Habitat Challenge

When the FVMQ guild announced a new fabric challenge using Habitat by Jay McCarroll, I really wanted to be a part of it!

Unfortunately, all the fabric packets were spoken for, so I was out of luck. As generous quilters can be, Barb offered up her fabric pack and gave it to me at the next meeting.

After I got the fabrics and had a really good look at them, I wasn't sure if I should thank Barb or she should thank me for taking this challenge off her hands! Ha! I found the Habitat fabrics a really interesting mix of textures and colours, and I wracked my brain for days trying to come up with an idea to use it. These are the six fabrics I received in my fat eights pack.
  

  

Remember these triangles? I made up a whack of triangles, but then what?

Hmm, I had seen this super-cute fall pillow tutorial on one of my favourite blogs, Cluck Cluck Sew. I have wanted to make this pattern ever since I saw it, and thought the Habitat fabrics would make great leaves for the tree.

I used the scraps leftover from making the triangles and made up a pile of leaves until I ran out of fabric, and the centre block of my Habitat quilt was born! I used the same method as demonstrated on the Cluck Cluck Sew blog,where Allison fused and straight-stitched around the edge of all the leaves.

I played around with the triangles surrounding the centre block, but thought it looked too busy with the triangles side by side, and it wouldn't end up much bigger than a wall hanging. I wanted this to be a lap size quilt so with some planning and using Excel to draft out the number of triangles needed, I figured out how big I could make it.

Of course, I didn't realize until I was at retreat that the pieces of solid fabric I pulled from my stash weren't going to be big enough for what I had planned, so I just improvised and made do with what I had! Without even intending to, I think my quilt has a decidedly '70s feel to it!

I brought some brushed cotton in a yummy caramel colour to audition for the back (I think I bought it in '97)! There wasn't quite enough of it, so I had fun playing and pieced the middle panel so it would be long enough. So much fun!

I can't believe how different all the quilts have turned out using the same Habitat fabrics as a starting point. This definitely has been a challenge and has forced many of us to stretch out beyond our comfort zone, but I am very happy with the results! I'm adding this to my Power of Ten list to get it finished this year!