challenges

Our club's first challenge was to make a Self-Portrait quilt. The rules were simple; the quilt was to be within certain size requirements, be an expression of yourself, and to include a flower or floral design of some sort. This last item may seem odd but the challenge quilts were to be shown in the Dunedin Fine Arts Center from May 25th through July 20th as part of a show titled "Quilts at DFAC". The exhibit was to run in tandem with a traveling exhibit entitled Rose of Sharon: New Quilts from and Old Favorite (Competition Quilts from the Museum of the American Quilter's Society). The flower on our quilts was a tie-in with the theme. The challenge was great fun and our first chance to see what we could accomplish individually as well as within our new group. Here are a few of our pieces:

Our second challenge was a secret one. We each chose 3 things that we normally do not do in our quilting, wrote them down on a sheet of paper and sealed it in an envelope. The size requirements were the same as our first challenge and we had until the Dunedin Fine Arts Center Student/Teacher/Member show to complete our quilts. At our "Reveal Meeting" the envelopes were unsealed and the results were measured against the finished quilts. Here are some of the quilts done by our members who were working "outside of their comfort zone".

This, our third challenge, allowed us to explore new ideas and techniques. We decided to design a minimum of four small 9"X12" quilts with subject matter of our choice. Typical journal quilts depict elements of the artist's life, emotion, or experience. It was left up to the individual artist if this is what they desired to do or they were free to experiment with trying new techniques, subject matter of their own choosing, and to use new materials that they had not incorporated in their designs before.

The Explorations Challenge was one of the most fun challenges so far. We each did a secret exchange for one of the quilts where we assembled a grouping of fabrics and embellishments into an unmarked paper bag. We each blindly took one and went home to make a quilt from the contents. The results were fun and it added another dimension to our exhibit. We hope you enjoy the results. Don't forget, you can click on the images for a closer view.

For this challenge, each member chose a country to depict in a quilt. There were no restrictions other than size. As you will see there are a variety of approaches to this challenge and many techniques as well. The finished quilts were shown at the DFAC Faculty/Student Member exhibition. As always, you can click on the thumbnail image to see the larger view. Hope you enjoy our quilts.

Annie chose Egypt	Beautiful detail.	Bea chose Brazil	...and she won the prize!
Cathy chose Thailand	Thailand Detail	Mary Lou chose Japan	Nancy chose Sweden
Christine chose Liberia	Sandy B chose Australia	Sandy D chose Scotland