Year Long Challenge.. Month 1

Last week, I told you about our new guild “Block of the Month” challenge.

The week before our first meeting, I realized I needed to decide which of the 8 January blocks I would make.

It was too hard to decide while flipping through the book, so I took photos of each possible block and printed them on a single page…

I quickly decided on these three…..

…and spent the night before the workshop making the first two blocks…..

One of my concerns is having SO many bright colors in the quilt, so I decided to make each block in a monochromatic theme.

Remember that the light green on the left block is my “background” fabric.

I also started prepping and appliqueing the third block….

AND….since it is already February 1st and I haven’t finished the flower basket block OR the 4th (yet un-selected) block……

I am ALREADY behind!!

Oh well, I will move on to February and worry about it later. After all, “tomorrow is another day”!!

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A 2026 Challenge

The Program and Workshop chairman of our local guild is a wonderwoman!! She was concerned that more people weren’t taking advantage of our workshop schedule, so she invented a challenge that will run in 2026.

We will meet once or twice each month, and different members will provide instruction for that month’s task.

We are going to be working with this b o ok…

…creating a series of blocks each month.

If you do ALL of them, you end up with 100 blocks.

Now, I don’t plan to do them all, but will aim for 3 -5 blocks per month. My biggest problem will be picking which ones to create!!

I was conflicted about a color scheme, but found this fun fabric at Houston and decided to base the quilt on it..

My thinking is to use solid fabrics for the blocks and try to make it more “Modern” in appearance.

Naturally, my solid fabrics looked a bit dull, but a trip to the fabric store solved THAT particular problem….

Stay tuned for monthly (or more) updates!!

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The results are in

Yesterday, I told you the parameters of our latest guild challenge (make a quilt using the COLORS of a country or state flag). Today, let’s look at the participants…..

You already know my quilt from Portugal….

Scarlett chose Georgia and made this quilt featuring a Georgia Peach…..

She was excited because it was the first time she had quilted her own work!!

Jan chose the flag of Pennsylvania, aptly picking a Pennsylvania Dutch pattern….

Tracie was born in Hawaii and used the colors of the Hawaiian Kingdom flag….

Diana based her flag on the Italian flag, and it does remind me of the countryside…..

Barb chose Pennsylvania as well and decided to add lists of things from the state.

Sue took a walk in the Main Countryside…..

Barbara was representing Kentucky, and she used a series of old-style quilt blocks such as rail fence and log cabin.

This was a fun challenge and a bit of a “THINKER”!

I can’t wait to hear what our next one will be!

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Flying Colors

Yesterday, I shared a YouTube video showing the making of this mosaic quilt…..

If you missed it, check it out HERE!

Today, I want to tell you WHY I made this quilt.

Our guild had a challenge called “FLAGS”. The idea was that we were to pick a flag and then make a quilt using the COLORS of the flag, and preferably something that the state or country was known for.

I chose Portugal as my country flag…..’

You can see here that there is Blue, Green, Red, Yellow and Black.

PERFECT COLORS…..although the proportions in my quilt are a bit different from the flag!

And, Portugal is well know for it’s mosaic tile work….

SO…. I figured that I could put the two together, add in my FAVORITE flower, and meet the challenge with flying colors (PUN INTENDED)!!

Thinking about it, FLYING COLORS would have been the perfect name for the challenge!!

I had so much fun working on the quilt and am very pleased with the result.

I originally had in my mind that I would make it larger and far more complicated, but sense finally kicked in, and I went for smaller and finished!

It was also a great opportunity to try out the Cutterpillar Tempered Glass Mat…..

You can check out my video review of this product HERE

The challenges were presented at our guild meeting. Come back tomorrow and I will show you the results!

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