Project Quilting Season 8

I thought it would be fun to try something different this year & so I joined an online Quilting Challenge. The challenge is called Project Quilting & this is the 8th season it has been held. The first challenge this season is called 'Eight is Great' and the goal was to create something that represented the number 8.
This is my creation, I called it "The Gate of Ishtar"

It is a wall hanging that is 20 X 28 inches. I used appliqué,  paper piecing & fabric inks to create my design.
When I first read the challenge, I thought of Odins 8 legged horse, then I looked out the window at the immense piles of snow surrounding the house and I decided I needed to find something 8 related that was a bit warmer!

I found an article about the Goddess Ishtar, the Goddess of Love & War. She was the Morning & the Evening Star, her symbol is the lion & an 8 pointed star. The 8th Gate to the inner city of ancient Babylon is Ishtars Gate, this was the main entrance to the city. I decided I wanted to create a morning star and an evening star, and of course give them 8 points. Somehow I also wanted to tie in the concept of the Gate.

I don't like to do paper piecing, but I decided if I was going to do a challenge, I should probably try to
challenge myself! After digging through totes of fabric & deciding which colors I wanted to use, I
drew up a couple of star patterns and spent two days trying to figure out how to piece them together right. I challenged myself, and I remember why I hate paper piecing!

My fabric stash mess, my final fabric choices & my finished stars. I chose the colors green & what I had on hand to pass for the color magenta, both colors represent harmony & balance, which 8 also represents harmony and balance. I wanted the smaller  evening star to look like it was in the evening sky, and the larger morning star to be bright like a sunrise. I wasn't happy with my second green color in the morning star, but I was not going to do a repeat of the paper piecing! 

Then in my research for interesting facts about the number 8 I read that the Pythagoreans considered 8 to be the "little holy number" and I decided I needed to add a little shrine to my quilt. I really didn't want it to be a shrine to Ishtar so in my shrine I inked a little figure 8 on its side, which is also the symbol for infinity. 

I wasn't sure how I was going to tie this all together & not end up with a queen sized quilt! 

I decided to make an evening sky & painted the image of a crescent moon next to the stars. I then added appliqué vines and flowers to make it seem like you were looking at the sky through an ancient garden gate. I bound the quilt with the same fabric I used to make the vines. I used a number of different threads to quilt it on my long arm machine.  I used a brick like fabric for the backing, and just did random quilting, I  have a small  workshop just down the road from our house &  it was an even bigger challenge to get through the mounds of snow to reach my machine! We live in western South Dakota where we have had way too much snow this past month! 

I really enjoyed thinking outside the box and doing something different. After I finished the wall hanging I looked up images of Ishtars Gate and it was nothing like I imagined an ancient city Gate would look like. The real gate is huge, made of lapis lazuli & covered with golden images of lions and other symbols. But I like my warm little view from the gate & look forward to the next challenge!  I also think maybe 2017 is the year I need to organize my stash chaos!