30/30 Challenge Update - Week 3

Happy Villages by Karen Eckmeier

I had a wonderful time last Saturday at the Happy Villages course. It was taught by Jan Kittle, owner of The PickleDish quilt store in Carleton Place ON.

I used Jan's batiks as well as some of my own to create the quilt.

Postcard of the Amalfi Coast, Italy

I based my Happy Village on a postcard that I bought on the Amalfi Coast in Italy two years ago. It was such a magical area that it would be great to have a quilt to commemorate it.  This is the postcard that inspired the quilt.

This is what it looked like at 3 pm on Saturday.  It had a semblance of a village by then.

Results by Saturday evening 

This is what the project looked like by Wednesday evening. Since I left it on the dining room table, I was able to work at it in small chunks of time. I found that it was important to work on it and then leave it for a while to get the overall look of it.
I'm really hoping that the free motion quilting (FMQ) will add a lot to it. I can't wait to give the church some details.

Result by Wednesday evening

During the week I was able to do a little bit of embroidery of my second leaf. I also go the chance to moved the squares that were in the wrong place on my batik quilt.

What I learned:

• It's a VERY finicky project. Those tiny pieces are tiny! You cut the pieces, audition them and when you like what you have, you glue them to the surface.
• It's a very forgiving project.  If you don't like what you put down, you just cover it up! It's not worth fighting with the glue to remove pieces.
• Since there's so much going on, I wanted to make sure that there was some consistency in the fabrics I used. I used the same fabric for all of the trees within the village, all of my stairs were made with the same background fabric (a light mauve-pink) with the stairs a dark blue. I also had some awesome orange-yellow fabric that I used for stone walls (and the top of the church since it was made of stone). 
• Leaving it out and having it accessible to work on for short periods of time was the best way to go. I could spend a half hour or an hour playing without getting frustrated or too stiff.