Monday, April 20, 2015

Our "Shapely" Challenge

Our Pine Belt Quilters guild enjoyed the Round Robin Challenge that Dianne McLendon organized for us last year, with very interesting quilts resulting. I called it a "selfish" round robin because we kept our own piece from start to finish. You can see the finished pieces here along with the assigned fabrics and rules.

She has organized another challenge for 2015-16, called a "Shapely" Challenge. We paid $10 and received a packet of five fat quarters, which have to show up somewhere in the finished quilt. No two packets were alike. We can add any other fabrics we choose. Every other month we will be assigned a shape and will make four different 12" blocks using only this shape. The first shape is a SQUARE--think of a nine-patch made up of nine 4" squares. Some other possibilities are sixteen 3" squares, four 6" squares, thirty-six 2" squares, or a whole block of 1" squares! We will be assigned a shape (sometimes more than one shape) in March, May, July, September, and November, and then have four months to complete our project, to be revealed in March 2016. This activity offers a different set of challenges in that we can plan our color palette from the beginning and also know we will always be making 12" blocks. Every time we approach a quilt from a different standpoint, it can be a learning and growing opportunity.

Here is my starting packet--at a glance I see that I have mediums and lights so will have to be sure to add some darks and background solids. I love these fabrics--rose, coral, lime green, butterscotch!
My starting packet of fabrics

5 comments:

Vivian Helena said...

Love the colors. Not something I usually have ,but looks like fun!

LA Paylor said...

and Purple... whew! 20 12" squares. Ready...set...go!
This will be fun to watch.
Oh and a friend in Fl just told me she's fostering 3 kittens who were 2 days old when she got them. Bottle feeding until now, they are refusing the bottle now. She mixed wet cat food in their formula and dabs it on their feet! LeeAnna

Martha Ginn said...

Thanks, Vivian and LeeAnna. Don't these look like interesting colors? Well, LA, I am totally ignoring the purple and concentrating more on the salmon, deep rosy-red and greens. After all, red and green are complementary and should play well together.
Your fostering Florida friend gets stars in her crown for bottle feeding!

Tanya Brown said...

Those look like large prints, which would pose a particular challenge. Will you end up breaking them up into smaller pieces which have a more uniform color or texture in each piece?

Martha Ginn said...

Tanya, yes, some of these are large prints, but I will not make any square larger than 4", and most even smaller in the hope of being able to unify these blocks with the upcoming ones using other shapes. One of my prints can be cut where it is totally salmon or totally greens, etc. Ignoring the purple. First time in years I've worked with graph paper--kind of fun again.