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.