Labyrinth Quilt
I've been steadily working my way through this quilt. I'm at Row 35, so 19 more to go. After that, I need to connect them all.
I'm not sure this thing will fit in my machine to quilt. But, I'm going to try anyway.
I knew going in that it would be huge (or yuge - this is a political quilt, afterall). But, I didn't get a full grasp of how yuge until I connected the center section:
I don't know how big it is - I didn't measure it. It's yuge, but that's sort of a Grandmother's Flower Garden in the center, so it's bi-partisan :). I'm not taking sides with this quilt. It's about the political process as a whole rather than any one element.
Here's my original drawing that I'm using as a map:
Drawing this was my absolute favorite part. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's based on the labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral in France. While that one is round, mine is hexagonal so I can make it with triangles. So many triangles. Around 4,200, I think.
I tested out my quilting idea on some scraps and I think that with straight-line quilting, this is what it will look like on the front:
Actually, that red thread won't show up on front much - I didn't make my sample big enough, but it gave me an idea of how it will turn out. I'm using Aurifil 50 weight in white to piece and Aurifil 28 weight in white and red to quilt.
The following part is what I'm looking forward to seeing the most. It's my test sample for the back of the quilt, but it will show the labyrinth clearly on a dark blue paisley print with the red and white thread:
This quilt is about cohesion out of chaos, cohesion being the back and chaos being the front. In my mind, especially in 2016, that sums up politics in the United States.
I'm hoping to finish piecing by the end of May, then quilt it this summer and bind it in September. It's due September 9th for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum's call for entries, Patchwork Pundits Take on Politics.
Hope it works and I hope they like it!