Ideas for Quilt Guild Challenge:

[Jen in northern Wis]

Hi I need some ideas for our Quilt Guild Challenge:
In the past we've done the paint chip: were you had to match the colors of a paint card,.
one year out theme was farm; anything related to farm;
another one was black & white and a color:
we had a Christmas theme one year,
so we need a new idea; to challenge about 65 members; for 2015.........
Thanks for any ideas..........

[wlrquilts]

A couple of years ago our challenge was a favorite song or line from a song.

[LynneLeavell]

What about a favorite party theme.

[Cat77]

- How about a "fugly" contest? Every member has to bring a fat quarter they don't like, they get distributed and they have to make something with it.

- postcards: everybody gets a postcard and has to use it for inspiration, or match a colour or two in it. Could also be done with works of art.

- Give them a classic block they have to modernise.

[meliswan]

I read somewhere that you pour a box of crayons in a bag and then each person picks three without looking and has to use those colors adding only black or white if needed.

[bhaggerty]

how about a strip quilt challenge
create a quilt top with only 2.5 in strips!
you may be on the next MSQ tutorial

[GinnyKNC]

All of the above are great ideas and I love the post card because it kicks your creativity in.
The magazine challenge would also be a good one. Hand each member a different magazine that has absolutely nothing to do with fabric or quilting (farm magazines, hunting, gardening, cars, news related, etc.) and then have each one draw a number out of a "hat". The member then turns to the page in their magazine which match's the number they had drawn. The challenge is to make a quilted project that is related to something on that page - it could be color related, based on a word or phrase on the page, based on a picture on the page, etc. When they submit the challenge project, they also include the page from the magazine and a short write up of how it related. This also kicks your creativity in

[Skymom]

Hi,

I have a few suggestions.

Back in August on the forum they had a "Quilt Diva" name chart where you selected the month of your birthday and the initial of your last name to come up with your diva name. It might be fun to have your members use their diva names as the inspiration for a quilt.

You could put together a list of inspiration words and have your members either draw or choose one to translate into a quilt. It would be interesting to see how many ideas words like curious, innovative or flexible could inspire.

A couple years back I went to a show where the members had taken a letter from the alphabet and used that as the inspiration for their quilts.

A quilt shop I visited recently has a couple of quilt clubs. One of the clubs decided to explore borders. Each member brought in an single block (approx 12" in size). Each time the club met the blocks were passed around and a new border was added. They used 4 or 5 border books for inspiration but it was the members choice regarding what border they wanted to add. There were about 12 members in the club and by the end each member had applied one border on every other members block. Each of the borders had to include some type of piecing. I also believe that they had decided to only use fabrics from their stash but you wouldn't necessarily have to do that. Since you have 65 members, you would need to break them down into smaller groups. The results we saw were quite stunning. It would be a great way to explore different border options and for members of your guild to get to know each other better.

[Hulamoon]

How about a Beatles song. There are so many interesting titles.

[Annette Ackley]

Our Quilt Guild has done Christmas in July. You bring in one yard of fabric of your choosing, put a note with the fabric, saying what you would like made with it. Put it all in a paper bag. Everyone who is participating picks out a bag. It is a secret until July. You have to Bring your fabric in January. It is alot of fun.
The other thing we have done is a Round Robin. Everyone who signs up gets divided into groups of 5. You start the first row, then each month it gets passed to the next person. When it is done, it comes back to you. You have a quilt top. You must supply the binding that goes in between the rows. You start out with 4 12 inch blocks finished, the next row is 6 8 inch block, finished it alternates. You end up with 3 rows of 12 inch blocks and 2 rows of 8 inch blocks. It is amazing to see how your quilt top turns out.