A Path to Imperfection

I finished my imperfect quilt.  It's actually hanging in my living room currently.  I'm trying to decide if I want to keep it there.  I've mentioned before that I'm just not really into hanging quilts, but I like the idea more when it doesn't really look like a quilt.  The final size is about 31" x 31".

This was actually a really great creative experiment for me.  It was harder than I thought, and I learned some things along the way.  I'm not sure I will be doing quilts like this regularly, but it was really great to change things up and allow myself to make a quilt that lacks perfection.  I never used pins or my rotary cutter.  I did mark cut lines so my curves would match up (at least somewhat).  I learned that fabric can stretch-- a lot.  I basically soaked a lot of these pieces with water and pretty much cooked them with my iron.

Here is an example of adding a new row to the quilt.  I trimmed up the bottom edge of the quilt then laid it over the next row.  I marked it and cut 1/4 inch from my mark so my seams would pretty much line up.  If I were more patient, I would have pinned it like crazy, but I'm not really patient so I just sewed.  Then I pressed it flat.

After sewing all my segments together, I quilted it.  After quilting, I squared everything up and did a simple brown binding.  

I quilted each segment differently to create more of the image I was going for.  Initially I had no plan for this quilt, but it quickly became obvious to me that the yellow was the sun and the blue was the sky.  I added a hilly forest, brown path and dark blue river as the creation process continued.  I quilted the yellow in straight lines from the center as rays from the sun.  The sky is quilted in a loopy pattern showing the movement of the air.  The forest is quilted in a zig-zag shape mimicking the triangle shape of a pine tree.  The path is quilted in pebble quilting as rocks and the river in a squiggle showing waves. 

Overall, this was a great challenge to myself.  I was inspired by the Mod-Mood quilt-along from daintytime and used her piecing technique.  The quilt is machine pieced and quilted.