This is my coat Synapses. I won 1st place wearables in the Quilt Africa Challenge.

I made this for the Quilt Africa Challenge. 

To participate in this challenge we had to buy a Mystery fabric bundle from Quilt Africa Fabrics

As we could only add 25% of other African fabrics I bought some more yardage and a Mystery pack of 4 inch squares. We could also add a solid colour of our choice.

When the fabric arrived it was quite a hotchpotch of designs and colours.

I started with the 4 inch squares and cut many more from the Challenge fabrics. And also from African fabric remnants I had in my stash. ( a present from Tilly Zegers )

I made many 4 patches. I had seen the video Miriam posted about fussy cutting and joining shapes. I didn't fussy cut the squares, I simply cut them. But once cut I looked for pieces I thought would connect nicely to each other.

Then I started stitching into those blocks to connect them even more.

I ended up with many 18x 18 cm blocks and decided to  cut larger pieces of the Challenge bundle and yardage and use dark blue for my solid.

I stitched the blocks together into rows, inserting larger and solid blue blocks according to a plan.

And stitched and stitched to connect them.

I wanted to make a half circle skirt so I needed to add more blocks, so there went my plan of carefully placed blue blocks! 

For the top I drew the darts to align with the lines in the skirt and carefully cut and stitched the different pieces together.

I wanted to do something special with the sleeves. Again I used the 4 inch squares, completely finished the sleeves and then added the 3D parts.

Here you can see the quilts and wearables in the Quilt Africa Challenge and hear the comments of the judges.