FALL FABRIC EXCHANGE

The Hearts and Hands of Elgin County quilt group had a challenge project which was organized in June 2008. We had the summer months to find a 1/4 metre of fall fabric to blend with a sample that Mary Lynn had already picked up. The original focus fabric was the second one from the right.

Fifteen members participated and these were the fabrics that we all came up with. A bunch of us went shopping at Cherished Pieces, located in Tillsonburg, ON so quite a few of the fabrics came from that shop. Laurie bought the solid red which blended beautifully with the focus fabric, but gave that wonderful challenge to really come up with something that could use all those fabrics. The red really gave the quilts punch! We had to use all the fabrics somewhere in the quilt, but could add as many fabrics as we wished.

We had a year to finish the quilts and 11 of them were finished, almost finished or the tops were complete for the Sept. 2009 meeting. There are one or two quilts that I don't have a photo of yet, but I will add them when I receive them. We met at Mary Lynn's place to hang them all on the clothes line for a photo which her husband would take for us! Here is the chaos of a bunch of quilters trying to get all the quilts on the line on a very windy day LOL:


Audrey's lovely quilt set with white borders! Wow, this one was absolutely gorgeous. It was quilted by Tim at the Marsh Store in Coldstream, ON and he quilted loops and stars over the whole quilt.
Audrey did the coolest label using a sample of each fabric with our names beside it. You can see some of the wonderful quilting in this photo as well:

Bea made a stuffed dog out of her fabrics LOL...what an awesome idea:

Bea is in love with her doggie!

Cathy with her quilt. I believe this was the disappearing nine-patch pattern:

Donna's finished quilt which is a similar pattern to Cathy's:

Ina's cute sampler with some lovely applique in it:

Me with my pin basted quilt. Unfortunately, it's still sitting there unquilted as my deadline passed and other projects took precedence.

Joyce also got her quilt to the point of quilting.

Joyce used leftovers and the red on the back of the quilt:

Lena's quilt looks totally different set with the blue. Awesome quilt as usual, Lena! We love Lena's quilts that are most often made from her extensive fabric stash:

Those pinwheels really look like they're turning in the wind!

Joyce's sister, Liz (left), is our honorary member from Winnipeg! She planned a trip to Ontario so she could be there for this meeting. Cool border idea Liz!! Here is Liz's quilt, all finished:

Liz also used the red and leftover fabrics on the back:

Maria's lovely quilt with piano key borders. See how well the lights and darks contrast Maria :-)?

MaryLynn's autumn chain quilt with the lovely machine applique:

Tina's center of her quilt. This is how far she had progressed by the meeting:

At a later meeting, she got the lovely pieced borders onto the quilt:

Last, but not least is Tracy's Crazy 8's top.

Photos of the quilts as they are finished will be added as well as Laurie's quilt. this was a real enjoyable challenge and it's amazing how different everyone's quilts look even though we started with the exact same fabrics.