2019 12x12 donation quilt

Every year I make a 12"x12" quilt to donate to the SAQA auction.  It's a great fundraiser and always fun to make something a little bit fun and different.  The auction isn't until September but the quilts are due in the early summer, and recently our SAQA region has been organizing exhibitions of these small quilts before their submitted to SAQA.  It's a wonderful thing since it means they get to be seen some before being purchased in the auction.  Since we're having these early exhibitions though, we had to send our pieces to the regional rep by the middle of January, so this year's 12x12 turned out to be the first quilt of the year for me.

I started with a piece of black velvet, did some shiva paintsticks and painting to add color, and then some bright thread free-motion quilting.  It's called Winter 2019 and is balloons or abstract flowers or something joyful.  I was feeling oddly motivated and hopeful about 2019 when I made it so for me it's a happy project!  The edge is finished with couched rainbow yarn which saved me the dreaded facing.  I've found that it's hard to get facing corners to come out square when the quilt uses bulky fabrics like velvet, and abnormalities in the corners are much magnified when the whole quilt is only 12 inches square, so it's nice to have an alternative finishing method.

It was fun to do something a bit different and smaller scale.  The piece is hanging at the Stiles Gallery in Westwood Kansas for the month of February, so if you happen to be in the area, go by and check out all the great small works!