Flying Geese-13.6

 Well, that's a wrap! The last challenge of Project Quilting Season 13 is done! These little challenges are such a great way to get through the long days of what is usually a mental slump after the holidays, they fire up the creativity and keep me motivated, so it's always a little sad to have the season end. But spring is in the air and the geese are heading home, there are gardens to till, rocks to move around, quilts to quilt and vacations to plan.

Our challenge this week was to create a quilt using the Flying Geese Block. This block is my absolute favorite quilt block. It is such a simple block, easy to make, and yet so versatile. I love adding a row of flying geese in a quilt border, or just making a whole quilt of flying geese. I would have to say this was probably the challenge I was most excited about. Pictured are a few projects I have done over the years incorporating the flying geese block. 

For those who don't know what a Flying Geese Block is, it is a simple block made up of a larger triangle representing the goose, surrounded by two smaller triangles representing the sky. During the time of the Underground Railroad, the Flying Geese block was used as a code in quilts, it was a signal for slaves to follow the direction of the geese, north to Canada, and as way to tell them where they could find water, food and shelter. 

The only rule this week, other than the ones we have each challenge, was that we had to incorporate a minimum of 5 flying geese in our finished project.  

I love listening to the geese in the spring and fall as they travel across the sky. It's fascinating to think about how year after year they know when it is time to head north or south as the seasons change. Hearing the geese and the cranes in the spring and watching the great flocks in perfect formation as they head north is a sure sign that warmer days are on their way. I can remember going goose hunting with my Dad when I was young, the cold frosty mornings, the anticipation and then the sight and the sounds of the huge flocks of geese and ducks as they landed on the water. 

Earlier this week I was visiting with my oldest daughter and she mentioned that they had gone to see the geese that have started migrating north. They live on the eastern part of the state and when the geese start flying north in the spring, the fields, swampy areas and lakes are covered with geese, hundreds of thousands of them. It's an incredible sight, especially the snow geese. She mentioned that the bald eagles follow the geese on their migration and sometimes you can sight eagles close to where the geese are. Since eagles are predator birds we figured that they followed the geese to prey on the weak or sick ones. We laughed about making a dead goose block to represent the one the eagles got, so with my morbid sense of humor, that's what I did.

I found a nice goose grey fabric to use for my geese, and while digging for a blue for my sky, I found this fun green that had rows of flying geese printed on it and decided to use that instead. Then of course the bright blood red!

 I decided I wanted the geese to be in a curved line and the only way to do that was to paper piece them. I have a love hate relationship with paper piecing. I love the crisp perfection of the finished product, but I hate the process, I can never remember which direction I need to lay my fabric, and sewing on the paper side always throws me off. I also think it's an incredible waste of good fabric since you end up trimming so much off.  Since it is a quilting challenge, I figured I might as well challenge myself and practice my paper piecing skills.

I wanted to quilt it to give it a feeling of motion so I quilted it with random wavy lines, and then I added a couple of feathers, one an eagle feather, and one a goose feather. My finished piece is 6 X 9. 

Rhythm & Repetition 13.5

We are on Week 5 of this years Project Quilting Season. I don't know what is different about this year, because usually the weeks drag out and it feels like forever before a new challenge is announced. This year I feel like its flying by so fast! 

This week our challenge was Rhythm & Repetition, as Trish, who is our challenge creator each week, said in her notes about what we were to create this week- 

"In language, music and visual art repetition is used for effect. It can be used to create calm and peace- a feeling of Zen brought on by doing, seeing or hearing the same thing over and over again, When you know what to expect, your mind is at ease.

Conversely, the disruption of rhythm can be used to cause tension and drama: to draw attention to a point in its difference from the norm." -

Quilting is full of repetition, repeated patterns, colors, shapes that all tie a quilt together in a visual rhythm. Other examples of repetition can be found in Art, Poetry, and Music.

There were some articles to give us some ideas and thoughts to work with, and a song for inspiration. I read the articles and I looked up different ideas, I even listened to the fun little song about Love, but this week I was not inspired. 

I decided I needed to think about this for a few days, and almost decided to not even do the challenge this time around. But you know what they say, quitters never win!

 The only rules we had to follow was that we had to intentionally repeat something in our design at least 3 times for visual effect. Then there were the normal rules that we have to follow every week. It must be a finished project and we had to start and finish it in the challenge timeline, and it must stand alone as done. It does not need to be a traditional quilt but it must incorporate at least one of the traditional quilt requirements, either patchwork, appliqué and have 3 layers stitch together. 

I think I got stuck on the repetition of 3 times for visual effect rule and just couldn't get past that. 

On Monday night I needed to escape from the constant sound of the news blaring from the TV in the basement, I really didn't feel like sewing, but sometimes I find it calming to just cut strips of fabric and sew them back together without a plan or a pattern. So that's what I did, I grabbed a scrap of fabric, cut it into 1/2 strips and then sewed them back together, pretty mindless work but it created a sense of calm in a somewhat stressful day. 

While I was sewing and thinking about the other projects I needed to get done this week, I realized that I could use these sewn strips and "make it work" for the challenge this week. Since the rules stated we just had to intentionally repeat something in our design at least 3 times, I figured that my strips would count as the repetition, but it was pretty boring looking, so I added one strip of blue. After I had my little scrap all sewn back together, I decided to cut it up into 2 1/2 inch squares and sew them back together. I turned one to create a disruption in my design. 

Then I quilted it to another scrap and put a binding on it. It burned up 3 hours of my evening, which I could have been folding clothes instead, but that has never been a calming project! 

I didn't put a lot of effort into this week, and it's kind of like the Elementary Science Fair where your best friend wins the Grand Prize Trophy and you get a P for Participation. LOL 

My finished piece is 2 1/4 by 9 inches. I thought about adding some buttons or some sequins but then decided it would make a great book mark and just left it as is.