The City of Phoenix in: QuiltMakers's 100 Blocks Volume 6

Yes!!! I have a quilt published in QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks Volume 6. I am not one of the designers, but I am one of the block testers and was given the opportunity to make a quilt using one of the blocks that I tested!!

                               The magazine will be on sale around the 13th of November, I think!!

I would like you to meet, The City of Phoenix!!!! It is now on display in Golden Colorado at QuiltMaker Magazine. I will get it back eventually!!

So this was a challenge, a huge challenge. There were 16 if us that were given the opportunity to make a quilt. We chose fabrics from different manufacturers without any design to look at as we hadn't started testing blocks yet!!

I chose to challenge my self with this group from the Troy Corporation designed by Marcia Derse. Then I had to wait for a block to come along that would work with this fabric. Well, I started running out of time and realized that I would need to pick a block quickly.

I chose Smokey Mountains designed by Karen Combs. This is what the test block instructions look like when we get them, minus the doodling notes on the right!!

 I did a mockup with the cut fabrics trying to get my fabric choices to work.

Hmmmmm... Nope

Almost!! But I wanted to use all the fabrics I chose, so I needed to add the light gray.

This is the end result of the choices!!

So first of all, I will admit that I was not happy with this quilt. So as I was piecing it, I tried to come up with a name that reflected the name given to the block, Smokey Mountains. This quilt that I was constructing did not remind me of the mountains. It is very urban. Hmmmm, Smokey City? Nope!! Sounds like air pollution. Where there's smoke, there's heat. City Heat? I like it!! Then it occurred to me that the name of this quilt is The City of Phoenix!!! Of course, the intense blue sky and golden sun, the red of the land and lots of amazing people, including my son Josh!!! WOW!! That's it!! And now I love this quilt!! Weird how the name can change your outlook!!??

So I chose to quilt it with a bit of a modern touch, in circles, beginning approximately where Josh lives in Phoenix!! And as I was quilting, I was watching Nascar and realized that the colors I chose were the same colors of my favorite driver, Kyle Busch!!! So the quilt could be named, Kyle Busch's car on Asphalt. He drives so fast, he's just a streak of color on the asphalt!!!

Quilting while watching Kyle Busch race!!

My extremely technical method of making it easier to quilt in circles!!

The back of the quilt!!! Love the circles!!!

Close up of the border

I think I like the back as much as the front!!!

Take care everyone, Happy Quilting, and keep those scissors sharp!!! Martha

Thank-you to QuiltMaker Magazine for giving me this opportunity!!!! I learned a ton doing this and look forward to more block testing!! :^)