Elgin Piecemaker's Challenge

Every year the Elgin Piecemaker's quilt group does a challenge.  This year it was a "Fold it - Snip It - Rip it - Pass it - Make it" challenge organized by Deb and Joanne.  We had to bring a yard of batik fabric to the October meeting as well as a pair of fabric scissors.  We stood in a circle and clipped our yard in half and ripped it, keeping one half and passing the other half to our neighbour on the right.  We continued doing this til we had 7 different fabrics, each half the size of the previous one.  There was only one rule:  at least one piece of each of the 7 batiks must be used in our project.  We could add any fabrics and make whatever we wished.  

I had a pattern in my to do box called "Fierce Ladies" by Eye Candy Quilts and decided to add lots of my batik scraps to make a colourful rendition of this pattern which was inspired by those riotously colourful Victorian houses set in the hills of San Francisco.  This pattern was the mini version and finished at 18" x 24".   (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

The original 7 batiks I received plus a white tone on tone batik I had in my stash which I used for background

Back of my wallhanging.  I bought these fabrics on a trip to PEI a few years ago.  Since the pattern was California houses, a beach theme was appropriate.

While spraying the white parts with water to remove the markings for quilting, the blue of this roof ran!  I got a lot of it out but added rick rack on a few of the roofs to cover it up ☺

The quilting suggestion was on the pattern

Our grand reveal meeting was held at the end of March.  Here are the projects that the other ladies made.  They were all amazing and the judges had a very difficult time choosing two winners!  And, we all had a hard time with our viewer's choice vote!!

Yvonne T's wallhanging

Pat P's wallhanging

Julie's bag (the other colours were in the bottom but somehow I didn't get a picture of that)

Chris's table runner

We wondered if Chris had not used all seven fabrics, but one was hiding on the back ☺

Gail made a bag to carry her handwork in while traveling

Joanne made fabric with lots of batiks added to her colours and made this sunburst of diamonds

Jacqui's  houses

Heather's sewing themed wallhanging has her original fabrics under the machine

Pat O's butterfly pillow

Anne's table runner or wallhanging

Diane's mini paper pieced mariner's compass

Deb burned the midnight oil finishing her table runner!

Our judges, Lorna and Heather holding up Beth P's appliqued fish

Diane won viewer's choice

Julie won runner up for her bag

Deb won 1st place for her lovely modern table runner. 

 We already have two volunteers to challenge us for our next challenge in the fall!  Can't wait to see what they have planned for us.

Elgin Piecemaker's Pillow challenge

The Elgin Piecemaker's guild does a challenge every year.  This year Julie and Joanne were in charge and they came up with a very appropriate challenge for Canada's 150th anniversary.  We were all given a 20" pillow form and a 10" piece of Kimono Maple Leaf fabric.  The challenge was to come up with a pillow cover that represents what Canada means to us.  We had to use the complete square of the maple leaf fabric.  

I had an idea almost right away as I was inspired by the neutral backgrounds with applique over it.  I could piece together a background with symbols and words that represent Canada and thought of appliqueing a maple leaf and a tulip on the front to reflect my Dutch heritage.  With three friends, I took part in the 401 Quilt Run shop hop in October 2016 in Eastern Ontario.  Visiting the 14 shops on the shop hop gave me ample opportunity to find appropriate fabrics.  Many of the fabrics represented my Mother's love of sewing and had sayings reflecting her values, love of family and gift of hospitality.  I even found a fabric with rings on it symbolizing my parents engagement by mail in January 1954.  My Dad had immigrated to Canada already with his whole family and my Mom followed about a year later.  We still have the envelope that the ring was sent in by registered mail :-).  

When I actually started the pillow, I ran stuck on the applique because I had to use the whole square of maple leaf fabric and could not think how to cut a tulip and a maple leaf out it!  So, I cut out a maple leaf and appliqued it on the back and put the frame on the front and then I added some tulips to the back as well.  I used up every mm of that maple leaf fabric LOL.

Last night, we had the grand reveal and Cynthia from Cherished Pieces and Jesse, one of our former members, were the judges.  They sure had their work cut out for them. The pillows were amazing!  Many of the backs were as nice as the front and the stories behind the quilts were very moving!  It was a great exercise in stopping and pondering this great country of Canada and what we appreciate about it. (Click on the photos to enlarge them for a better view.)

the Kimono challenge fabric

result of shopping excursion :-)

my pillow front

the back of the pillow

The group with all the pillows

This is the write up that accompanied my pillow:

My Canada

“My Canada” is inseparably linked to my parents’ immigration from Holland to Canada.  I chose neutral fabrics with symbols and words, each representing an aspect of Canada or a memory of my parents to whom I am grateful for my Canadian citizenship.   Word fabrics were chosen to describe my Mom’s life rules and talents and her love of sewing and hospitality. 

 

The iconic Canadian maple leaf was cut from the Kimono Maple leaf fabric and appliqued to the back of the pillow on tulip and bicycle fabric representing my roots in Holland. The remaining maple leaf frame was sewn on the front to create another silhouette of this great Canadian Symbol.  From front to back, I can rest comfortably in this great country Canada, which is my own.  This pillow will be proudly displayed in my home for Canada’s 150^th celebration.

The Learning Process of a Challenge

Joining a challenge really stretches us outside of our comfort zone and is a great learning experience.  It can be frustrating at times when you run stuck and cannot think of something that will work, but by tossing wild ideas at it, it finally does come together (usually LOL!).

I wrote about our 2nd Elgin Piecemaker's Quilt Guild challenge in this blog post.  Here are some photos of the process I went through to get to the final quilt.

We started with the mini charm pack pictured above - the 2 1/2" squares are all white background with bright little motifs

I bought a charm pack of solids to give me a kick start and variety of colours which I didn't have to cut into 2 1/2" squares :-)

The new to me tool I used for this challenge was a Drunkard's Path 2" patchwork template set from Matilda's own which I purchased in a quilt shop in Holland two summers ago.  The units are cut from 2 1/2" squares and I used this mini Fiskars rotary cutter to get around those sharp curves easily.

My first idea was circles within circles, but that reminded me too much of pac man.

playing with some arrangements and colours but not enough of the same colour

I took apart some of the drunkard's path units and added other colours.  Part of the challenge was to try to use as many of the 84 charm squares as you could so I could not waste a single one!  Making some progress on the colours.....

Change to black and white to see the values; needs some work!  the lack of symmetry is bothering me...I like things square :-)

Had the idea to set it on point and square it up...trying different colours

How about coloured squares around it?  No, that overpowers it!

Maybe grey corners with a yellow square in it?  Hmm...no like :-(

In desperation I turned it around...hmmm...maybe this will work.

I liked the lighter grey triangles now with a small border around it.  The turqouise binding would set it off nicely

I quilted it with lines echoing the round shape

The quilting on the back looks kind of cool

It won viewer's choice in the challenge!  I really like how it turned out.

 

A Real Challenge

Last year, our Elgin Piecemaker's Guild held a challenge.  You can read the story about that adventure here.  Diane and I won that challenge and the "prize" was that we got to organize this year's challenge LOL.  We were going to put a really nasty one together as payback, but decided that we would not seek revenge.  It is a challenge in itself to put together a challenge!  Diane and I brainstormed and thought and edited and planned and then went to Cherished Pieces, the lovely quilt shop in Tillsonburg, ON and wandered around to see what would 'hit' us.  We had an idea of using the mini charm packs that are so popular - you know the ones that you buy because they are so cute and then stack them on your shelf and look at them and enjoy them?  

We finally settled on a very fun double mini charm pack which, together with the instruction sheet, fit perfectly in a little box.

this is actually a double charm pack with 84 charms that are 2 1/2" square

The charms had mini motifs in various colours and really odd amounts of matchings ones varying from 3 to 7 identical ones.

All the little boxes filled and ready to go

Cynthia even gave us a discount because we bought 20 packages :-).  Then came the difficult part - getting the rules together!  We treated ourselves to lunch at Pinecroft just outside Aylmer and started jotting down ideas.  We settled on making a quilt with a perimeter between 80" and 200", adding only solids and we had to use a new to us technique or ruler. We asked (bribed!) two local ladies, Eva and Carolyn, to be our esteemed judges. They had their work cut out for them for sure!

There is a local quilt show being held next week Friday and Saturday in Shedden, ON.  Pat and Diane are both on the organizing committee and had asked if we could have our challenge due before the show so it can be displayed there.  

Last night, the grand reveal was held at my house.  Everyone was instructed to bring their project wrapped up in a non see through bag.  I live in a raised ranch so the judges were upstairs and everyone put their entry in a box at the bottom of the stairs in my sewing room.  When everyone was there, the judges went down and started their difficult task while we held our business meeting upstairs.  They pinned many quilts on the design wall and laid the rest out on tables.  An hour later, we were allowed downstairs and had to vote for a viewer's choice.  Then the judges announced the winners and also went through each entry and shared what impressed them about the quilt and how they came to their decisions.  We then got to hear who made each quilt.  Unbelievable the difference in the various quilts!!  Here are the winners' quilts:

Diane won 1st place for her wonderful pieced and appliqued quilt.  Her new technique was hand applique and the flower pots. Those flower pots are not prints, but chopped up leftover charms with solids and fused into pots!!  Amazing piece!

Fran won 2nd place with her English paper pieced entry as well as 2nd place in the viewer's choice.  Wow, that's a LOT of hexagons. 

I was very surprised to win the viewer's choice award!  I will do a blog post on the process to come up with this final piece :-)

Shirley won the judges choice by Carolyn (quilt above Shirley).  The colours were very vintage and there is some lovely hand quilting.

Heather won the judges choice by Eva.  (the binding isn't quite finished :-)

And, here are the rest of the entries.  We had a wonderful participation; 15 or our 18 members submitted a piece.  Some weren't quite finished, but it was great to see them anyways.

Beth P's lovely pot of flowers using hexagons and beautiful applique...so spring like!  This one also had really lovely quilting in the border.

Deb's quilt was not finished either, but it was awesome seeing it!  Deb did not like the prints in the charm squares so she pieced a few together and used them one triangle and proceeded to make a lovely modern solid quilt LOL.  Awesome touch of humour Deb!

Here is her one triangle with the the only challenge prints in it :-)

Yvonne added prairie points to her cute little quilt

Pat O's beautiful shadows on her leaves! (This piece is not crooked..it's my lack of photography skills :-(

Pat P's colourful quilt used the charms for a Japanese folding technique around the center squares which had little beads sewn on.

Anne's awesome black, red and white quilt.  Unbelievable how Anne pulled this colour scheme off with the challenge squares!  Great little sampler.

Joanne did a reversible quilt which was amazing!  She did a folded star in the center with rick rack and buttons as embellishments.

To use up more charms, she pieced this lovely modern design on the back.  Lovely circle quilting as well.

Beth D also used hexagons using various colour solids in the centers.  The quilting is very effective in this one as well.

I love this picture of our newest member, Julie surrounded by smiling ladies.  Julie joined our group last month and since we had a charm pack left, she jumped right in to join in the challenge.  She made some awesome friendship stars and turned them into little thread catchers for her sewing room. 

Donna's amazing English paper pieced hexagons - all 420 of them!!! 

It was a great evening! And, we have two volunteers to host next year's challenge!   Can't wait to see what they come with to stretch us outside of our boxes.

For those of you who are local to the London area, come out and see the entries in person at the Quilt show at the Southwold Keystone Complex, Shedden ON.  The show is Friday, April 8 from 9:00 to 6:00 and Saturday, April 9 from 9:00 to 4:00.  There is a small merchant's mall and a lunch room.