My Goose Quilt

Moonlight Migration 58" x 58"

Jane Zillmer original design

What we have here is a photo of my almost finished quilt top;  I still need to machine appliqué the moons in place.  

This is the first time ever that I have created a quilt strictly for a competition, in this case it's the National Quilt Museum's yearly New Quilts form an Old Favorite contest. Yes, I enter most of my quilts in quilt shows, but I don't make them just for that reason.  

I was initially inspired to make this quilt after spotting a flock of snow geese in the sky while out walking in the Minneapolis area last March. I had never before seen snow geese and what a wonderful a sight they were.  

Shortly after that,  I found that the museum's theme for the 2017 contest is the Flying Geese block.

Ah, perfect!  All I had to do was create a quilt that would be an interpretation of that block, recognizable in some way.  

Here's a sample of a traditional flying geese block from Purl Soho:  

Traditional Flying Geese block

I designed and drafted Moonlight Migration, and it is almost entirely made up of flying geese including the pieced black and brown background.  Geese and many other birds do migrate at night and I like the dramatic effect I created.  

Another entry requirement is that the quilt maker also does the quilting, my next hurdle.  

I thought the deadline for entry was August 15th - WOW!  I just read that it's actually November 4, 2016.  Plenty of time to do the machine quilting.  I could take the summer off..... but I won't!