Quilts by the Water: Reserve Champion/Pacific Grove, CA

 I can hardly believe I'm doing the behind-the-scenes story of a second quilt calendar! This time around, all the quilts were photographed by water, most by the ocean, but not all.

Reserve Champion initially began its life as part of a series by RJR Fabrics called What Shade Are You in order to promote their line of solid fabrics. I was contacted by the fabric company and was able to choose 12 fabrics, design a quilt, and be part of their blog series.

Reserve Champion was inspired by a quilt in a magazine--a completely different block design, prints not solids, but all the blocks were in three different values of four separate colors. I don't remember anything more about the photo, but I liked the idea so I chose the block and then submitted my color choices to RJR.

I chose the Sister's Choice block as it worked very well with two colors per block, and then alternating a dark and light background color. I decided I wanted a bit of "negative space," and then came up with the idea of enlarging one of the blocks. It didn't fit into the design as a whole block, so I decided to use halves of the block in two different locations.

I have never successfully learned how to use a quilt design program like EQ8, mostly because I don't sell my patterns and therefore don't want to spend the time to learn, so graph paper is what works for me. 

I was happy with the design layout, and choosing color combinations and value combinations was really fun.

For the backing, I decided to make a complete version of the largest block and add two practice blocks.

It was beautifully quilted by Darby Myers.

After all this, I decided to attempt a magazine submission. It appeared in the Winter 2017/2018 issue of Quilt Festival: Quilt Scene.

At this point, I worked with good friend, Mike Klaassen, to do some graphics for the submission. We joked that this really expanded his resume--appearing in a quilt magazine!

I was also contacted by Modern Patchwork, who had published some of my other quilts (unfortunately no longer in publication--and it was one of my favorites) to write an article about making two-sided quilts. Reserve Champion (along with another one of my quilts) appeared in the November/December 2017 issue.

At the time we photographed the quilt by the coast, making a calendar was not even in my thought process--in this photo you can see a bit of the towel I placed under the quilt so it wouldn't get too sandy...

The story behind the name: 

I enjoy naming quilts. And sometimes the names end up being a little obscure and only make sense to me. The name of the block I used in this quilt is Sister's Choice. I don't have a sister--only one brother. I tried finding a block that would work and have the word "brother" in it but I couldn't find one. My brother works for the federal reserve in Washington, DC. For some reason, "reserve champion" popped into my head. The definition of reserve champion is basically a runner up, in case the winner is disqualified. Obviously that has no relevance to this quilt--it is really just a shout-out to my brother who works for the federal reserve and wins the prize for being my only brother. I have never asked him if he considers that a prize or not--ha ha!

It is a good exercise for me to write the history of these quilts as I often forget parts of their history--like the RJR blog hop. 

Quilt: Reserve Champion

Designed and made by: Cindy Wiens

Quilted by: Darby Myers

Size: 60" x 60"