PQ 6.2 Land of the Midnight Sun

Voting for Round 2 quilts is now open.     Scroll down the post to the pictures.   Click on the gray heart in the upper right hand corner of the picture to register your vote.   Mine is number 56.


I was fortunate enough this past summer to travel to Alaska with several members of my family.  It was a wonderful trip full of fishing and taking in all the sights.  I had been warned that it would be difficult to sleep with the near round the clock sunshine.  In fact, I found I adapted to it quite nicely.  I was very happy to have that much sunshine.  And I appreciated having only near dusk dusk darkness on the middle of the night walk to the restrooms at the fishing camp!  I am quite certain that I would not do equally well in the darkness they have at this time of the year.

Our primary goal was fishing.  However, I did my research and identified the ONE quilt shop in Anchorage that I did not want to miss. We worked out a plan and I ended up in Alaskan quilt shop heaven.  There was everything there from Russian influenced applique to Alaskan themed novelty prints to Alaskan batiks.  Oh my... the Alaskan batiks.  Oh mine... the Alaskan batiks.  I was restrained.  I knew how much room I had in my suitcase and how many pairs of socks and underwear I could reasonably abandon in order to stuff a bit more in. I did pick up a bit of fabric for the pattern Delectable Dog Sled by Lisa Moore. 

When I read that Project Quilting Challenge was sunrise sunset, I immediately thought of my trip to the Land of the Midnight Sun and decided to put together my Alaskan Souvenir.  I pulled out my dog sled batik and the matching swirling stars and started to look at the pattern.  There was one problem with that picture. I neglected to even consider, let alone purchase any background fabric.  The pattern has a beautiful swirling stars in complimentary colors.  What was I going to do?  A quick panicked look at the quilt shop website showed that they had the fabric in stock. But seriously, there was no way it would arrive in time for me to finish the quilt in time to meet the challenge deadline

I went to my stash and started looking.  Front and center in the batik tray was this strange gray and black and orange and gold piece of fabric.  It is completely not my style or color choice.  I don't know where I bought it or for what project it was intended.  It was however the perfect complement to the colors in my Alaskan prize fabric.  More importantly, there was enough of it to complete the background and the binding.  What are the odds?

The funny thing is that while I knew the colors matched, I just wasn't sure it would work.  But given the deadline and my determination to use stash material I went ahead and got started.  This is probably the only quilt I've ever worked on where every time I put two pieces of fabric side by side I marveled at how well they went together.

This pattern is based on the Delectable Mountain block.  I could easily see the musher's dashing through the dark mountain side.  But as I worked, I could also see the hints of the Aurora and perhaps the looming season of sunshine peeking out from behind those mountains.

This quilt measures 19 x 50 inches.  It is the pattern Delectable Dog Sled by Lisa Moore.  The fabric is batik from Alaska and parts unknown.  The batting is cotton and the backing is black quilter's cotton.  It was machine pieced and quilted on my domestic sewing machine.  The binding was finished by hand.

View all of the lovely quilts submitted for Project Quilting season 6 Challenge at Persimon Dreams. You can also follow the quilter's project each week on the Challenge Quilts Facebook page. Project Quilting is the brain child of Kim Lapacek.  The challenges come from the evil genius of her mother-in-law Dianne.

A couple of side notes about this quilt.
 1. After many years of telling my quilty friends they could part from the pattern and free themselves from the chosen fabrics I followed a pattern using the fabrics in the picture.  Well mostly.

2.  I departed from the pattern a bit.  Mine doesn't look entirely like the picture.  That is my fault and not the pattern's.

3. I think this is technically the best quilt I've done.  That leaves a lot of room for improvement but I am very happy with my progress on stitching even seams and on making consistent and straight cuts.

4.  I love my June Taylor shape cut ruler.

That is all.  Now go view the quilts and vote for yours truly if you are so inclined.