Tuesday, June 17, 2014

radiant orchid challenge

At our last meeting of the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild we did a one yard rip off with fabrics featuring the pantone color of the year, radiant orchid. It went something like this....

everyone brought one yard of fabric that had radiant orchid as the feature color. I had given everyone a popsicle stick painted radiant orchid the month before so they could find a fabric in the right color family. We all stood in a circle. Holding your fabric out by the length, each person folds her fabric in half, snips it in the middle, tears it in two. Then you drop one piece in front of you (to keep) and pass the other one to the right. This continues on until you are left with a tiny piece in your hands (a little bigger than a charm square). Then you pick up your original print (which is half the size it started!) and do the same thing in the other direction. You end up with 10 different pieces of fabric in the end, of all different sizes. Clear as mud? I thought so!

Here are the fabrics I brought home with me....

Now the challenge is to make something with your rip off fabrics and bring it to the next meeting, in July. Mom and I had been eyeing up this gorgeous Thimbleblossoms quilt on the cover of Love Patchwork and Quilting....
 It's called "Cheerio" and in typical Thimbleblossoms fashion, there are instructions included for a matching mini! Perfect! Since my radiant orchid fabrics also included lots of orange, I decided to bind my mini in orange weave. The orange and the white background fabric were the only things I added...
 I did some simple diagonal quilting in both directions and it's done. Not my normal chosen colors but I really love it! I've seen some sneak peeks of what others are doing on Instagram and there are some awesome projects! I can't wait to see them all in person in a couple of weeks.

Does your guild do fun challenges like this one? I'd love to hear about them.

6 comments:

Maria said...

What a fun idea. Wonder if our group would like to do something like it too.
Love your finished project Ellyn.. What size is it?

Melissa said...

What a FUN challenge! I really like your creation with all those fabrics!

Debbie said...

oh what a fun challenge and I love the fabric share! We DO do challenges - our quilt challenges end up in a quilt show each January + we have swaps of hand made items. We just had a scrap swap at the last meeting....anyway, I love your quilt - what a fun color combo!

Debbie said...

p.s. posted on my AQT fb page...

Chantal said...

Thats awesome Ellyn! I rarely use purple but I have to say I love your cheerios mini! Well done.

Sally said...

This sounds like a fun idea! I'm sure our guild would get someone complaining about how ripping the fabric warps it or something. :-/ We have done some fun challenges, although I haven't participated in the last few because I have had too many other commitments.