Super Blood Wolf Moon 2019

My husband is an amature astrophotographer. He likes to take photos of astronomical things for enjoyment and research. In January of this year, there was a lunar eclipse called the “Super Blood Wolf Moon”. Some of his photos were down right stunning. I’d asked him if I may use one to turn into an art quilt, and he gave me permission. (Yes, I asked my husband to let me use one of his photos.)

First things first. I needed to get his photo ready to become my base pattern. Then, I needed to bring it up to size. If all went well, I should have it done in time for a local quilt show that was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first human walk on the moon. I had show-specific requirements to meet, and I wanted to make sure I covered my bases.

After going through some of my stash, I began to get my fabric color “palette” set up. I knew I’d need to add a few more colors, once I got started, but I couldn’t move forward until I got the background color put on my design wall.

Piece by piece, it began to come together.

I knew that the pieces I was putting up weren’t circular; it was ending up more oval. That was fine. I was getting pieces made. I could adjust placements once I got far enough along. I expected to have to make said adjustments.

For now, I needed to the big pieces made. I’d add in the finer details later.

It was right about here that I began to crack jokes about what this looked like. “My own version of the ‘Death Star’ ” was a frequent observation. And still more pieces were going up.

It was about this time that I knew I’d have to stop and start shifting things around a bit. The moon wasn’t as oval as my work was making it seem.

While I like the new placement locations, I wasn’t thrilled with how the lower right corner was looking. Something was “off” with the colors. I went back and forth with a couple of my beta viewers, to see if they saw the same thing I did, and to get ideas/suggestions for how best to fix my mistake(s).

Once the section was corrected, it was a matter of getting coordinating fabrics to balance along the design and stay consistant.

Once the overall design was done, and all members of my beta team agreed, it was a matter of getting things ironed into place and pulling placement pins. After that, the tough part would begin – the quilting.

Since I was entering this as a judged piece, I needed to make sure that I was extra careful with how I stitched the quilt sandwich layers together. I’d decided to use the fabric as my “code”. One fabric got one type of stitching, another got a different type. Doing this would add visual depth to the overall design.

You’ll have to forgive me. I decided to have some fun with the backing fabric. When I’d cleaned my sewing room, I’d found a bunch of fabrics I’d forgotten were in my stash. So, of course I was going to use them. To be blunt, it makes me laugh.

I was almost done. Like, seriously, almost done. I’d kind of rolled through this project with a bit of light-hearted fun and delight. I’m not saying there weren’t problems, only that I chose to be amused by most of this adventure.

I made the entry turn-in deadline with a couple three days to spare. I still wasn’t sure if I should have added more quilting; did I add too much, etc. It’s the first time I’d actively sought out a written/judged review of my work. (Getting work appraised is different from show judging.) Let’s just say I was feeling pretty nauseous after I dropped it off and leave it at that.

During the weekend of the show, I was surprised with this:

See that green thing in the lower right corner? That was an award for honorable mention. *blinks stupidly* I got an award!! Woo hoo!!