Monday, October 7, 2019

Weekly update: a challenging guild speaker, a local quilt show, and tote bags

Diane Murtha presented the program at Wednesday's guild meeting.  "Accept the Challenge and Win the Prize" was about all kinds of quilt challenges.  There are big-name juried competitions that require entries that interpret a specific topic or that require a particular line of fabric (e.g. the Hoffman Challenge). Some require both (e.g. the Cherrywood Challenge -- one year it was Wicked with a specific Cherrywood acid green; this year it was Prince with a particular purple).  There are local challenges (like our guild's Birds of a Feather).  A quilting bee or a quilt retreat can include a challenge.

Diane showed examples of quilts she's made for all of these kinds of challenges.  In the process she's developed new skills and broadened her quilting horizon.

Right:  this New York Beauty sunflower has a beaded center.
Left:  this is Diane's version of Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll -- obviously it didn't turn out according to the pattern.

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Irene and I went to the  Village Quilters  biennial show on Friday afternoon.  There were more than 200 quilts on display!   We saw people from our guild and I saw several P.E.O. and AAUw friends.    Libby (Hillside Quilter) says that local shows are very satisfying. I agree -- there are nice quilts and there are extraordinary quilts made by quilters just like us.  Here are some of my favorites.



These are temperature quilts. Each flying goose documents the high temperature for the day (in this case, 2018).   Here is a tutorial to design your own temperature quilt .

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The update from my studio:  I finished ten tote bags for the Nepal school project.  That's one of my OMGs for the month.  (I will make the final batch of ten in November.)
Monday link ups:  Monday Making

9 comments:

  1. I said nearly that exact thing to a group of chorus members last weekend, that small local shows usually exhibited an astonishing amount of beautiful quilts. One of my pivotal FMQ moments came from looking at a quilt in the Perth show 5 years ago. (Gosh--five years ago already?!?)

    The temperature quilts are lovely, but since I grind to a halt in high temperatures, they only make me uncomfortable to look at them. We're finally getting a break in the 90-100 degree temperatures today, but they're expected to get up there again later this week. Still, they'd make a quiet yet powerful statement about climate change, wouldn't they, if quilters around the world united. Something like the AIDS quilt, I should think.

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  2. Thanks for the shoutout! Lots of quilty inspiration at the show. I will add "accept the challenge" to my programs for next year.

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  3. I've entered a few quilt challenges. Most have been just try to use this piece of fabric. A few have been theme ideas. I'm currently pondering a challenge using song titles or lyrics. I guess I should check the rules out a bit more as I've honed in on an idea but I'm not sure it is quite right yet. Yea for making your way through the bags. You are almost done. I've been looking at temperature quilts at various blogs. I'm curious -- is the one on the right from your general area? And also the one on the left? It looks like May, June, July, August, Sept. and beginning of October were warm or hot. I'd hate to see what my area would look like... it's back in the 80s today. It's the middle of October for pity sakes.

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  4. I can't decide which of the quilts you posted is the most spectacular. So much eye candy. What a lovely way to spend my coffee break at work looking at all of them!

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  5. I've seen a similar program by Mel Beach and it's very inspiring but I'm still not much of a challenge quilter. There are enough of my own projects lying around. Like you, I enjoy local quilt shows best. The combination of nice and extraordinary makes them more accessible. I always find details of interest.

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  6. Lovely quilts to get to see up close! I like local shows with smaller crowds :) Thanks for sharing.

    The Prince Cherrywood challenge quilts were mostly fantastic--some were head-scratchers tho.

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  7. So many gorgeous quilts!

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  8. Such pretty quilts! I find quilt shows to be so humbling. Congratulations on completing your OMG! Such a worthy cause!

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  9. Thank you for sharing. So much eye-candy.
    Those temperature quilts are so tempting and so many styles within that theme.

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