quilting choices. Rather than continue the logs into the background (my initial thought for the quilting), I quilted wedges (aka saw blades) cutting through the logs. The centre of each log, and the areas between the wedges are concentric ovals, inspired by the concentric rings found in tree trunks. It isn't my most stellar quilting, but overall it really works - and since it's charcoal thread on black it really blends into the quilt anyway ;o). This is a glimpse of my ghetto sewing space and the quilt being wrangled in my machine - it's about 90" x 80" so there was a LOT of wrangling involved!

Once I'd finished quilting it, I handed it back to Kat so she could add some hand quilting detail in the logs. It is the perfect finishing touch, and makes me wish I had the patience to add hand quilting to some of my quilts!

To complete the concept a label was made by Jo Chandler (our Treasurer) and Kat to represent a number plate using bias binding and hand embroidery that you would see if following a log truck on our Tasmanian roads.

Our TMQG members were asked to suggest names for the quilt and the name "Styx" was settled upon as it references the old growth forest conservation area of the Styx Valley and Styx River in south west Tasmania. Our president Helen Stubbings has organized for our quilt to be auctioned at annual ball of Colony 47, a local Tasmanian charity,  to raise funds to support their work in providing housing to over 15000 children, young people and families every year.  

And this is the final, epic, amazing quilt. I really can't thank our members who participated in making this quilt enough (especially Kat, who put in countless hours of work to make this quilt possible). I am so proud that this example of our guild's work will be hanging in Pasadena at QuiltCon 2016 for the QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge

xx Jess