Sound of Music Challenge: I Won Third Place!

I just received a phone call that my 'Sound of Music' Challenge quilt "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" won third place from the Mid-Valley Quilt Guild here here in Salem Oregon!

For someone who made it while only get 3.5 hours of sleep a night in small added total of small 45 minute increments with multiple hours awake during the night  (going on 16 years of chronic sleep deprivation) and who spends so much time helping others, blogging, and doing the crazy things I do, I wasn't sure if I should even attempt to enter a contest in a guild that is primarily filled with really accomplished traditional quilters, who can not only think straight but cut straight besides, but I connected with the theme...and entered anyway :-)

So, but I tried NOT to see it as a problem (like Maria...) just decided to have fun and see it as 'good enough' for my first quilt challenge. I used fabric I had on hand (to save time and feel more liberated) But I had the loveliest spool of  Aurifil thread that I had just wonderfully won in a contest from another super talented art quilter/blogger (Mararita Korioth)  and bits and pieces of leftover craft paint, jewels etc. and combined it with a lot of freecycle finds and then some nice fabric from a local store that ended up working quite nicely. I aged my fabric with paintsticks and dye trying to mute it to the feel of that era.


Now, I'm actually pretty darn tickled!  And the best part..there was only a total of 3 votes between the first, second and third place finishes!

                                                         1st place (Dennison Doyle)

 2nd place (Diane Nordyke)

 3rd place (Michele Bilyeu)

 We are all very different quilters aren't we? And isn't it just wonderful that there is room in the quilting world for ALL of us?
  

Out of hundreds and hundreds of guild members, there were only twelve entries. But hey, 3 out of 12 makes me very happy, actually..I'm just glad I even got it done ;-)

 I'm polishing up my straw hat, twirling my dirndl, and yodeling to the mountains! oh-de-lay-he-hooo! I figured out how to solve a problem like Maria!


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

I'm not a person who deliberately chooses to enter quilting challenges. I am a person who has so many challenges in her life, already,  that she doesn't need, or want, any more!

So, when I decided to deliberately enter a quilt challenge for my local Mid-Valley Quilt Guild, it was only because I instantly had an idea for the project and I was beginning to think that I had super human abilities from my constant sleep deprivation....lack of sleep will do that to you ;-)

The rules were that the quilt had be under a total perimeter of 120", had to use the colors black and yellow, and it had to be based on a song from the "The Sound of Music."

Having seen the original screenplay dozens and dozens of times (my youngest daughter played one of the von Trapp children in the play in high school, and I was a costumer. Meaning, I saw the play during staging, tech rehearsal, every single dress rehearsal, and all of the performances.

And who hasn't seen the TV version, over and over and over, as well?

All of that, plus my middle name is spelled Maria, and while I usually pronounce it that way when asked, just to help them spell it. But mine is actually pronounced  'Mar-eeah' after both my French Great-Aunt, (the formidable Tante Maria who spoke 3 romance languages and taught French in a prominent New York University.)  Co-incidentally, it was also my Finnish Grandmother's middle name and while from a totally different country, pronounced exactly the same way, 'Mar-eeah'

I usually tell people 'one l' Michele and pronounce my last name almost like the color, just stretch it out and leave out my middle name if at all possible.  No one remembers any of my name in the end and I get introduced by every variation in the book, even if they do.

If I send an email to correct the spelling of  Michele, to one 'l' and not two 'l's,  I am told it's already correct (when obviously it wasn't or I wouldn't have been complaining ;-)..even when they'd already published it incorrectly, four times in a row.  People like to be right and they like to argue with people who appear to be problems ;-)

But no argument here, with my challenge quilt.  You can just look at this quilt and know which song, which theatre play/ and movie, and which song title it's all about....

But tell me this: "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?"

That, no one can answer.

Not the nuns in the Abbey, not Maria's Guardian Angels, and let's face it...not even Maria, herself.

And I guess, that the same can be said about me ;-)

* * *

And here is a collage of the other challenge quilts from our guild. Aren't they just wonderful? !!

I'm happy to have finished it, been part of the challenge, and move on to bigger and vastly more important challenges in life...even if the person in charge did forget to capitalize all of the words in my title....  ;-)

Sound of Music Challenge: I Won Third Place

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!