Hunger Games Update

I pulled out this project which I started last year and got back to the grind of sewing the districts.  I'm proud to say I've officially (officially?) finished them finally and now have started on working on layout and extras.  I still have the 4 mockingjay insignia's to work on as well as Katniss's bow and arrows.  Here's the new squares...

District 12 - Mining

District 10 Livestock

This a redo of District 6 Transportation (I like the monochromatic much better)

Snow's Rose

I'm not sure I like how this came out as the colors I chose don't translate well, so it may be redone at a later date.

In the dark of the night

Why is it I always get inspired in the middle of sleeping?  Last night after finishing up some quilting and doing some necessary sewing (woot for fat quarter bag holders - I'll post a picture in a bit) I got to thinking about my Hunger Games quilt.  With my PoD2015 caught up I think I may return to working on the HG quilt.

I typically layout my quilts just using an excel spreadsheet (because I"m not very fancy).

Originally I had thought to mimic the icons from the movie with laurel leaves surrounding the square and the word district and the district number rounding it out - even going so far to actually piece (thanks to liljabs) one of the district words and then the sheer volume of work shimmered in front of my eyes and I began rethinking things.  This quilt is pretty big and adding all the extras really would make it insanely bigger.  You can see my sad little sketch here...

SO here's my midnight inspiration

I have just over half of the squares made, and I think I am going to solicit one of my friends with an embroidery machine to do the words - and I'll hand embroider the arrows - simple yet beautiful.  (Don't laugh at my drawings).  I love the visual impact of the colors against the black and don't want anything to really take away from that.  

I've also been on the prowl for a backing material - and here's a few I've been considering:

I love the arrow theme - and a part of me wants to just do a turned edge to the front to finish rather than a whole separate binding - but I'm not sure yet.  Right now I'm leaning to the red or every which way multi-color arrows.  We'll see.

More HG and an idea for layout/sashing?

 I debated for a long time about the coloring for this block (District 2 - Masonry).  The original pattern has it in all grays - but I like the color contrast against the black, so added the brown handle and "rock" fabric to give it a bit of dimension.

(District 13 - Graphite Nuclear) seriously my favorite square to date on this quilt.  The pictures don't do it justice, that silvery fluid fabric is PERFECT and lends itself to a futuristic feel.  LOVE!

I've been spending a bit of time trying to figure out how I want to lay this quilt out.  Since it's still fairly new (I've not seen a completed one yet), I was toying with the idea of mimicking the district symbols like these:

Liljabs was gracious and sweet and created a pattern for the word DISTRICT

Which looks amazing - so I put it with the square like this

And then toyed around with doing some laurel leaves for the sides.  It's not circular, but would give the same feel.  I'm still not sure this is the path I"m going to take with this - but considering for now.

I feel like those leaves are too big..... perhaps a redo smaller sized....

HG - Pattern Testing District 5

So I am playing a bit with a new HG square for this quilt.  I'm still in the dark as far as how I'm putting this whole thing together, but I have a few ideas.

This pattern was put together with a red alphabet set, and a green alphabet set - Gotta love that liljabs LOVES all those little pieces!  Slow and steady!

Putting all those little bits together really took some time.  I feel like on squares like this it's important to remove paper as you go, and trim seams down to 1/8th an inch to avoid bulky seams.  I read somewhere that you can "hammer" those bulky spots too to help reduce, but I'm too chicken to do it.

Just a little more.....

and finally - whala!  I've got to work on my own lining up skills (thinking that switching to clips over quilt pins may help).  It's not perfect, but I'm happy enough with it.