I think you should start small and work up to bigger and bigger challenges. First, give yourself a small project due in a few weeks. Next, make it a theme color, animal, vacation memory and set a new deadline. Be reasonable with your expectations, but expect something of yourself. It will help you improve and focus. Next thing you know , you will be answering a call for quilts at a quilt show you never thought you would enter! Good luck! I work well under pressure.
But, I would rather be working toward a goal. I love participating in an art challenge, so I decided — for the sake of my creative sanity and my blog — to give myself a personal art quilt challenge.
Something I can write about AND get something accomplished — that works for me! My challenge gives me a canvas for trying different techniques with a purpose piddling with a reason. I will be working with small series of related quilts 3s or 4 and they will have a common goal within the series. I want it to last about a year and get more complicated as the year passes, so each set of quilts will have a different time allowance.
I wanted to make each of these a different art technique but give them a common theme. I have an affinity toward butterflies, so it will be a fun project for me. I love playing with rickrack, so I would like 3 of these quilts to incorporate rickrack into the design.
Since the quilts will be small, I will give myself 3 weeks to plan, execute the top and quilt the project. I want each of these to have a tree and foliage theme not necessarily the seasons, but not ruling it out. I plan to hang them side-by-side and may actually hang them from the same decorative pole, as one unit.
The long size was chosen for three reasons: 1 best for doing trees, 2 good for a tryptych design, and 3 follows the golden rule of design a ratio of These will be a little more complicated, so I will spend weeks to complete each of these quilts. I want each of these to be a portrait, but I want to use a new-to-me technique for each. I am anticipating challenges in imagining a new technique, perfecting it and executing it in an acceptable fashion, so I will allow myself 8 -9 weeks for each of these quilts.
I might do a quilt from Series 1, then one from Series 3. I will document each one as I go through photographs so you can follow the process. I love writing for my blog, myartquilts. I have often given myself little challenges for completing a UFO so I can write up the post to go with it.
I might make a small quilt to show a technique I wanted to try and discuss it in a post. Anytime I make a quilt top or art quilt, since starting my blog in January , I have taken pictures while making it; these are like mini challenges for me. I give myself these little challenges to have things on which I can work for the blog posts. It turned out to be one of my very favorite pieces.
Challenges are good for us. If I did my math correctly, it should take me about 54 weeks about 1 year to complete these 10 quilts.
I am looking forward to it. As I am typing my guidelines here, my head is beginning to spin with the possibilities. Join in with me and challenge yourself to my guidelines or make your own. The first quilt in the challenge should be ready September Stay tuned and see what I can do. Happy Quilting! In , my sewing guild had an October challenge to decorate a bra for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I lost my grandmother, her sisters and a few friends over the years to breast cancer and have known countless others who have suffered and survived.
It was a giant stumpwork project. I was a great challenge to understand how it could go together. It is made of various colors of felt and stuffed with batting. My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer not breast and I was sitting beside her for almost a month. This project was a great distraction from long days while she rested. Since it was all handwork, it was a perfect project to have beside me.
This was a great guild challenge. There were lots of interesting takes on how to decorate a bra! If you are looking for a challenge, see if your guildmates would like to participate. Several years ago, my guild stepped up for a challenge. Uncommon Threads Quilt Guild was a large guild of talented quilt artists, so were up for the challenge.
The hospital administrative contact let us know the guidelines. They all needed to be square. And, they all had to contain a graphic character. They wanted us to include these as a unifying point of interest for the children. That presented us with a logistical problem of taking a graphic character off a piece of paper and putting them on a piece of fabric art.
We turned to Spoonflower, the internet company that prints fabric you design. As a guild, we ordered yards of the characters in two or three sizes; each character was shown in a few different poses as well. When the fabric arrived, we picked out the characters we wanted to use. I picked the turtle he has a name that escapes me 4 years later.
We had several months with which we could design, create and quilt our art quilts. When the hospital opened, all the quilt artists were invited to the opening ceremony and allowed to tour the hospital and see the quilts where they were displayed. I recently re-toured the hallways and took pictures of the quilts I could find. As you can see, we put their characters in all sorts of environs — from the bottom of the sea to outer space.
We have them doing all sorts of activities. It was fun to do. I thought you might enjoy seeing them…. This was my quilt. Soon, I will write a post describing how I made this quilt, but right now I wanted to share all the amazing quilts in the collection. When I was a program director for my guild, I put together a couple Round Robin Skills Sessions with help from my guild-mates.
I asked quilters to take a subject in which they were skilled and developed small speech with a short demonstration. After asking the quilters to volunteer their time and efforts, they were responsible for sending me a handout that explained what they were going to demonstrate.
It could be an outline of what they were going to demonstrate, exactly what they were going to say, or more details than they could offer during the demonstration. As program director, I made copies of the handouts and brought them to the meeting. The preparations just before the meeting involved sitting up tables around the room with a clear path from one to another. We also needed a power source for some of the demonstrators — for sewing machines, better lighting to see details, irons, etc.
Each quilter spoke for minutes before an alarm sounded and everyone switched tables. Given minutes to switch all the participants from one table to the next meant that 6 tables would take about an hour and fifteen minutes. This required the demonstrators to use examples to point out details rather than to sit and sew because the time was too short.
Perhaps you would need a sewing machine to show needle position or how to tweak a setting, but it is too little time for any actual sewing to take place. Each time we did this, the response from the guild members was very warm. It is like attending several little classes. Everyone was energized by what they saw and learned. Fellowship — a group sharing the same interests and activities, companions of like thought, a friendship built upon similar deeds.
You can have several activities that will facilitate meeting new people in ways that will bind you together. This is just one idea. Prepare a random seating assignment. This can be done by placing tokens inside a draw bag. When members sign in, they can grab a colored seat-assignment token and find the table with the same color. Random seating will help you meet new people. The tokens can be something in different colors like a several Crayola crayon 8 pks or something you spray paint like old dominos or puzzle pieces.
Each guild will need differing numbers of tables, depending on how many members usually attend meetings.
If you are using buffet tables, consider groups of 5 at each end. Think of how many full tables there are at a typical meeting and plan a color for each table.
Keep a list of members who teach or lecture and ask one of them to present a program. Invite a textile art professor to speak. Bring a variety of quilting supplies and notions threads, rulers, rotary cutters, etc. Have members bring their favorite quilting book and tell why. Have a machine quilter bring her machine and demonstrate how it works, telling how she determines what to charge, what to quilt, etc.
This could drum up a little business for her too! Set up several stations with a demonstration at each flying geese, prairie points, hand quilting, chain piecing, basting, marking, hand and machine applique, embellishing, half and quarter-square triangles, rotary cutting, etc. Have a local art teacher come to explore a design idea. Invite a lawyer to talk about copyright laws. Have a charity quilt work night. Divide the guild into groups of 10, giving each group a paper and pencil and a first preferably wild and whacky line to a story.
Each group incorporates as many different quilt block names as possible in writing its story. Prizes are given for the most improbable, the greatest of block names used, etc. Have a general discussion about how members got involved in quilting.
You get a clean pizza box lined with acid-free tissue, put in a pattern, fabric, whatever…and a book to write in. Write down the directions of the type of block you want people to make for you. Carol has three different postcard collections from which to choose pattern purchase is required for the workshop. And, as a bonus, if you give Carol enough advance notice, she will design a couple of original postcards just for your group!
Class duration is typically five to six hours. She provides a photo that has been professionally printed on fabric nominal fee. This workshop is a perfect way to gain confidence with free-motion techniques! The resulting "embroidered" piece is lovely enough to frame! Class duration is typically four hours. She'll show you techniques that will simplify the process and make it easy to create a beautiful painted piece. You can use it by itself, or as a part of a larger painting, or cut it out and fuse to another piece of fabric.
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