100 Days - Week of Participation - Featured Quilt 5

Today we are featuring Ann Sands’ version of the Single Girl Quilt pattern by Denyse Schmidt that Ann was inpired to dive in and make because of the Single Girl Support Group.  Her great use of color with one blue ring, surrounded by many mostly orange rings, makes the quilt her own.

What do you enjoy the most about quilt alongs?
Single Girl was my first quilt along and I was thrilled to have found the opportunity. I had purchased the SG pattern and had it “in the wings” for a few years. It was a quilt I really wanted to make, but was a little intimidated to start… it had to be just right. Knowing that there would be assistance with the details of construction, smaller steps, soft deadlines (for the most part), and fellow quilters by my side gave me the boost I needed to hop aboard and just do it. I have been in an orange phase, and really wanted to use orange as I had yet to make a quilt using such an out-of-the-box color. I had been inspired online by a couple of orange and aqua quilts to add aqua to the mix too. I sketched three different color layouts in EQ and posted those pics to the SG Flickr Group and asked for everyone’s opinions.

I remember being so giddy seeing that not only had my fellow quilt-alongers responded, but most were leaning toward my favorite!!!  I also truly enjoyed being able to see everyone else’s color selections and was just in awe at the different combinations they were all coming up with.  The completed blocks and then quilts were inspiring and knowing that each one of us worked so hard together really gave me such a feeling of accomplishment.  The entire experience was so positive.

What do you think makes this quilt modern?

I think it is a combination of things that makes this quilt modern… first of all the pattern for sure. It’s a twist on the traditional Wedding Ring, but it’s not! The 31 wacky shapes that make up the circles and the circle blocks themselves are somewhat organic. The bright color combination surely isn’t traditional and lends to the modern feel of the quilt. Lastly the quilting is very non-traditional, and again… organic. My best friend is a long-arm quilter and did the quilting on this one for me. She spent a ton of time on it and I think she did a FANTASTIC job… I love circles! I think she really brought it all together with the quilting, it was exactly what I had imagined.

Tell us more about yourself as a quilter.
I am a 30-something wife and a mamma to 3 children 11, 9 and 6yrs. When I’m not taking care of them or working part time, I try to fit in as much fabric activity as possible.  My mom started quilting as a form of therapy after my sister passed away almost 11 years ago. I remember my uncertainty about quilting and how it was, in my opinion, “an old lady sport“… not to mention the puffy mauve and country blue cliché… No thanks. Little did I know! For my birthday a couple years later Mom presented me with a HUGE stack of 60-70 fat quarters of Aunt Grace 1930′s reproduction feedsack fabric. I was hooked once I realized there was so much more too it and that there were so many options to really make it your own. It didn’t take long for me to acquire all that I needed to put together my first quilt. Now, I’ve been quilting and making fabric items for over 8 years and it has become my passion. For the past two years I have become very interested and inspired by the modern quilt movement, and the blogs and online activity that accompanies it all.  I am constantly starting something new, and just can’t get enough. I love it all!

I am very new to blogging at Celia Blue and I’m lightly on Flickr as CeliaBlueQuilts.