The President’s Challenge this year is to create a quilt inspired by a pet or any animal.  The perimeter should be a minimum of 72” (that’s only 18” on a side, for instance, but can be as large as you’d like).  Bring quilts to be judged at the Holiday Party in December.  Pictures of the completed quilts along with a brief description of how it represents your pet/animal are due to Alberta Dalke by the Dec 3^rd meeting.  Please email them to Alberta.  Judging is planned for the December 13^th Holiday Party.  Categories are: Best Meets the Challenge; Members Choice; President’s Choice.

The President’s Challenge for 2024 is to create a quilt inspired by a book.  Even though the book may have been made into a movie, there are usually differences, so bear that in mind and focus on the book.  The perimeter should be a minimum of 72” (that’s only 18” on a side, for instance, but can be as large as you’d like). Bring quilts to be judged at the Holiday Party in December. Pictures of the completed quilts along with a description of how it represents the chosen book are due Dec. 4 to Alberta Dalke. Categories are: Best Meets the Challenge; Members Choice; President’s Choice.

Congratulations to our winners this of year's challenge to create a quilt inspired a book with minimum perimeter 72”.  Francie Nelson won Best Meets the Challenge and President's Choice and Mary Lou Cunningham won Member's Choice.

Francie Nelson’s entry depicts the book Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, 1952   Size of quilt: 18”x19”.

Charlotte’s Web is a book about friendship (and many other things).  In her quilt, she included Charlotte, the confident spider who tries to save Wilber, the shy lonely pig, from being Christmas dinner.   Charlotte does this by spinning nice comments about him in her web.  The first comment was: “SOME PIG”.  Francie changed the comment to “SOME GUILD”.  The guild, like Charlotte, also fosters friendship and support to members.  Francie loves this book. Francie won First Place for Best Meets the Challenge and President’s Choice.

Mary Lou Cunningham’s entry is inspired by the book Secret Garden by Fances Hodgson Burnett, Author, Charles Robinson, Illustrator. First published - British edition 1911. Quilt Pattern - Grandmother's Garden English paper piece

Mary Lou writes, “This has been a learning quilt for me. Never did I ever think I would like English paper piecing, but here I am one quilt later. The biggest thing I learned--I like the 3/8th seam allowance. Putting the blocks together into a quilt presented another challenge until Marie, our president, decided her president's challenge would be based on a book. Immediately,  I thought of the children's book, Secret Garden, which I read more than once in my childhood.

“Here is my secret garden surrounded by a wall with flowers overflowing the stone wall bringing nature and the garden to those outside the garden.” Mary Lou won First Place for Member’s Choice.

The challenge for 2023 is to create a quilt that uses two different striped fabrics and a dotted/spotted fabric.  Use at least a charm square (5"x5" square) of each fabric (cut as you like, ok to square up) in your quilt. Quilt/wall hanging size requirement: 72" or larger perimeter, such as 18" square or larger, 16"x20" or larger, etc. There are three categories: Best Meets the Challenge (best quilt with at least the minimum amount of the three required fabrics that meets size requirement); President’s Choice (favorite based on personal taste); Members’ Choice (favorite based on personal taste).  Photos & a description of your quilt are due Tuesday, November 28, 2023; judging is planned for the December 16, 2023 meeting (update from previous 12/6). Please plan to bring/send your quilt in a plain brown bag (or similar) to the meeting for anonymous display prior to the slide show judging.  This way members at the in-person meeting can see and evaluate the quilts in all their glory, and members over zoom can still participate in the voting.

2023 President's Challenge Winners

Congratulations to our winners this year: Alberta Dalke won Best Meets the Challenge; Francie Nelson won President's Choice, and Kate Stone won Member's Choice.

Alberta Dalke won Best Meets the Challenge with her take on Lori Holt’s Scrappy Spools, using a combination of Tula Pink’s Tiny Dots and Stripes and Zen Chic’s Spotted for the background.  Only the brown spools aren’t a dot or stripe. 

Francie Nelson won President’s Choice with her quilt Bodacious Gingko Leaves. The quilt is based on a pattern by Sylvia Pippen called Hawk Feathers and Gingko Leaves.  Three striped materials were used for the machine pieced chevrons.  Most of the Gingko leaves were made from dotted fabric from my stash;  they were hand appliqued.  According to Sylvia Pippen,  in Japanese art, chevrons symbolize hawk feathers & Ginkgo leaves bring good fortune.  It is lightly machine quilted.

Kate Stone won Members’ Choice with her quilt Camoflage-Hidden in Plain Sight. Dots and Stripes are a quilting staple but these fun patterns are also used to paint nature. This quilt celebrates the dots and stripes that make up nature’s camouflage.

The challenge for 2022 is to create a quilt that has one or more flowers.  The flower(s) could be applique’ (turned edge, raw edge, satin stitched, etc.), pieced, traditional block such as Cactus Flower, focal fabric, etc. Quilt/wall hanging size requirement: 72" or larger perimeter, such as 18" square or larger, 16"x20" or larger, etc. There are three categories: Best Meets the Challenge (best quilt that has a flower and meets size requirement); President’s Choice (favorite based on personal taste); Members’ Choice (favorite based on personal taste).  Photos & a description of your quilt “flowers” are due Tuesday, November 29, 2022; judging is planned for the December 7, 2022 meeting.

And the winners are:

2022 Presidents Choice & Best Meets the Challenge: Karen Lacina

2022 President's Challenge Members' Choice: Mary Anne Braithwaite

The many gorgeous 2022 President's Challenge entires are shown below as thumbnails; simply click to see the full size image.  The maker and description of each is listed below.

1.     Mary Ann Braithwaite: The quilt is about 42 inches wide and 22 inches high.
I used needle turn applique for the leaves. The flowers are silk or silk organza and are made with an origami technique. They were tacked down after I finished quilting.

2.     Kay Blikken: Another member and I challenged each other to do a wall hanging with a densely quilted background after going to a local show in Dunedin. It took me 4 years to get mine done!  I got the idea for the two color strip background from a Ricky Tims' book (that I got at a small quilt show in Michigan for $1), the idea for the flowers came from Dale Chihuly glass flowers I saw at the Columbus Ohio Botanic Garden, and the background quilting is my favorite doodle pattern of straight line quadrants each going in a different direction.  So this quilt is doing double duty. It is my President's Challenge entry and another of my 2022 UFOs. 
P.S.  The other person finished her wall hanging within weeks. It was a lovely dove on a beautifully quilted white background.

3.     Alberta Dalke: 54 by 72 inches. After assuming (maybe wrongly) that most people would be making their flowers with applique or other techniques,  I decided to make my flowers from patchwork instead and finally found this modern flower pattern in a magazine. It was a great use of fat quarters.

6.     Kate Sweeney: Flowers for Mom. My Mother and Grandmother both grew beautiful flowers and I share their love of florals. I saw these bright flowers and instantly pictured them in a vase with a wood frame on a farmhouse wall. Rustic, yet elegant.  Collage/Appliqué. 17 1/2 x 20 1/2.

7.     Mary Davis: The quilt is 36” x 15” and is called Jubilee II. The flowers are raw-edged applique with the quilting replicating detail from the flowers. Each end of this table runner features three prairie points set into a 3” pieced edge.