Cherrywood Challenge 2019

I've looked at the Cherrywood Challenges every year for the last three years but hadn't purchased a kit until the 2019 challenge was announced.  In fact, to keep myself from backing out again, I pre-ordered the kit before the theme was announced.  Then it came out that the theme was Bob Ross and we'd be getting fabrics hand dyed in the colours he used most in his paintings.  The kit came in November and I had until July 1st at 11:59 pm CST to complete a 20 inch square wall hanging.
 
I knew at the time I was retiring and so there would be lots of time to work on a 20 inch wall hanging.  Or Not.  I managed to procrastinate until June then having missed both Quilt Canada challenges, I got busy and came up with a design for the Cherrywood Challenge.
 
Initially I was going to use one of my Iceland Photos as inspiration but didn't feel I had enough time to go there and solve some problems (no white fabric, where's the bleach to make snow).  Anyway, I ended up with an imaginary lakeside scene complete with boat.   There's a spot I like to hike that has a short dock into a little lake which is entirely too shallow for a boat but I also have fond memories of rides in the cedar strip boat with my parents.  This is an early spring picture of the area out at Silvercreek. 

I sketched a quick drawing, grabbed some light weight fusible interfacing to stabilize everything and some light weight fusible to hold the trees down.  Originally I was going to thread paint before I quilted but changed my mind and decided the thread painting would be the quilting.  I started out about 21 or 22 inches square because I knew it would shrink with all the painting.  Its been a while since I quilted or thread painted with my machine so I had some initial problems getting tension correct.  Eventually I made a small sandwich with the same backing, batting, interfacing and piece of the challenge fabric and quilted it, ripped, quilted, ripped, quilted until I actually got something that didn't rip out with a single tug.

The trees are thread painted with multiple King Tut threads to help build up the colours.  I started with colours for the trunks and branches and worked up.  I had a few more colours planned but it was getting too thick so I stopped. 

 The dock I used a triple stitch (mean for stretch fabric I think) to make the boards and then had fun making grain and adding a zig zag for the end of boards.

This was the final piece.  It needed rulers to show that it was, indeed, 20 inches.

We needed three photos for the submission.  The overall with rulers and two details.  How hard can it be to get three photos?  Apparently harder than I thought.  It took just over an hour.  The instructions had a reference to a site with some hints on photographing your quilt which was excellent.  I pinned the quilt to the design wall.  Hung the yard stick and repinned the quilt because it definitely wasnt't pinned on the wall straight.  Found the centre of the quilt and marked it with a yellow headed pin so I could measure how high the camera on the tripod needed to be and then make sure the centre of the lens lined up with the wall hanging.  Took three pictures and downloaded them.  Do you see it? 

I realized as I was processing the photos that I'd forgotten to remove the yellow headed pin.  Back to the camera, remove pin, retake photos, download photos. 

I'd forgotten to check for stray threads and lint so back to the camera, remove the lint, retake photos, download photos and back to the camera after removing a thread I'd missed.  In the end, I submitted my challenge on June 29th about 11:45 am so just over 2.5 days in advance!  My sister wants to know who I am and what I've done with her real sister.  That was very early for me. 

Mine wasn't chosen as a finalist but I did have fun making it.  Having stared at it for a while since I submitted it, I might add some additional quilting to the water and maybe the background behind the trees.  I think my favorite view is actually the back though.....

Its a piece of fabric from a gradated batch of black that failed to give me anything but a mottled grey of mostly uniform value.  I love it on the back of this with the thread painting on top.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the theme is for 2020.