Quilt Guild Meeting and Summer Challenge

We had our last quit guild meeting of the year last night. Following tradition, we have a pot luck dinner for the last meeting of the year. The pot luck hosted by the Quilt Guild is always the best pot luck I attend all year. Quilters know how to cook! Food and quilting just seem to go naturally together!

Another lady sitting at my table, Sharon, and I were commenting that we never seem to win anything. When they drew membership numbers for the door prize, we both won! We each won a piece of Christmas fabric. My piece was a fat quarter featuring Jim Shore's Santas.

Our guild usually sponsors a summer challenge. The challenge this year was to start by picking a paint chip from a paper bag (so that you couldn't see which one you were getting) to determine the colour scheme of your project.

Using the pinwheel variations block shown below and the paint colour chip selected you have to make a quilt or wall hanging no larger than 18" square. You can make just one block or as many as you want as long as the quilt is no larger than 18". You must use at least one of the colours from the paint chip and you can introduce other colours but the paint chip colour must be the predominant one.

At first I thought I had drawn a "dud" when I picked my paint chip. I picked a neutral beige coloured chip. I watched others at my table pick pretty pinks, greens, blues, and reds and I tried desperately to trade with someone. No luck.

Then, the winner of the UFO challenge was announced. We had an ongoing challenge since Sept. to see who could finish the most UFOs. I won the prize for the most UFOs finished in the large quilt category (having the long arm definitely helped here). My prize was 15 fat quarters from the Teresa Kogut's Williamsburg collection.

The fat quarter on the top of the pile was a perfect match for my paint chip. I was no longer interested in trading!

Oh, and remember my saying that Sharon and I "never win anything". Well, Sharon won the prize in the UFO category for the most small quilts finished. Sharon and I decided that we should probably be buying lottery tickets. For two people who never win anything, we each won our share last night!