I have something new and exciting to announce that will be happening for the next 7 months of off season Project QUILTING Challenges.
Focus Through the Prism – A Series of Project QUILTING Off Season Challenges
Purchase: Special ROYGBIV fabric Bundle from Cherrywood Fabrics
What:
One block-inspired challenge will be issued each month for seven months. Use that block, plus ONE fabric from your special ROYGBIV bundle, then add anything else you need to create a 20” finished quilt by the month’s deadline.
- Each final project should read predominantly as one color in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet.
- A ROYGBIV hand-dyed color bundle of fabric must be purchased from Cherrywood Fabrics
- You must use ONE fabric from the ROYGBIV challenge bundle in each quilt
- Any other fabrics from your stash may be added.
- You must use the month’s block
- Quilts must finish 20” square.
Challenges must be completed by each monthly deadline
You can participate in as many monthly challenges as you’d like (one, or all seven!) but each challenge quilt MUST be started and finished within that month.
A NEW TWIST: the quilts also must be available to be shipped to me in January 2016 and in my possession for up to one year.
- A 4″ quilt rod pocket will need to be added to the back of the quilt before you send it to me January. Check out THIS tutorial for how to do this.
The end goal for this special challenge series is to build a controlled spectrum display of 20” quilts featuring seven traditional quilt blocks. A jury of your quilting peers will select top quilts in each colorway, and my hope is to submit this to quilt shows as a special exhibit illustrating the creativity a Project QUILTING challenge can inspire.
At the very least I will put up a spontaneous outdoor quilt show on the deer fence in the orchard photographed by Karmen Lindner Photography.
a shot from the Fall 2014 Spontaneous Outdoor Quilt Show photo shoot by Karmen Lindner Photography
When: The first challenge will start on May 1st and a new block will be revealed at the 1st of each month through November. Challenges must be completed by the end of each month regardless if it’s a month with 30 or 31 days.
May, Challenge 1: Monkey Wrench
June, Challenge 2: Friendship Star
July, Challenge 3: Log Cabin
August, Challenge 4: Pinwheel
September, Challenge 5: posted on 9/1
October, Challenge 6: posted on 10/1
November, Challenge 7: posted on 11/1
Prize: To be announced but I promise I’ll get something good put together!
Purchase your Fabric Now so you’ll be ready to get started on May 1st!
The ROYGBIV bundle is available as fat quarters, half yards or full yards. Individual colors are available online in fat quarters.
Woot! I’m super excited about this!!!!
And don’t worry – more details will be posted with the first challenge. The most important thing you need to do right now is click HERE to make your fabric purchase. Oh – and tell all your friends to join in the fun too!
There has been some questions about the fun we’ll be having with the challenge so I put together a FAQ post to help clarify a few things. Please let me know if I can answer any other questions you may have too!
Questions or issues? Email me! lapaceksorchard {at} gmail {dot} com
Hi-I am a bit confused! I am excited and confused! So, if I understand, this is what will happen. Each month you will give us an inspiration block, we will create a block based on that month's choice. At the end we will create a 20 inch square quilt to submit for the challenge?
Nope Tina. Each month will have a block as inspiration. Use that block, pick one of the ROYGBIV fabrics, and make a 20" quilt. Next month: new block, different fabric, another 20" block. If you participate in all 7 challenges, you'll have 7 finished quilts to enter for the show!
GREAT! I'm in! I hand piece and quilt, so I will have to see how this goes!
I love working with Cherrywood Fabrics and love the idea of having a rainbow collection of mini quilts to display together. I'm in!
My fabric arrived earlier this week – oh my stars, do I love it! I love the texture of the hand dyes and can't wait until May 1 to start working with them. Two more weeks…
Oh dear, I posted a comment but it doesn't seen to have gone through. So I'm trying again. If this is a duplicate, please forgive me.
I love Cherrywood fabrics and I think I'd like to participate in this challenge. But I've never done anything like this before so I have a bunch of questions. How do we "enroll" in the challenge? Do we need to fill out a form or anything? How do we find out what the new block is each month? Do we just come back here to the website? How do we submit our finished quilts? Do we just post pictures somewhere? And are we talking just a quilt top each month or a quilted and bound quilt? Thanks.
I'm excited to hear that you'd like to participate in the challenges. I'll do my best to answer all your questions.
Enrollment – no need to enroll or fill out any forms. Just head to cherrywood, purchase the bundle and wait for the first challenge to come out on May 1st. The new block each month will be posted right here, on my blog, kimlapacek.com on the 1st of each month. You submit the finished quilts by linking up to the linky I'll set up with each challenge post. The quilts need to be FINISHED – quilted and bound at 20 inches by the end of the month to qualify for each challenge. I hope this helps clarify a few things …
That all made sense except for "linking up to the linky". No clue what that means.
That will make sense on May 1st or look back at past pq challenges. The kinky is at the bottom of each challenge.
Hi! Will you be providing the pattern/instructions for each of the 7 quilt blocks? I am pretty new to quilting but this sounds like a really exciting way to learn how to construct various types of quilt blocks!
Thanks!
Hi Michelle, I will be providing a basic block tutorial for each block the challenge is based on.
Great! 😀 My ROYGBIV fat quarters just arrived in the mail today!!
Inspired by… Do we have to include the months block in the quilt or just be inspired by that months block?
Inspired by is exactly it. You are free to be inspired by the quilt block I give. A story behind the quilt i appreciated though so you can show us how the final quilt was inspired by the quilt block.
This sounds exciting, but I'll be watching from the sidelines. I'd love to join in next time around, but at the moment there are too many irons in my fire!
This sounds exciting, but I'll be watching from the sidelines. I'd love to join in next time around, but at the moment there are too many irons in my fire!
Hi, Sounds very interesting and can not wait to see what you have planned. I will be watching for sure.
This does sound exciting! I am looking forward to the first challenge!
Love the idea of working on projects with the colour wheel. Lots of ways to push my creativity. Those hand dyes are beautiful.
Ready and waiting.. where do I find instructions for May.. it is May 1st today!
Right here on my blog: http://kimlapacek.com/2015/05/monkey-wrencha-focus-through-prism.html
Do we need to use ALL of our selected fabric each month? I guess a better way to ask, How much of the selected Cherrywood fabric must/should be included?
You do not need to use ALL of your selected fabric (it's only a 20" quilt and if you purchased a fat quarter bundle … an entire fat quarter would be pretty domineering). I would like to be able to easily see that it is used in the quilt. This is one of the elements that going to help bring these quilts together into an appealing show.
I've finished my quilt but am stymied by the uplink process. It's way too high tech for me. You said we could email our pics to you and you would uplink for us, but I can't even find your email address. Help!
Dreamweaver! You're a no reply blogger so hopefully you come back and check here that I've responded to your comment. My email is: lapaceksorchard {at} gmail {dot} com
I don't even know what a no reply blogger is. I'm a quilter not a computer whiz. I'll email you.
Just sent my June entry to you via email. Summer is a rough time to make deadlines, but I did it.