11.2- Team Colors

It doesn't seems possible but here we are, 22 days into the new year and on our second Project Quilting Challenge.

This week the challenge is Team Colors. I don't know why color challenges are always hard for me, but they seem to be the ones I have the most trouble with. Which makes absolutely no sense considering there are millions of teams in the world so how hard is it to pick your favorite and make something in those colors?

I sat down on Sunday, well actually I curled up on the couch in front of the TV while the football games were on and napped in front of the warm cozy fire, dreaming about what team colors I could create a quilt project with.

I have never been much of a football fan, maybe because I spent too many years as an EMT at Football games hoping no one got hurt, especially when my own son was out on the field. I love watching basketball, but I can't really say I have a favorite team. My own kids are grown up, and although I will always be a Dupree Tiger Fan, I wasn't too excited about making anything in purple & gold.  Once again a color challenge had me stumped.

To top it off, it was freezing cold all weekend, I was still putting the Christmas mess away, and on Sunday we had a water line break so we were without water, and no way to get it fixed before the day was over. By 7:00 that evening the only team I was a member of was TEAM CRABBY and I really didn't think it would be much fun to make a cold black heart quilt. LOL

Monday marked the 110th anniversary of my Grandma Amy's Birthday. She was a pivotal part of our family for just over 100 years. Every January we would brave the crazy cold of the Minnesota winters & as many family members who could get there would gather in Marshall to celebrate her birthday. I'm not sure if the birthdays themselves were the memories we remember or the COLD weather adventures we had getting to the party & getting home again!

We have a photo of her when she was a teenager, taken the winter of 26-27. She is the goalie on a team of girls hockey players in Virginia, MN. Varies family stories about the picture sort of blend into themselves and of course she is not here to tell the whole story. But I know the picture was taken after an exhibition hockey game & they played for the city park girls hockey team.

A family history book has an interview with her and she talks about also playing hockey for the High School in Virginia. But we all know her real love was speed skating, and she loved to race. She skated for the Duluth Girl Scouts throughout high school. A quote from her in the history book, "I think of all the times I raced and came in first. Nellie and I always raced together as a tandem team. I was always the leader, and wonder if some of the other troops in the city must have hated us because we always won."

She could skate and she skated well, she skated until she was in her 80's and it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how amazing it was that she was still ice skating at that age. I grew up thinking all grandmas skated!

 I thought it would be fun to make a little quilt with HER team colors...until I found out that the uniforms they were wearing in the photo were borrowed from a boys team, and possibly were black and cream colored. Not very exciting colors, and technically not really her team colors. So I was stuck at square one and really did not have a plan.

While I was contemplating my project for the week, grumbling about the water situation, and unable to quilt next door because I was waiting for parts, I figured I better dig through the fabric pile and at least come up with a game plan.

I found some fun purple and gold fabric (after I said I wasn't going to make anything purple & gold!) I decided since I was thinking about Minnesota and family, I would throw together some little Vikings coasters. I drew a little viking helmet & the word SKÖL and appliquéd them to the background. Adding a V to the helmet.  I know a few Minnesota Vikings fans I could share them with & it would give me something to do since I was refusing to cook until there was running water in my house! LOL

While working on my coasters I starting thinking about girls sports, about how they have evolved over the years and how the early girls teams really played a huge part in paving the way for girls sports today. From borrowed boys uniforms to owning the ice.  I decided to color all the uniforms a different color representing different Minnesota girls hockey teams of today.

I wanted to have the exact photo on my project, so I downloaded an app that would allow me to create a coloring book sheet from the photo. Of course I am cheap and didn't want to spend any money, so I had to go with the free picture and couldn't get the fine detail I wanted.

 I tried two different apps and printed them onto 8 x 10 pieces of cotton fabric. This was something I had never done before using my own fabric ironed onto a piece of freezer paper,  I wasn't sure how it would turn out and I was really happy with the results and plan to use this process again.

I picked the better of the two prints & used my tsukineko inks to color in the picture. Any family member will know why Grandma Amy is wearing the light blue and silver  uniform :)

The printing was really thick and it was hard to get good detail with their faces, I kept messing with them until I had to tell myself to stop because they were starting to look like zombies.

I quilted the finished project using dark blue thread and only outlining the shapes and adding texture to their hair. I used the print with the larger pixels on the back of the quilt, just because I was too lazy to cut out another piece of fabric. I used a silvery blue batik on my binding. The finished quilt is 8 x 10.

The finished coasters are various sizes and I just edged them with different stitches and my pinking shears.

Today is Wednesday and someone is here (fingers crossed) to fix the water line break. I didn't get any dishes washed this week, but I did get two little Team Color projects done!

Project Quilting Season 11.1- Notably Numeric-Number 3

Project Quilting started this week with it's 11th Season! This will be my 3rd year participating and I have been waiting patiently for this week since it ended last spring.

The first challenge of the season was released on Sunday at noon and we have until noon on Saturday to have our quilt created, quilted, bound, and posted to the Project Quilting Link.

In past years there has been viewers choice voting, this year there will be no voting. At first I was a little disappointed by that, until it was explained that a change in the link up program prevented the voting option.

The more I thought about it I realized that maybe this will free me up to not create something I think is going to WOW people and get votes, but maybe help me break out of my self-created box and  do things that I really don't care if people like and do them strictly because I like them :)

Of course I hope people will like what I do, but now I can just be weird and do whatever my heart really desires! LOL

The first challenge of season 11 is Notably Numeric-this weeks challenge has to somehow notably salute numbers. The project must feature numbers, counting, or mathematics in its theme or implementation.

Thinking about numbers, I decided I wanted to do something to represent my favorite number which is 3. I am not sure why this is my favorite number, but I do know that the number 3 represents balance to me. I like things in 3's and I really like triangles.

So to start I looked up notable things about the number 3. What caught my eye was the fact that the number 3 is a  significant number in Norse Mythology and paganism.

In Norse Mythology there were 3 original beings: the primordial cow Audhumla, Ymir the first giant, and Búri the first god, the father of all gods and the grandfather of Odin.

This was perfect, I didn't have to look any further, I knew what I wanted to make and it was still Sunday afternoon. Of course being the procrastinator I am instead of getting to work, I sat on the idea until late Tuesday afternoon, and then decided maybe instead of being last minute this year, I could challenge myself to do something and get it done before the week was half over. So Tuesday evening I got busy and actually finished it.

The story of these 3 beings in Norse Mythology is this:

Ymir was created by the drops of water which formed when the ice of Niflheim met the heat of Muspelheim. Ymir (or Aurgelmir) was the father of all the giants.

A cow, Audumla, nourished him with her milk. Audumla was fed by licking the brine of the salty stones, the story says that for 3 days she licked the stones and slowly uncovered Búri and so from the salt Búri was born.

The story continues with the birth of more giants, the death of Ymir from whose body the earth was created, and all sorts of things that incorporate the number 3 but I just wanted to show the story of the first 3 beings.

I sketched out a design and dug through my stash to find fabrics I thought would work. I had a couple of pieces of some icy blue batik with wheat designs on it, when I purchased it years ago I thought they were pinecones, I never like the fabric after I realized it wasn't pine needles but wheat! LOL
It was perfect for making my ice beard on Ymir. One little piece of the fabric had some yellow in it so I incorporated that piece to make the crown.

 I used a swirly red/orange batik to create the flames from the pit of Muspelheim, and found a fun cloud fabric I used to make the fog of Niflheim. While digging through my fabric mess, I found a wavy looking green fabric that really didn't fit my icy winter scene but made me think of something mythological so I added along the side just for fun.

Since the cow was a milk cow I used a brown fabric for her and then quilted her with a turquoise blue thread since I was trying to create a cold scene.

After quilting my little quilt I first bound it with a scrap of turquoise binding, but didn't like the way it looked so cut a new binding and sewed it on. Don't look to closely at the quilting on the back. It always takes about 3 challenges before I remember how to use my sewing machine to freehand quilt!

I will admit I was a little lazy with Búri, I knew he was supposed to be in a block of ice, so I used a batik that had some icy blue and some tan in it to represent skin, but I really didn't want to make him look like a real person, or have a hand sticking out of the ice, so I added some hair and quilted the illusion of a face. He just is not as fun or creative as my ice giant Ymir! LOL

I added some ink to the eyes, and maybe someday when I locate them I will add some black beady eyes. There are things I would do differently if I spent the entire week working on this, but my goal this week was to finish & be happy with my project before Wednesday, I did and I am.  My finished quilt it 8 X 17.