Bloggers Quilt Festival - Sun City (Scrappy Category)

Sun City is my second entry to the Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy of Amy's Creative Side.  I have entered Sun City in the in the Scrappy Category.

I made Sun City as my response to my Guild President's Challenge - Log Cabin Revisited. The rules were simple - no  more than 24" square, must use either black or white, and any variation of log cabin was acceptable.

Sun City is composed primarily of log cabin blocks. The strips are cut at 1", and finish at 1/2".  This small quilt was fraught with big challenges, which I have documented in an earlier blogpost - Mini Quilt, Major Challenges. 

Getting to Sun City was a long journey. There were wrong turns and several forks in the road.
In the end, I love how bright and cheerful it appears.  The densely packed, multi-storeyed houses, with bright windows and black chimneys was worth the long, arduous path.

How do you choose what category fits best?  Sun City is small, scrappy, art (since it is a wall quilt), modern (may be), and was quilted on a domestic machine.

I was struggling when I decided to look at the quilts in various categories. 
Those that are art quilts are way more artistic.  Sun City is not.
Those that are in the modern category do not suggest that they are modern - they scream it.   Sun city does not.
Those that are in the domestic machine quilted have exquisite quilting.  Sun City is quilted simply.

Small or Scrappy.

In the end, I chose to go with Scrappy since every fabric came from my stash and did not even make the tiniest dent in my stash. 

I quilted it from the back to follow the slanted lines of the backing. This was also my first time using faced binding.
All entires to the President's Challenge received a small gift.  There were no winners.

Honestly, I was bummed.  I was competing. I was really stretching myself and then to receive a participation gift was an anti-climax.  This time, I am just participating in the Bloggers festival.  No expectations.

However, if you vote for SUN City, I will be over the MOON.

Please take a look at all of the quilts and be wowed and inspired.  After all, that is the purpose of this festival.

Mini Quilt - Major Challenges

When Judy, our Guild President, announced the President's Challenge - Log Cabin Revisited, I was definitely interested.  The rules - no  more than 24" square, must use either black or white, any variation of log cabin is acceptable.

Here is my completed top.  The story follows.

Challenge Accepted!!!

I saw a pattern for log cabin houses on Pinterest, and I was instantly hooked.
First step - I had to adapt the pattern to the Challenge Rules.

Original Pattern

I had to rework it to be under 24" square, while making sure that none of the houses were unceremoniously chopped off.  The internal dialogue continued.

May be I could only make a 24" potion if it.
No, that meant having 4-6 houses.  Did not look finished.  It appeared a smaller piece cut off from a larger quilt.
A doll's house is not just the living room and patio.  A doll's house has all the rooms  - just smaller.

The very first blocks

As soon as I realized this, I SHOULD have stopped and come up with another design.  But hindsight is 20/20. So moving along.

Bit by Bit

Instead of cutting the strips 2" thick, I chose to cut my strips 1" thick, resulting in the strip width of 1/2". Do you know what that means?  It means that the bulk of the fabric in the seams will exceed the fabric in the top.  I should have stopped now. But I did not.

White House next to the Red House

The piecing of little blocks was anything but fun...

So wonky and ugly :-(

When I started to piece the houses together, the bulk of the seams made it extremely difficult to sew a straight stitch.

Veered off Seams

My stitching is already wonky, made wonkier by very bulky seams.

Chimney Blocks - so cute

Needle change, in the hope that a sharper needle would pierce multiple layers better, was not very helpful.  Going slow (super slow) did help somewhat.

So many Decisions

It took me seven days of eight hours a day to complete just the quilt top. PHEW!!!

Yellow & Green or Red & White???

So many decisions.  Which color goes where? Not enough contrast?
There is no such thing as too much contrast.

Getting Close!!!

Paul: Oh neat. What is this one called?
Me: INDIA.
Paul (incredulous): INDIA?
Me: Yes, I'll Never Do It Again.

I ended up spending my Winter Break (Christmas to New Years day) in the Log Cabin!!!

Should I go with this?

One of the houses had brown walls and red windows (on the left in the picture above) - not enough contrast.  I tried moving those brown/red blocks to the right. See picture below.

Hmmm...did not like that either. I wanted every house/window to be a good (if not great) contrast. It was a small quilt so everything will be seen, nothing can be overlooked.

I knew I had to repiece the blocks. And the very thought of repiecing tiny pieces with bulky seams was painfully exhausting.

So, I resorted to trickery.

Turning the tiny block over, I carefully removed the stitches around the center square (window) and removed the tiny 1" square.  Placed another square (bright green) in its place and glued it in place. Then I used a small square of interfacing, placed the sticky side on the wrong side of the block and ironed it to secure it. Voila!!! Done.

Completed Top!!!

Looks much better with green windows!!!  I think I cheated. But it worked.
And once it is quilted, no one will ever know.

Quilting - This was definitely something to consider carefully. Did not want to quilt in the ditch - too boring. Anything else might take away from the log cabin pattern.

How about diagonal lines - uniform allover lines running from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner.  That would be best.

Did not want to mark up the quilt.  Painter's tape would be best to ensure uniformly spaced lines.
Uniformly spaced diagonal lines?

Backing - Quilted on the White Lines

Wait, I have a fabric with diagonal lines. If I used that as a backing and quilt from the back. VOILA!!!

I found another simple solution and it worked.

Sun City!!!

I used faced binding (I know, it is not neat, but this is my first time) to make sure that nothing detracted from the itty bitty log cabin blocks.

See the finished mini.  Ok, it is not as pretty as the back. Seriously, this is the prettiest (neatest quilting) lines that you will ever see. Because, you can hardly see the quilting lines in the back.

Backing & Binding

It took me such a long time to name this quilt.  Is that a neighborhood or a community, homes on a hillside, valley view homes, a village? How about a Tuscan village? Postcard from Italy?

Paul: That is not a village, it is city. 
Me: Why do you say that?
Paul: Four storeyed houses densely packed - has to be a city.
He had a point.
Once the slanted quilting lines were added, the name came to me - Sun City.

There it is - bright, colorful, dense city. welcome to Sun City.
Finished at 22" square.

Detail View

 I put so much effort and time into this little quilt.  I do like it - it is bright and cheerful.

But, I am not sure if I love it.  I wish it was neater.  I wish it was less crooked.

I wish everything matched beautifully.  When I saw some of the other quilts in the challenge, the wonkiness hurt even more.

When I shared my very honest thoughts with my dear quilter friend Jennifer (from my Guild), here is what she said.

"Preeti, I think it is time to learn Paper Piecing."
 What do you think?

Linking up with all my favorite linky parties!!!