Zip It

So this year at work we're celebrating our 25th anniversary! One of our upcoming exhibits will feature quilts that were juried into our 25th anniversary contest: the Gala of the Unexpected. It's going to be fantastic - quilts made with unexpected materials and designs.

Several of my co-workers and I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to use unusual materials so we decided to do just that! We asked/ threatened/ cajoled the rest of the staff & volunteers to make a mini quilt to fit the theme.

We limited quilts to be 18" or less per side so it wouldn't be too overwhelming. It was fun to talk about the challenge at work and encourage each other to create something unique. Of course, in those conversations we all made a point to not give away our unexpected materials! :)  haha  

I tossed around several ideas and landed on zippers. It was fun to hunt out some specialty zippers and learn how to change zip pulls and how to zip together two different colors of teeth as well. 

My quilt is just shy of 18' square and took me about 2 months to make.  There was a lot of designing/auditioning & thinking about placement before actually stitching the zippers in place. I used a print fabric for backing and chose black batting then stitched all the zippers directly onto the layers - so a Quilt as You Go style.

My nod to our 25th anniversary is the silver metal zipper I used for binding. I'm working on a title for this, though a coworker suggested Zippity-do-Dah.

This was on my original Quarter 1 list and I'm linking up the finish at Slo Studio! Also linking over at CrazyMomQuilts for the latest installment of Finish it Up Friday.