Habitat Challenge

Last Thursday was the Habitat Challenge Reveal Night at Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. Yeah!

The challenge?  We each received 8 fat eighths of Habitat fabric by Jay McCarroll (of Project Runway fame).  We could use any solid fabric or other Habitat print in addition to our challenge packet.  Here is what I came up with-

I was planning on originally using the solid gray as my major background color.  But I happened to set the challenge fabric next to a blue shot cotton that I had planned on using for the lining on a pair of pants for Carter.  I loved it so much that the blue replaced the gray.  And Carter still has no pants.

I then quilted it with random vertical and horizontal lines to mimic the lines of the inserted fabric.

And the back is another Habitat print.

As a beginner with the whole quilt thing, I love it when people share their process.  So here is how I got to my finished product.

I started with this….just strips inserted at right angles.

Yawn.

I knew I wanted to cut it up and re-orient sections but I worried about making it look awful.  I needed to do a test run before I started  hacking into the fabric.  So instead of using modern technology, I went the old fashioned way of scissors and tape.

I printed out the picture of the quilt and started hacking away.

I took a picture each time I made a cut so I would remember the steps in case I liked it. 

My picture was not square to begin with so I was not worried about things matching up perfectly.  I just wanted to make sure it would not be ugly.

I was satisfied that it was more interesting than what I was starting with, so I started the same process with my quilt, but this time with a rotary cutter and a sewing machine.  It did not turn out like my original picture because more math was involved to make sure things would line up correctly, but it gave me a general idea. And I was happy with the random finished product.

There were so many awesome quilts at the reveal…it made for a super fun night.  Check out our Flickr photostream to see all the talent.

And for those you wondering if I have given up my procrastinator ways of quilting, the answer is a resounding no.   I was binding this baby until an hour before I left for the meeting.  After not getting much sleep the night before.

But it is complete and I think it is going to return to it’s roots of the craft room.  Carter has been playing on the pink Project Plume challenge quilt while I am sewing and he has requested something a little more masculine.

Much better.

Now he just needs his mommy to get on those pants.