Design Floor Friday - Blog Hop Style

Welcome to another edition of Design Floor Friday!!  Friday, May 8th was my day on the Creating a Quilted Legacy Blog Hop.  I had been working on my post for more than a month.  As I mentioned last week, the Hop also spurred a personal challenge.

Here's what transpired...

Back when Paula posted the following photo, I knew that I wanted to make a Barn Quilt one day.  For her special tribute Blog Hop, I decided to interpret this photo...

...  Which was taken on one of Paula's Green County (Wisconsin) barn quilts tours with her son, Chris, before he passed away.  This is my version of the Green County, WI barn quilt:

I thought that Paula would like the fact that I was inspired by her hopes to create a barn quilt or quilt barn from this intriguing photo.  Shown above in my iris blooming last week.  (Paula shared my passion for the iris, so I staged the shot with her in mind.)

Below is a close-up that I didn't share as part of my Hop post:

Arriving at the completed piece (which you haven't seen yet) was quite a journey.  As such, I thought YOU might like to see how this piece was made.

Care to follow along in the process???

I had the brilliant idea that creating that Quilt Barn would make a great giveaway for The Hop.  And then I began the actual construction.  I started with the actual QUILT from the barn:

Due to the somewhat unconventional methods...

... This was a bigger challenge than it might otherwise have been:

Next, I built the barn...

... In several sections:

Then, I began the quilting.  Layers and layers of quilting:

This is the photo that I shared in my Blog Hop post:

I opted to go with a "rustic" feel by leaving the quilt with raw edges, finishing it off with a couple rounds of straight stitching:

After all that, the MOST IMPORTANT feature hadn't made it into the quilt:

That window is what sucked me in, but my efforts to include it were thwarted at every turn:

My scissors didn't allow for the precision that I needed with the scale of the window, which I attempted first in paper...

... And then, in fabric:

I gave up and moved on to make my mug rug for the giveaway:

The colors were as accurate as I could find in my scrap stash:

I chose an Orphan Block from a recent scrap infusion (probably from Ella and Barry) for the back of Barn Quilt:

With that much taken care of...

... I went back to finishing off the Quilt Barn.  Since I had opted to leave the quilt without a bound edge, I tried a different method for attaching my label.  Too bad I didn't LISTEN to my machine!!  If I had, I wouldn't have needed to engage my seam ripper to pick out that big gray mess of thread:

The thread had gotten wrapped around the needle threader mechanism, but once I released it, I was back in business:

Try not to get whiplash here...

... But the next thing I knew, I was quilting the mug rug.  Minimal quilting seemed appropriate for the style of this small quilt:

I chose a brown binding, as a nod to the barn:

Once that was done, the window came knocking on my brain...

... I tried another method.  Less lazy this time.  With more starch!  Of course, I didn't think of that on my own.  It was Needleb's suggestion.  And it worked!  (Thanks, B!)

SEW...

... With a sense of hope, I began to install the window:

First, I added the shadowy background and then the sashing:

No stabilizer.  Just small straight stitching:

With the sashing firmly in place, I added the window frame:

Success!!!

That's when I realized there was absolutely NO WAY that I could possibly give the project away!  This piece wasn't a mug rug to be used and thrown in the wash when it got dirty.  It was slowly and painstakingly transformed into a work of art.

For one reason, it became my own lasting connection to Paula. Another reason for me to keep that the little quilt was the creativity that I poured into the piece.  It became my own interpretation of what I had learned from reading a book from one of my favorite scrappy quilt bloggers.

I absolutely LOVE  Julie Sefton's work!!  I actually won a copy of Julie's Build-A-Barn book reviewed in Paula's post.  (Thanks again, Julie!)  We ("Quilt Diva Julie" and I) communicate regularly through comments and responses from each other's blog posts.  OK, so more accurately, my comments on her blog, but she HAS commented on mine from time to time!  :P

Visit my HOP POST to WIN this Barn Quilt mug rug:

Approx. 6" square

I hope the winner will enjoy this special connection to Paula and her quilting adventures.  I'm calling this Orange County Barn Quilt (because I don't live in Wisconsin!)  You'll notice a resemblance to Paula and Chris's photo from up the page, but I've put my own twist on it.  In order to win this mini quilt, go visit my Hop post and leave a comment!!  Your comment will serve as your entry into my drawing.  Mr. Random will choose a winner @ 9 PM on Friday, May 15th.

RANDOM WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN... MY DRAWING IS NOW CLOSED!!!

Check the Hop post for details.