Are You Ready for a {FLAMINGO} Challenge?

The whole idea of the challenge using Kona Flamingo came from the exhibit at QuiltCon East in Savannah for the 2016 Kona Color Of The Year (COTY) - "Highlight" - and how impressive it was. 

It was vibrant. It was cohesive. It was inspiring. 60 mini quilts, all the same size, all with one common element - Kona Highlight. Each of the 60 artists who received a pre-selected color palette, were asked simply to make a mini quilt. Creativity-wise, the sky was the limit. They could design, piece, quilt, embellish, etc. their mini in whatever manner that best spoke to them/represented them.

Looking at the exhibit, you saw minimalist quilts, modern traditional quilts, improv quilts, bold and graphic quilts, sweet quilts. I'll admit, some of the color palettes were easier on the eyes than others. But, each quilt wasn't there to be judged. It was there because it represented where the artist was creatively at that point in time.

Here is the best link to visuals of the QuiltCon exhibit. 

That's the idea with this challenge. Show us what you're made of. What's your piecing style? How do you like to quilt? Are you a free-form quilter or a pattern follower? It doesn't matter. Show us what you can do with a FQ or F8 of Flamingo Pink. 

These are our parameters for the Kona Flamingo 20" x 20" Mini Quilt Challenge:

1 - Must use Kona's 2017 COTY, "Flamingo". Use as little or as much as you want.
2 - Finished mini-quilt size must be 20" x 20"
3 - Any piecing style/design style is allowed. If using a pattern, PLEASE credit the pattern maker/designer.
4 - ONLY solid fabrics may be used. Ideally, ONLY Kona solids, but that's your decision.
5 - All minis must have a label on the back.
6 - Kona Flamingo is available for purchase at $2/FQ or $1/F8 today. (N/A)
7 - Minis are due no later than December 9, 2017.
8 - This is your mini to keep. At a later date and time, we will request permission to display it in a show format/public setting.
9 - All minis submitted are eligible to win a small prize. Random drawing at the December 9th meeting. 

We are so looking forward to seeing your minis, but also hearing a little bit about what inspired you.  Good luck!

March Meeting

It was another great meeting of the ECMQG!  We had 15 people and 3 new members, bringing our total members to 19.  Amazing!

The Kona Solids Challenge reveal happened during this meeting, but that's blogged about in a separate post, found here.

We discussed our next sew on Saturday, April 14 at Martelli's in Pensacola from 10-3. However, at 9 am we'll be meeting at A&E in Pensacola to do some fabric shopping!  If you've never been to A&E before, now's the time. 

Kelly S. talked about spray basting.  Spray basting is a quick, easy, and effective way to baste your quilts without using pins.  It seems like everyone who spray bastes has their own special way of doing it.  Kelly discussed three different methods.

The first was Ashley's, from Film In the Fridge, who spray bastes on a floor.  She writes about her method here.

Second was Patsy Thompson's method.  She chooses to baste on a wall.  You can see her method towards the end of this video.

And then there was Cindy Bettinger's unique method of using a table and a metal rod to roll out the quilt top and back.  She writes about that here.

Not everyone in our guild chooses to spray baste, but even those of us who primarily do walked away with some new ideas and techniques to try out.

We also talked about the QuiltCon Block Challenge.  It's a fun way to get involved with QuiltCon from the comfort of your own home!  Basically, the challenge is to create a block reflecting what modern quilting means to you, using the colors of the QuiltCon logo.  Blocks can be submitted up until August 15.  Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson, will choose 20 or more of her favorite blocks to be made into a quilt that will be raffled off at QuiltCon.  The other blocks will also be made into quilts that will be donated to the Austin Children's Shelter.  It's a very cool challenge, and as a guild we'll submit our blocks together, the deadline being our July meeting.

Thankfully, the store we have our meetings at agreed to have FQ bundles made up in the colors of the QuiltCon logo.  Kelly S. chose the fabrics, and the wonderful staff at Lynn's cut the bundles for us during our meeting!  To find out more about the color inspiration for this fabric bundle, you can read Elizabeth's post here.

As usual, we had a Show and Tell at the end of our meeting.  Here's just a few pictures from that...

Great meeting.  Lots of talent was showcased.  Looking forward to what's to come. 

Kona Solids Challenge Reveal!

The ECMQG finally had the much-anticipated reveal of our Kona Solids Challenge quilts at our March meeting. Out of the 14 people that took on the challenge, we had 9 finished quilts. Two people brought in their WiPs, and we had a couple people who couldn't make it to the meeting.  Back in December, we received the Brights Charm Pack.  During the reveal, a few people questioned whether or not we all had the same colors in our charm packs.  Of course, we did, but it's amazing how different everyone's quilts turned out, despite starting from the same place!

Here's Melanie's star using lots of half square triangles

And Daryl's WiP

Cindy's cute fishy WiP, inspired by a quilt that was made by a friend for one of her kids

 Another great HST quilt brought to us by Marcy

Gina's "Dashing" quilt

Kira's amazing swirling hexagons

Betty's Tetris-y quilt

This is the beautiful quilt that Kathleen made

Kassie's heart quilt, made in honor of her and her husband's 10th anniversary

Yet another HST quilt by Kelly S.

Last, but not least, Kelly B's Rainbow cross quilt

And here's a group picture with (almost) everyone!

As everyone was revealing their quilts, we heard several times that this really was a "challenge."  A lot of us had never made a quilt using nothing but solids, and some of the colors were out of our comfort zone.  But that's the beauty of this particular challenge - it pushed us to try something new, and the results were beautiful. 

A special thanks to Robert Kaufman for providing not only the charm packs for the challenge, but also FQ bundles to hand out as prizes.  We're a new guild, and a little late to join in all the Solids Challenge fun, so we're very thankful for the opportunity!  If you want to see what other guilds who participated in this challenge have created, check out the Flickr group.

December Meeting - The CliffsNotes Edition

Wow - what a cram-packed meeting we had today! Let me get right into it...

First, Kelly B. gave us a great FMQ demonstration. She's really great at free motion, so she was the perfect person to show those of us who aren't as experienced how to do it. She even brought some quilt sandwiches for some of us to practice on!

Here's Kelly telling and showing us how it's done...

And here's some of our people trying it out...

By the way, we had some really great food this time. It was like our own little Christmas party! I should've taken a picture of just the food, but you can see it in the corner of this pic. By the way, I think we all share a love of food in this guild, so coming soon will be a Recipes page, featuring recipes of what people have brought to the meetings.

Next up was the reveal of our scrap swap! This was so much fun! At our last meeting, whoever wanted to participate in the swap brought in a sandwich bag filled with scraps. We swapped those scraps, and whatever scraps we received, we were supposed to make something out of them to bring to this meeting, and swap the finished item back to the original owner of the scraps. I think we were all very happy with what we received!

Up next was another big reveal - thanks to Robert Kaufman, and their awesome support of the Modern Quilt Guild movement, the ECMQG is going to be participating in the Kona Solids Challenge! Haven't heard of it? Go here to read about how it started, and go here to see some of the amazing quilts that have been made for this challenge! Or just google "kona solids challenge" and you will be hit with pages of results! Our deadline for these finished quilts is going to be our March meeting, and I just can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!


Next we had our show and tell. I got a few pictures of what people brought before my camera battery died.




Check out our Flickr pool for more pictures.

All in all, it was a great (but busy) meeting! The next time we'll see each other is at our first Monthly Sew at First Baptist Church in Crestview on Saturday, January 21 from 12-6. Our next regular meeting is the following Friday, January 27 at 10 am at The Sewing Center Around the Block in FWB. Hope to see you at one of those. But in the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!