Green 2.013

The Pantone Color 2013 is Emerald and it's gotten a lot of press. I don't have much of that color green in my stash, so my immediate thought was "I should make a 2013 Challenge Quilt".  Here goes…….

A just to make you smile photo……...

Title: "Green 2.013"

Outside at the FRMQ Guild meeting, glad to have the extra helping hands and a few chairs to stand on too!
Photo by Marta Strzeszewski 

Outside, side view. Even my fence isn't high enough.

Size: 76" x 74.5"
Designed, pieced and quilted by: me (Stephanie Zacharer Ruyle) on a Bernina 820.
Top: 100% cotton "stash-in-hand" greens, grays and Kona snow (neutral background)
Backing: 100% cotton lime/off-white/gray dots and pieced "left-over" green solids
Batting: 100% cotton warm and natural
Threads: (all Aurifil) 50 wt, Mako- grays(1158: dark; 2620: light), medium green( color number lost), off white (2021)

Front, inside photo
(with big quilts, it's just plain hard photographing them)

Back, outside at the FRMQ Guild meeting
Those "yellow" dots are actually lime green
Photo by Marta Strzeszewski 

So, there you have it.

Now,  here's the back story…..

"Green 2.013" is a tribute to the 2013 Pantone Color of the year- Emerald; the year the quilt was conceived and constructed- as well as the process of only using material from my stash (top, threads, batting and some of the backing). I try to set a challenge for myself with each quilt I make and for this quilt I tackled the actual quilting (which I generally like least of all). Since there is lots of negative space in this quilt, I really wanted the quilting to be an integral part of the minimal Zen Garden aesthetic of the overall design. The pebbles and the lines (both wavy and straight) remind me of how the Japanese Zen gardens are meticulously groomed and designed and I hoped to recreate that same cohesive quality in this quilt.  Using Aurifil threads (which I already had in large quantity), I selected dense straight line, pebble and a wavy line pattern to define different parts of the quilt. The only parts of the quilt left not quilted are the "sticks" that occur in each of the green squares and the frames around some of the boxes. The dominant thread was off white (Aurifil 2021) and I used about two thirds of a large 1500 meter cone as well as additional quantities of grays and green to finish the quilt- by far the most thread I have ever used in a quilting project and this is not the largest quilt I have tackled.

close up detail, front

close up detail, front

Medium detail, front

Medium detail, front

Medium detail, front. Darker gray thread is used in the gray areas, green thread for the boxes.

This quilt is a gift to a dear friend who will celebrate a very big birthday this year. It has not yet been washed. I'll leave that decision to my friend.

I am submitting this quilt to the:

                                                    
hosted by Ali @ a squared w as well as the first ever Modern quilt category of the HMQS Quilt exhibit in Salt Lake City. Wish me luck!