Category Archives: Challenges

August 3, 2011 · 10:36 pm

Project Modern Challenge 4

Have you heard about The Modern Quilt Guild’s latest and final challenge? It’s theme is Find Your Own Voice! I’m going to go for it. I was really happy with the 2nd challenge – Monochromatic Quilting, but was a little non-plussed with my results. Time for redemption! And how cool is it that Denyse Schmidt is judging? So cool!

I’m going to be pretty coy about my design from here until the deadline (Sept 30), but I can tell you the quilt will be called “Gate to the Shore.” Here’s my inspiration mosaic:

1. Iron Work, 2. Black and blue, 3. black and blue and beautiful, 4. Black Iron Fence, 5. Ironwork blue, 6. gate to the beach

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Filed under Challenges, Inspiration, Quilting

July 29, 2011 · 4:11 pm

Kona Solids Challenge Quilt – Winners!

Hello everyone!

I am overjoyed! We had a wonderful guild meeting a couple of nights ago and I got a huge surprise! The fabulous women of the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild chose my “Dusty Springfield” quilt as the Guild Favorite! What a hoot!

I received a great gift bag with patterns from Modern Quilt Relish, a pastel Robert Kaufman Charm Pack, and books, some thread, some needles, a wicked awesome seam ripper, and best of all a gift certificate to the wonderful Pink Castle Fabrics! Yahoo!

It was also such a joy to hear that Natalie won the judge’s choice award! Thanks to Modern Quilt Relish for stepping in to guest judge – they even wrote us each personal notes with feedback! So sweet. Here’s Natalie’s quilt:

Beautiful, right?!

And here are everyone else’s fabulous entries…

1. Carol-front, 2. Brenda-front, 3. Ann-front, 4. Debbie-front, 5. Lisa-front, 6. Lucinda-front, 7. Angie-front, 8. Kathy-front, 9. Ginia-front, 10. LeeAnn-front, 11. Emily-front

Thanks again to my guild! I love the A2MQG!

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Filed under A2MQG, Challenges, Quilting

July 10, 2011 · 4:38 pm

Kona Solids Challenge Quilt

Hello all!

The Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild participated in the Kona No Prints Allowed Challenge.

Rules:
•    Kona solids only
•    Must use at least 30 of the charms/at least ½ of the charm piece
•    Up to (3) additional Kona solids can be added
•    Minimum of 120” outside perimeter
•    Due date – June meeting
•    Must be quilted and bound

Here’s what I came up with! All pictures of the quilt are courtesy of Anna!

I used the Dusty Charm Pack as well as Kona Snow, Coal, and Ash.

I call it “Dusty Springfield”

The back got slightly askew when I was basting, which is a bummer…

I made the cross blocks by doing strip piecing and saved a couple of extras for the back.

I was inspired by this gate in April and Andy’s house from the TV show “Parks and Recreation”

Thanks for looking! This is a judged competition – I’ll let you know who the judges pick! In the meantime, you can view more of the guild’s challenge quilts in our flickr group!

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Filed under A2MQG, Challenges, Fabric, Quilting

June 8, 2011 · 6:13 pm

Farmer’s Wife Quilt Along!

I am incredibly behind on my blog reading, but I did manage to catch a big dose of the recent “Dumbing Down of Quilting” debate. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Google “Dumbing Down of Quilting” and watch the 100s of blog posts emerge! It starts HERE and then goes everywhere…).

I thought the original post made some good points – you do see an awful lot of the same kind of quilt in the modern quilting blogosphere. That doesn’t mean that each one isn’t unique in its own way, and of course each quilt created brings something of its own to the table. And obviously people can make whatever types of quilts they want to – it’s their time and their art (or craft – but that’s another debate *wink!*)

However – if you’re like me, you’re interested in mixing it up. One way to do this is to look at traditional quilt patterns and adjust them (through layout, fabric and color choice, etc…) and make them more modern. That’s what I love about Fussy Cut’s Farmer’s Wife Quilt Along. She’s tackling the blocks found in the uber-traditional sampler quilt and making them in fresh, modern fabrics. Unfortunately, I am too swamped to follow the quilt-along, but it sounded like such a great project – I just had to make sure you heard about it!

Habitat Challenge

Are you familiar with Jay McCarrol’s “Habitat” fabric line? It recently won the Modern Madness Challenge hosted by Fat Quarterly. Well lucky for us, Free Spirit Fabrics is hosting a little challenge for our Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild (and other participating guilds) where they will send us six fat-eigths per member of the line, and we are each challenged to create something using the Habitat fabrics and any coordinating solids we choose. We’ve decided to open our challenge up to crafts beyond just quilts, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the other members create – pillows? bags? We shall see! I’m thinking I’ll probably still try and make a quilt of some size.

We chose this colorway, photo courtesy of spool:

We’re currently working on a Kona Solids Quilt Challenge that I’ll be happy to write about at the end of June, after we reveal our quilts to each other at our highly anticipated next meeting.

Blogger’s Pillow Party – March

Here is my entry for the March Blogger’s Pillow Party!:

I made these pillows in February and blogged about them originally here. I wanted to make different pillows to enter in the contest this month, but it just hasn’t happened. So, regular readers, please excuse this redundant post.

I was inspired by THIS POST at twin fibers of her Ferris Wheel pillows. She used the pattern available HERE by Q is for Quilter, and so did I! I asked the ladies at Twin Fibers if they’d mind me making these pillows and entering them into some competitions, and they were kind enough to say, “Go for it!” Yay!! Always best to ask…

Here’s a close-up. I did the hand-quilting with 3 strings on embroidery thread in a simple running stitch:

And I made it a friend:

For some tips on how to make these, check out the original post!

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Filed under Challenges, Crafts, Quilting

March 23, 2011 · 1:11 pm

Work in Progress #9

It’s time for another WIP Wednesday hosted by freshly pieced!

My biggest WIP is finishing up this pregnancy, but I have managed to finish a quilt:

Work in Progress #8

I had to miss out on last week, due to everyone in my family getting an end-of-winter cold. But I’ve made up for it all this week with many accomplishments! Here we go, linking up with freshly pieced!

The biggest thing I’ve got “in progress” is my Party Time Excellent quilt. It’s loaded up into ol’ Kenny and I hope to make a big dent in the quilting tomorrow. I really want to get this one done before the baby comes so that I can take it with me to the hospital. It was nice birthing Lloyd under my husband’s old freebie fleece blanket from his work, but a handmade quilt by-me for-me would be sweeter : )

The other “in progress” I’ve got is a my first ever mug rug! I’m so happy to have joined the brand-new Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild. I’m sad that I won’t be able to attend the next couple of meetings and get-togethers, but I want to remain active in the group remotely. For the next meeting we were supposed to engage in a mug rug swap, so I’m hoping to make one and mail it to a fellow member so that at least I can gift my buddies a little something.

Those are my main WIPs, but let me take a moment to share two completed projects!

My Henry Quilt is done (more on that HERE):

And I made myself a little nursing cover (using this tutorial, although I made mine smaller):

Yay for not having to show my boobs to elderly family members and the community in general!

That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for stopping by and please check out the other WIPs!

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Filed under Challenges, Crafts, Quilting

March 2, 2011 · 1:37 pm

Work in Progress #7

Yay, it’s Wednesday! Time for me to take a step back and evaluate all the sewing projects I have in the queue, and to get inspired by everyone else linking up over at freshly pieced!

I finished a quilt-top (it’s folded over – sorry I am in a little bit of a fluster today!):

The gray, white, and yellow fabric peeking out behind the quilt is for a nursing cover I need make for myself. I bought the boning and the d-rings so I can follow this tutorial.

And I am currently in progress sewing HSTs (half-square triangles again!) for another quilt top that will look something like this:

Other than that I hope to make a couple more pillow covers to get the rest of my couch throws in the mood for spring (I already have these out!).

That’s what I’m up to… what about you? Thanks for stopping by!

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Filed under Challenges, Quilting

February 23, 2011 · 2:15 pm

Work in Progress #6

This has been a busy week! Thanks to a winter storm keeping us indoors and grandparents playing with my son, I’ve been able to finish up a couple of projects.

I made these cute pillows for Spring! More on them HERE.

I finished my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt. More on that HERE.

I assembled the large hexagon for the quilt I’m making with my pal. I still need to turn it into a rectangle. I’m going to post how we assembled our quilt-tops in the very near future. Unfortunately I think I’m going to set this hexagon aside for a while so that I can crank out two baby blankets I want to make. Baby #2 is just about 5 weeks away (egads!) so I need to prioritize.