Churn Dash Cosmonaut {a finished quilt}

Here are the final photos of my Modern Quilt Guild Michael Miller Challenge quilt.

The pattern is called “Unchurned” and comes from the book “Accentuate the Negative” by Trisch Price.  I followed the dimensions for the quilt but made the corner pieces 4 inches bigger than necessary and cut them wonky, but maybe not wonky enough for it to really show.

I tried to include selvages from every fabric used in the quilt.

There are many pieces that read Michael Miller or are the color dots from selvages. 

I thought it would be cool to include the color dots because really this quilt is about using all those colors—from new Michael Miller fabrics like Petal Pinwheels and Just My Type to mixing in Madrona Road and Whimsy Windows.  If the color worked, I tried to incorporate it in the quilt.

Using solids was also a goal for this quilt.  The solid dark gray is Michael Miller cotton couture in charcoal.  The coral is also Michael Miller.  The provenance of the green, grays, cream, and aqua is unknown.

The gray rectangles are quilted densely with back-and-forth lines. 

And each of the gray half-square triangles are quilted with big and small circles.  The top thread is dark gray and the bobbin thread is light aqua.  Getting the tension right took a lot of practice, but overall the stitching is really good.

The rest of the quilt is stippled densely with aqua thread on top and bottom. 

The different quilting styles give the quilt a nice texture that is not stiff at all.

I tried to get creative with some of the piecing.  This flower is pieced from yellow and blue fabrics.

There are several fussy cut cats.

And one bird.

A fun little curved piece.

A pretty yellow flower.

And some flying geese.

 

The back has a pieced section…and quite a few puckers.  It was a major disappointment on my end.  I made the mistake of quilting the solid sections before the center section, and ended up with too much backing fabric in the center.  The good news is this quilt is going to hang in my living room, so no one will be the wiser, and it’s a lesson learned to always quilt from the center out.

The quilting on the back through these flowers is my favorite part of the quilt.

This quilt is entitled “Churn Dash Cosmonaut” for the fact that it’s a micro and macro view of a churn dash and the cat fabric is called “Atomic Tabbies.”  The song “Low” by Cracker may have had something to do with it too…

The finished size is 72” square.  I’ll be linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and Fort Worth Fabric Studio.