Exhibition quilt

I normally enter one or two quilts in the Canberra Quilters annual exhibition. I don't really like doing it - I'm never as happy with my quilts when I see them surrounded by others as I am when I'm at home with them. I'm not very good at execution and in this kind of show there are some absolutely amazingly brilliant quilts that make mine look a bit amateurish. So I was undecided about whether to enter anything this year ... but I do LOVE white glove duty and getting to spend a couple of hours up close and personal with all the quilts and watching people's reactions to them. So I figured if everyone enjoys looking at them as much as I do then I need to suck it up and put something in.

I've had an idea for a quilt for ages - I knew I wanted words like last year's Work-Life Balance, and I knew I wanted yellow. I do love yellow. So I started off piecing a word and it wasn't what I was after at all. Too cutesy somehow.



So I thought a more formal stencilling process would be better. I used a mildly cursive stencil and some fabric paints.



That wasn't any good at all. Too girly. So I got an industrial-type stencil like you'd use on packing crates or something. I tried it with fabric paint.



Oh no no no. Far too messy and smeared everywhere - there is industrial-shabby and then there is just a hot mess. So I tried a fabric marker.



Perfect!! Especially next to lots of solid scraps. Now I just have to actually do the damn thing in ... mmmm .... a couple of months?