Down the Rabbit Hole

This is the only warning:  if you are part of the Martin County Quilters and want to be surprised about my entry for the member challenge - STOP READING!

This quilt was oodles of fun!  It all started back when Martin County Quilters announced the 2013 Member Challenge -- black and white. I knew immediately I would be doing one of my zentangle doodles, but didn't know exactly what or how so I put the thought away for a while.  One morning I woke up, poured my coffee and sat down to doodle.  Well, I doodled and doodled and this happened:

I had been playing around with an Alice in Wonderland-ish quilt in my head for awhile, and well, the Mad Hatter, he's one of my favorites and this quilt totally speaks Mad Hatter (at least to me).  So this just seemed like the perfect place for all these ideas to meet -- kinda cool if I say so.

The rules for the challenge were pretty simple -- max size 160" perimeter, must be black and white (you can add 1-2 other colors but they can't total more than 25%) and that's it.

So I took my drawing and enlarged it to about 39" square:

Yep, that's an aerial of my kitchen table -- wow, it looks amazingly fun now huh?

So I started with a piece of really nice white fabric -- when I say really nice, it is such a smooth silky feeling fabric!  Now, to try and remember when and where I purchased this... that just might kill me, but let me tell you it is absolutely sweet fabric!  I'll make a mental note to keep looking for it because now I've only got a little chunk left -- it looks like this:

I know, that wasn't much help huh?  So from there I transferred the pattern to the fabric in pencil:

And then the inking and coloring began:

And after about 80 hours this happened -- awesomeness!

And then it was time for the quilting... Yes, I still suffer from I'm-really-gonna-mess-this-up anxiety!  Seriously!!  When it comes time to quilt my own stuff I turn into a nervous-nelly.

So as with almost all quilts, I start by basting the entire quilt so I know it is square and make sure there will be no surprises when I get down to the bottom.  This also allows me to roll the quilt back and forth as much as necessary while quilting.

 Then some test stitches and we're off:

Staying on those lines... hmmm, maybe next time I'll quilt it first then color it in!  And some super-duper tiny pebbles -- FUN!

Hey... did you know that if you stick your hand in front of the needle it will bite you!  This has happened to me many times, but this is the very first time I got blood on the quilt!  Oh no!!  But, did you know that a tiny little bit of peroxide on a Q-Tip takes it right off!  Magic!

Although this quilt was hanging fairly flat, blocking is always a good idea with any competition piece.

before blocking

So it was dipped, blocked, and stayed like this for a couple of days while it dried:

during blocking

 And that leaves us with binding... ugh... yuck... hate... slow...

But here we go, the finished picture -- OMG, I love this quilt!!!

Down the Rabbit Hole - an original design by Karen Marchetti

So the best part of this... as I was finishing inking and coloring the design I realized how awesome it was and decided to submit it to MQX Quilt Festivals Pacific Northwest show.  It was accepted, so everyone will get to see it debut there.  No worries, it will still be my member challenge for Martin County Quilters, and hopefully many more shows!  Hope you get a chance to see it!