Member Charity Challenge

The QuiltCon Charity Challenge is one of the MQG’s largest-scale charity projects, and we look forward to getting as many member guilds and individual members involved as possible.

The QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge is open to MEMBERS ONLY. Become a member today!

Guilds will donate the finished quilt to their local communities! After the quilts are displayed at QuiltCon, guilds are asked to donate the completed quilt to a local charity your guild supports.

The 2016 QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge is a bit different from the 2015 QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge. Please read carefully.

This year’s challenge requires participants to work collaboratively to create completed quilts using a predetermined color palette and improv with intent.

About the Challenge

Working with the Color Palette
The color palette can be described as white, off-white, sunflower, tomato red, light teal, grey and black. You don’t need to use all the colors, you can be selective if you prefer. The interesting thing about this color palette is the dominance of neutrals combined with primary colors.

Once you have some of these solids on hand, it is easy to pull prints from your stash that coordinate. Yes, you can use prints! If your group prefers, it can be all prints. When choosing prints, it’s best to look for monochromatic/tone-on-tone prints rather than those that include other colors outside the color palette.

There are many approaches to improv with intent. Explore this topic with your guild or individual member bee and find the approach that suits you best.

There are a number of resources you might consult as a part of your discussion. You could watch the “Improv with Intention” MQG Webinar by Cheryl Arkison, which can be viewed here (member only access). As Cheryl states, “Improv is more than sewing together random bits of fabric. You can take an idea, an image, or an object and translate it into a block or quilt via improvisational piecing.” Her webinar takes you through her process step by step, and you will see how she selects a color palette from a photograph and then sketches her idea and starts sewing. (A sketch might not sound like improv, but it provides the intent and a guide. From there, you can choose to stray from your initial concept as you begin to play with fabric.)

Other designers have taken other approaches to improv with intent. Sherri Lynn Wood taught a class at QuiltCon 2015 that was based on musical scores. In her course description, she states, “With jazz music, a score or lead sheet is used for indicating the basic melody, chord changes and arrangement of a song without specifying exactly how the song should be performed. Now imagine a score written to perform a quilt! Participants will create an improvisational quilt by working from a simple score rather than a pattern.”

Alexandra Ledgerwood defines her approach to improv quilting as “a creative approach to piecing fabrics, working largely without a pattern but with an overall design goal in mind.” She uses three techniques — strips, slices and strata.

There is also bee, called Bee Sewcial, where you can find inspiration when preparing for this challenge. The participants work in an improv style, but because it is a bee, there are some rules and guidelines — this is intent. One example can be found on Stephanie Ruyle’s blog, Spontaneous Threads. For her bee month, she was inspired by the shapes of a Chihuly installation and their colors. She set a loose color palette for her group, asked for only solids and shapes that mimic the look of the Chihuly, and blocks that were untrimmed and the equivalent of two 12 ½” blocks. These guidelines were minimal but provided an overarching framework for the project.

Carefully chosen guidelines are so important when working with a group on a project — and even more so when working in an improv style. When you work with your guild on this challenge, you might consider discussing the palette. You could choose to limit it or to use all the colors allowed. You could decide to use solids only, just one print that you preselect, or scraps. You could pick a shape and ask members to create that shape using scissors only, no trimming. Obviously, the list goes on of simple guidelines that could produce a cohesive quilt design using improv techniques: hand cutting with scissors, avoiding rotary cutters and rulers, allowing room for experimentation and individual expression, irregularly shaped blocks, etc. This type of quilt-making can be very successful during a sew-in style workshop where members are working together and utilizing a design board. It allows for the natural flow that is important in improv that might not be as easy to achieve working independently.

Organizing Your Guild’s Challenge

Determine Your Guild’s Project Manager
When you begin discussing this challenge with your guild, we ask that you nominate a QuiltCon Charity Quilt Project Manager for your guild. She/he will be the point of contact for direct communication between the MQG and your guild. She/he should be the person who signs the guild up for the challenge, oversees the project to make sure things are on schedule, and mails the quilt to QuiltCon. All emails sent about the challenge will be sent to this contact person only.

Sign-ups
Guilds: Leaders of all of local MQGs can go here to get their guild signed up. Please make sure this is filled out by July 30, 2015. Please have your QuiltCon Charity Quilt Project Manager sign up.

Individual Members: If you are interested in contributing to a quilt bee style, look for the form via email on April 29, 2015. We will work to get groups together according to zip code and/or country to keep your traveling/shipping charges low.

Design the quilt!
• Guilds, groups and/or individuals will complete a quilt using the predetermined color palette.
• Guilds, groups and/or will complete a quilt using improv with intent.
• No patterns are allowed.

Work Together
• Your guild and/or members will provide the blocks for the quilt.
• Your guild will provide batting, backing, binding and additional fabric to complete the quilt top.
• Quilts should be twin size (generally no smaller than 68”x 88” and not much bigger than 72” x 92”).
• Quilting must be no farther apart than 2”. These quilts will be used, so please make sure they are sturdy.
• Machine sewn bindings are okay.

Blog Post (optional)
• Your guild will submit an optional blog post with 3–4 accompanying photos discussing the process of designing and completing your guild’s quilt by January 14, 2016.
• We will email directions to participating guilds on submitting your content in October 2015.

Shipping
• All quilts must have a sleeve and label.

• Label: Each charity quilt sent must have a label securely attached to the back of the quilt. We expect that this is a temporary label that you will take off before donating the quilt to your charity. The label should identify your guild/group and contain the return shipping address.
• Sleeve: Quilts will be hung with sleeves. Charity quilts require 4” sleeves. Quilts received without sleeves will not be hung. We suggest attaching the sleeve in very big stitches, so that it can be removed before sending to the charity, if applicable. Please review Jacquie Gering’s tutorial on how to make and apply a sleeve to your quilt here: http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/2012/02/hang-your-quilt-hanging-sleeve-tutorial.html

• The deadline for these quilts is February 3, 2016.
• Complete details on shipping will be uploaded on this page by December 2015.

If you need help, please visit the Community site or feel free to email our QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge Coordinator, Amy Friend.

The following QuiltCon sponsors have bundles for this challenge:
Rock Paper Scissors
Sew Modern

Thank you for your interest in completing the QuiltCon 2015 Charity Quilt Challenge.

Are you or your guild interested in becoming a part of the MQG? Read about membership here.