What I Got From Project Quilting

The second season of Project Quilting is over and it was both fun and exhausting.

What did I get? I am the grand prize winner for the season! I’ll be getting some great prizes (lots of fabric) and helpful comments from the judges. Most importantly I got 6 wonderful art quilts that I probably wouldn’t have made otherwise (technically I only have 5 because one has sold).

There were some really great competitors, which should be obvious since while I won first place over all, none of my individual quilts made it to first place (although 4 of them got second place).

I also learned more about how I like create. My main method of working was to read the challenge then go to my fabric stash and start looking through the fabric options. Usually that would start me thinking of possibilities and I’d sketch out a few layout options.

With the exception of “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom”, all the other fabric was taken from my stash. I find it interesting to think that if I’d hadn’t had the fabric I did at the time, my projects could have ended up quite different.

Below I’ve given some more information about the six quilts, including what I would have done differently, although most of the changes I would have made were how I constructed the quilt and not in the design or fabrics.

"Carnival of Colors"

for the Primary Colors challenge

What I would have done differently: I thought that fusing the color squares to the background and covering the edges with cord would save some time, but I don’t think that it did. The cord was too thin to completely cover the edges so I ended up going back and quilting in the ditch inside the color squares. I think it would have gone better to just piece it in a more traditional way and the put the cords over the seams. This would have made the quilt smaller as part of the original fabric would have ended up as seam allowances.

To read more about "Carnival of Colors" click here.

"Sometimes I Dream of Flying"

for the What's in a Name challenge

Maybe this one was a little too ambitious as it was the largest one and took the longest to make, but it is the one that I’m the most proud of.

One of the reasons it took awhile was because I decided to add the traditional Birds in the Air blocks at the top and the bottom and I wasn’t paying enough attention because I ended up cutting twice as many pieces as I needed, but I ended up using some of them because I didn’t piece it together correctly.

Then there were some of the “field” pieces that I didn’t like the placement of during the quilting stage so I ended up hand appliquéing some different fabrics on top of the original pieces. I don’t think I mentioned this is the original blog post but some of the fabrics I used the “wrong” sides of because I wanted them to be lighter in color.

What I would have done differently: paid more attention when piecing the Birds in the Air blocks and made the correctly the first time and planned the field fabrics better so I wouldn’t have had to replace some. 

To read more about "Sometimes I Dream of Flying" click here.

"not even the rain: a love poem"

for the Be My Valentine challenge

I originally had the middle sections (with the flowers and text) covered with a nice sheer fabric to help hide the places where I machine appliquéd the fabric with the text but then I decided it was too subtle so I had to cut the sheer out. I was really concerned that the piece was too plain. I had planned on adding the fun fur all along and I was surprised how much of a difference it made. One of the judges gave me a perfect 10 on this quilt, and it has already sold.

What I would have done differently: not put the sheer on in the first place.

To read more about "not even the rain: a love poem" click here.

"After the Rain"

for the Hardware Store Challenge

Since the first season of Project Quilting had the Office Store challenge, I was expecting something like this for this season. This was my favorite challenge because it came together fairly easily. I already had the fabric and since I’d bought them at the same time, I knew they went well together. Most of my time on this project was sewing the silver cord through the drain cover to make it appear less metallic and for me it was actually relaxing to do this.

This is my favorite of the six quilts and I there isn’t anything I would have changed about the way I made it. I love that it has a simplicity about it but also has movement and texture. I also really like our local hardware store.

To read more about "After the Rain" click here.

"Dancing Geese" for the Flying Geese challenge

I got my lowest score on this quilt (so it’s the one that was dropped from the total score) and this was probably my least favorite of the challenges and I think it’s because I’m not fond of working with contrasting color schemes. I took this to mean that we could only use the complimentary colors but some others interpreted that you could add some other colors as long as the contrasting colors were the most prominent.

It also took me awhile to come up with a layout for this quilt, I’ve got 21 pages of sketches. I’m not sure what I would have done differently, maybe gone with another layout or different color scheme.

There is, however, one judge’s comment that I’d like to address. “I don’t see any binding in any of your photos.” I used a facing technique because I DIDN’T want the binding to show. I really like this technique because it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the design, it takes the bulk out of the corners, and it helps the quilt to hang straighter. While facing might work better with art quilts, is an acceptable technique to use to bind quilts. 

To read more about "Dancing Geese" click here.

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom"

for the Large Scale Print challenge

Sometimes when I’m making a lot of custom quilts, I don’t have the luxury to go back and re-explore some techniques. For this quilt, I decided to incorporate a few ideas that I used in some of my other Project Quilting pieces.

I used the fabric mosaic technique that I used with the bird on “Sometimes I Dream of Flying” only I let the edges stay at whatever angle they ended up at and I covered them with netting.

I also used the yarn and ribbon embellishments similar to “After the Rain” except instead of letting them just hang down, I had them run horizontally so I had to attach them to the quilt so I did that using beads.

What I would have done differently: One of the judge’s comments was “I like to see mitered corners on a striped border.” I totally agree and usually do this, however the yellow inner border is so thin it was giving me problems when I tried to miter it, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I gave up on it.

An interesting side note to this challenge: the last several times I’ve been in quilt shops I’ve looked at several large scale prints and stripes with a new appreciation. I haven’t bought any, but I did consider some. 

To read more about "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" click here.

---

I appreciate all the hard work that the competitors and judges did, plus extra kudos to Kim who co-ordinated the whole challenge. I urge other quilters to participate in this wonderful project. I’ll let you know when the next season starts, but until there there will be some off-season challenges (no prizes but you’ll have a month to complete your projects). More info will be posted soon.

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom - Project Quiting time to vote

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" 24" x 28.5" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 6: Large Scale Print, Mar. 2011

Quick recap of the challenge "Large Scale Print":

1. Use at least 1/8 yard of a single large scale print on the front side of your project. It can be a regular eighth (4 1/2" x 44") or a fat eighth (11" x 18") or anything in between, but the total needs to add up to 1/8 yard. It can be used as 1 piece or cut into smaller pieces and used.
2. You must also use at least 1 stripe or plaid fabric. No restriction on quantity.
3. Add any other fabrics or materials you wish.

I don’t usually use a lot of large scale prints, but I did have half a yard of one with large overlapping yellow, orange, pink and burgundy flowers that I’d bought several years ago for a purpose that I don’t remember now. It’s just been sitting in my stash taunting me.

When this challenge was posted I knew I wanted to finally use that fabric and a layout came to me rather quickly, it was just the stripe that had me concerned. I’ve used striped fabric before (I like to use them for bindings) but when I’ve gone to buy them I usually haven’t liked the selection of striped fabric.

Because of that concern I actually came up with a second layout using a different large scale print that went with a striped fabric I already had in my possession. Off to the fabric store (the only one of the six challenges that I’ve had to buy fabric for).

I wanted a stripe fabric with at least one of the colors in the large scale print but not something too formal or straight. The very first striped fabric I found was perfect, and how often does that happen? I did check out all the other options but went back to the first one, a yellow fabric with an orange stripe that looked like it was made with a crayon, so not too formal or straight! And it was a remnant, so I got it for half price.

I also purchased the burgundy background fabric because I wanted something that was mostly solid so it wouldn’t compete with the large scale print or the stripe but it had just enough color variation to provide some visual texture.

I pieced the background fabric to the stripes so the stripes are horizontal on the left and right inner borders and vertical on the top and bottom. Then to be a little different, I cut out one stripe and ran it the other direction going length-wise on the left side of the background (more obvious on the detail photos).

Then I pieced the corner blocks and added the large scale print fabric as borders. (Regarding the first part of this challenge: including the seams I used about one quarter of a yard of my large scale print fabric.)

Before I added the other elements, I quilted the burgundy background at this time with slightly-curved horizontal lines in both a dark burgundy and a pink thread to give it more visual depth (the dark burgundy thread is a little hard to see in the photos).

I quilted stitch-in-the-ditch on both sides of the yellow stripe border then did the same slightly-curved horizontal lines in the borders, going all the way across the top and bottom borders and doing shorter waves on the side borders.

I wanted a visual element to go on the burgundy background that had the same energy that the large scale print had but at a smaller scale so I made the three “fabric mosaics.” I fused many small pieces of orange, pink and burgundy fabrics on a square orange background allowing the mosaic pieces to form unusual angles at where they stopped.

I covered them with netting (which provides the sparkle that shows in the photo) and quilted them together with a purpley thread and also an orange thread. I folded the raw edges under then machine appliqued the mosaics to the background, aligning the top and bottom blocks so they were centered on the yellow stripe.

To hold the yarn and ribbons in the center of the fabric mosaic blocks I considered at least 10 sets of items including shells, plastic rings and round paper clips but decided to use three square buttons from a blouse I bought about 18 years ago (I probably bought the blouse because I liked the buttons, and when it was time for it to become a rag I saved the buttons…and my husband even recognized that they were from a blouse that I used to have).

I twisted different yarns (including fun fur) horizontally across the quilt and added beads every few inches to hold them in place.

More about Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Large Scale Print page.

Dancing Geese - Project Quilting time to vote

At left: "Dancing Geese" 10" x 18.5" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 5: Flying Geese, Mar. 2011  

Quick recap of the challenge Flying Geese: 
1. Your inspiration is Flying Geese. I'm sure you've all seen the traditional flying geese. Your challenge is to let them inspire you to do something unexpected.

2. For an extra twist this week, you are required to use a complimentary (opposites on the color wheel) color scheme.

I actually spent a lot of time coming up with the layout for this quilt. Using my computer, I played with many, many different arrangements. One of the things I love about using traditional quilt blocks is the way different parts of the block are emphasized or de-emphasized depending on color and fabric placement.

I knew I wanted the background fabric to be all the same so the triangle parts of the geese would be the focal point. Once I finally came up with a layout I wanted to do, it was time to start playing with complimentary color schemes.

I went to my stash to see what fabrics I had that I thought would work with and I wanted the fabrics for the triangles to be the same color but to range from light to dark. The color that provided me with the most range from my stash was yellow, although yellow is a light color so it doesn’t have a large range of shades. And if the geese were going to be yellow, then the background would have to be purple. I found a wonderful purply batik that had cream and yellow colored swirls, so it was time to get started.

"Dancing Geese" detail

I knew that I could fuse the triangles to the background but I was a little concerned about the background showing through the yellow fabric and I also didn’t want the geese to be so flat.

I played around with some origami-like folds, kind of like making prairie points, only I didn’t realize that until later. The triangles are pretty small, only 2” on the longest point. (The 3-D quality of the triangles is more noticeable in the “Side View” photo.)

A few false starts on figuring out how to piece the background led to cutting the background fabric for each “stripe” and drawing the shape on the wrong side, much like using a template only I traced by placing the fabric over my full-sized diagram on my lightbox.

Still using the lightbox, I placed the triangle in its proper place then sewed adjoining pieces and attaching the bottoms of the triangles at the same time. The points of the triangles were sewn into place during the quilting.

"Dancing Geese" side view

I made the top and left borders the same width as each other and made the right and bottom borders the same as each other but larger than the left and top borders and I added a light purple cord in the larger yellow borders to contain the triangle that extended beyond the background. I decided to do some of the quilting with the opposite color, which is something I don’t do a lot, but I think it helped the design. I did some echo quilting around the triangles with a yellow thread and also stitched in the ditch on the yellow inner border and more echo quilting in the purple background with purple thread.

For the binding I used the same strip- facing technique that I used on the last challenge quilt “After the Rain” because I liked how well it worked.

More about Dancing Geese

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Flying Geese page.

After the Rain - Project Quilting Time to Vote

"After the Rain" 20.5" x 23.5" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 4: Hardware Store, Feb. 2011

Quick recap of the challenge "Hardware Store":
1. Visit a hardware store. Look around, take some pictures, get a feel for the place.
2. Choose at least 3 different things to be your inspiration. You can use the actual items in your quilt, but are not required to do so. Be sure to tell us about the items and how they inspired you.

Coincidentally, when I saw the challenge for this week, we’d just returned from the hardware store where we’d bought a combination lock (to replace the one we don’t know the combination of). So I went back out.

We have less 4000 people in our village, but we do have a local hardware store, and its part of the Do It Best chain. It’s pretty small, only three aisle and a basement (which oddly enough is actually under the business next door and not under the actual store), so I didn’t need a lot of time to look around. I took a few photos and bought a few things then went home to analyze them.

All of my items had holes in them (I guess I was thinking it would be easier to attach them to a quilt if they already had a hole) and two of the items, the drain cover and the washer, were water related. Then I remembered that there are drain chains that can be used instead of downspouts.

I was ready to start. I knew I wanted to thread yarn and ribbons through the openings on the drain cover, so before I got any fabric out, I got out my yarn and ribbons to see what color combinations I had.

Since embellishments are the last things I put on a quilt, I don’t think about it much during the design stage, but since this was going to be the main focus, I thought I’d start here.

Once I decided which color family I wanted to work with, I started looking through the fabrics. Right away I found a batik fat quarters that had rows of circles which reminded me of drain chains, and two batiks that co-ordinated with it. No need to keep looking.

I figured out the fabric layout quickly, the width determined by that fact that the bottom piece of fabric was a fat quarter, so I just used it all. I pieced the fabrics then started quilting.

The quilting starts at the top with straight vertical lines on top of some of the “drain chains,” then the quilting moves through the thin yellow pieces still as straight lines but this time at angles following the blue printed patterns (more noticeable in the close up photos), and then the quilting moves into the main part of the quilt and the lines are free motion curves following some of the patterns on the fabric and they go all the way down to the bottom of the quilt, representing the way water would travel into the earth. I don’t do a lot of free motion quilting, but it seemed appropriate for this quilt.

I didn’t want a visual binding at the edges so I used a facing technique that I’d just learned, one which makes the corners less bulky.

"After the Rain" detail

For the embellishments, I “sewed” gray cording on the drain cover to soften it visually and also threaded several pieces of yarn and ribbon of varying lengths then sewed it on to the quilt. This is the only item that I bought at the hardware store that I used on the quilt.

The embellishment in the upper left corner was made by cutting a piece of cardboard the same size as my washer and wrapping yarn and ribbons around it. I didn’t want to use the actual washer as it was pretty heavy and I didn’t want the extra weight, but I think it’s obvious that it was inspired by the washer. Since the fabric had printed chains on it, I didn’t feel the need to attach the chains to this quilt.

One of my quilting friends admits that hardware stores are her second favorite types of stores, after fabric stores of course. I don’t think I’d go that far, but I do have many items purchased from hardware stores that I use with my quilts including the hanging rods and picture hanging wire.

While working on this challenge, I thought of the many hardware items I used for displays at art shows including: chains and curtain rods (my first display system), pegboard (my second display system), mesh tarps (my third and hopefully final display system), rope, bungee cords, plastic tubes filled with concrete (to use as weights), and removable blue tape (which I use for almost everything).

More about After the Rain

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Hardware Store page.

not even the rain: a love poem - Project Quilting Time to Vote

At left: "not even the rain: a love poem" 19" x 26" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 3: Be My Valentine, Feb. 2011  

Quick recap of the challenge "Be My Valentine":
1. The inspiration is Be My Valentine.
2. The main colors of your project will be something other than red or pink although you can use small amounts of red and pink.
3. You cannot use the word "Valentine" on the front of your project but you may use it in the name.

First I started thinking about Valentines and ways people express their love to another person. I thought about love letters, and specifically classic love poems. I decided to include part of the poem “somewhere I have never travelled” by e.e. cummings, which my husband wrote in a love letter to me when we were dating.

Closeup of poem and ginko leaves

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;

only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands 

Closeup of the clover and blue flowers

Next I came up with a few design ideas then went into my fabric stash to see what I had in green, blue and purple that made me think of romance. I found a piece of fabric that had 7 different floral and leaf images, so I decided to make a quilt that incorporated items that someone would keep to remind them of their love including the second and final stanza of the poem, some ribbons, heart-shaped beads and charms, a little key and a small bag with a pair of hearts inside.

Closeup of the fern and rose bud

I fussy-cut the floral and leaf fabric (using the leftover piece for the label on the back), printed the text that I wanted to add (the poem and text in two other places). I pieced a thin grayish-green inner border and a yellow/green/blue/tan batik for the outer borders.

Detail of hearts inside a sheer bag on the fern quilt

The six pieces were sewn with a pillowcase binding and then top stitched around the edges. I did quilting stitch-in-the-ditch on both sides of the inner border then quilted around the flowers and leaves. I even added some hand quilting some of the leaves to give them definition.

I wanted to use some fun fur to soften the edges and I wanted it along the outside and not on top of the quilt so I used a zigzag stitch to attach it. Then I added my embellishments.

The final step was to use beads to connect the quilts both vertically and horizontally. (The heart-shaped bead on the second quilt on the right side is actually a navy blue, although it looks black in the photos). The handing rod hangs from a cream colored ribbon.

More about not even the rain

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Be My Valentine page.

Sometimes I Dream of Flying - Time to vote on Project Quilting

"Sometimes I Dream of Flying" 38" x 41" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 2: What's in a Name, Jan. 2011

Quick recap of the challenge "What's in a Name":

1. Choose the name of a place, any place with a name that tickles your imagination.

2. Make a quilt using that name as your inspiration.
3. No restrictions on colors, sizes, materials or shapes.

What a great idea for a challenge! I immediately did a search for unusual town names and quickly amassed a long list of possibilities (listed below). I slept on it and woke up Monday morning with a clear favorite, using “Birdseye, Indiana” as my inspiration.

I’ve always loved maps and have been wanted to make a quilt looking down at the earth. I wasn’t sure if I was up to the challenge, so I “drew” out my idea on the computer to make sure I could get the perspective that I wanted.

Close up of the "Birds in the Air" block, also known as: Birds of the Air, Flock of Geese, Flying Birds and Flying Geese

I’ve also wanted to make a quilt that had some traditional quilt blocks but also had elements of an art quilt. I strip pieced the background, piecing the blocks at slight angles to give the perspective of distance. Using some of the same yellow and tan fabrics from the background, I pieced the “Birds in the Air” blocks a light blue background to represent the sky.

I wasn’t completely happy with the way the blocks faded into the background so I decided to add a small dark brown border between the background and the pieced blocks. Then still not satisfied I decided to add the dark brown border to the sides of the background only, to frame it like a picture.

I quilted the fields in the background 1/4" inside of each rectangle and also inside the small, yellow triangles in the "Birds in the Air" blocks. In the larger green parts of the blocks I quilted the echo of the "Birds in the Air" blocks.

Close up of the bird and feathers

I created the bird on a separate piece of fabric, fusing many small dark brown feather-shaped pieces of fabric. I did thread painting on top with both a dark brown and a tan-colored thread to help hold all the pieces down and to also give more definition to the feathers.

Once I decided on the right placement of the bird, I machine appliqued the bird to the background. I pieced together a dark brown fabric with a dark green fabric, cut out a smaller bird-shape and fused it to the background just behind the bird for the bird’s shadow.

The back of the bird before it was attached to the quilt

Aside from the literal having one eye on the hawk, I also made a quilt that was from the perspective of a bird. The working title was “Birdseye” but once I finished, I decided to call it “Sometimes I Dream of Flying.” For some unknown reason, the song “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from the musical Oklahoma kept running through my head while I was making this quilt, even though I don’t know all the words to that song!

Some of the other town names I considered:

Toad Hop, IN; Frog Pond, NC; Mystic, CT; Harmony, CA; Hourglass, DE; Tie Plant, MS; Walls, MS; Tippecanoe, IN; Big Sky, MT; Checkerboard, MT; Cheesequake, NJ; Zig Zag, OR; Moon, PA or Moonlight, VA; Red Shirt, SD; Echo, TX; Imalone and Ubet, WI; Eight Square, OH; Snowflake, AZ; The Bottle, AL; Sisters, OR; Constellation, AZ; Bat Cave, NC; Triangle, ID; Lightning, ID; Shy Corner, ME; Tree of Knowlege Corner, MA; Two Dot, MT; Gypsy, OK; Black Jack, TX; Zebra, NC; Peacock Crossing, NC; and Frostproof, FL. And in related note of “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" there is a Romeo, CO and a Juliette, GA.

More about Sometimes I Dream of Flying

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the What's in a Name page.

Carnival of Colors - Time to vote on Project Quilting

"Carnival of Colors" Made for Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 1: Primary Colors, Jan. 2011

Quick recap of the challenge "Primary Colors": 
1. You must use one 6" square of each primary color, red, yellow and blue
2. You may cut each square into no more than 4 pieces
3. You must use the entire 6" square of each primary color project.
4. You may add any other fabrics or materials

Here are the 3 batik fabrics that I used as my primary colors cut into 4 squares, and the 3 other batik fabrics I used for squares.

I played around with the arrangement of the squares, making sure that I didn’t have a row or column with a duplicate color. With the four-by-four arrangement, there was one spot left over. I thought about piecing a square with four different colored triangles but I liked that spot didn’t have as much color so I cut two quarter-square triangle pieces from the green and the brownish-gray fabric as they were less contrast than the color fabric, and I placed them on the fabric leaving two triangle shapes of deep blue background fabric.

I cut three 2” squares, three 2” circles and three 3”x.75” rectangles and arranged them off-center on top of several of the 3” primary color squares. Once I was happy with the arrangements, I fused these shapes and sewed along the raw edges using the same color thread.

I decided that to fuse the 3” squares to the backing fabric but I also wanted to piece some smaller 1” squares into the binding so I pieced the 2” borders and attached them to the backing fabric before I fused the squares 1” apart on the background (otherwise part of the 3” squares along the border would have become smaller because of the seam allowance).

I wanted to do some embellishing so I got a piece of thin gold cording and tried some different arrangements with it and decided I liked how it made the edges look really crisp so I layered the quilt sandwich then quilted the cord on top of the raw edges, which also created smaller squares where the cornerstones would be it the quilt had pieced with sashing.

I also quilted the cord where the backing meets the borders, then I stitch-in-the-ditch quilted inside the squares using the same color fabric as the square that I was in.

More about Carnival of Colors

= = =

Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Primary Colors page.

Project Quilting

Several of my on-line quilting friends really like watching the show "Project Runway," and one of them, Kim, has started a quilt challenge called "Project Quilting." She posts the requirements for a challenge on Sunday at noon and the projects are due the following Sunday at noon, then she posts the entries so that people can vote on their favorite, and she's also enlisted the help of some official judges who also vote and offer comments. Prizes are awarded to the judge's first choice, to the winner of the public's choice, and a randomly-drawn participant who posts a comment will also win something.

One of the things that I love about challenge projects is that it can sometimes force an artist to be more creative than they might otherwise be, especially when it comes to limitations. At one of my first graphic design jobs, back when desktop publishing was just becoming popular, I had a computer with TWO fonts. I had Helvetica and Times. This challenge made me work harder to use those two fonts in creative ways that I probably wouldn't have, if I'd had more fonts to choose from.

The Project Quilting challenges are created by Kim's mother-in-law Diane. There have been several projects so far and I'm very impressed with the challenges that she designs and the variety she includes. One was to use a certain quilt square, another was to cut a certain number of strips of fabric and use those, once she had a limit of how much you could spend which made the participants use fabric from their stashes. The current one is to use fabric that had a previous life as another object (like the wall hanging I made out of ties). To read more about the general concept of Project Quilting, click here.

To make it more like Project Runway, Kim decided that she'll run an eight-week season and add up the scores so there is one winner of the complete season. Two of this season's challenges have already passed, the third challenge for the season started yesterday, and the last challenge of this season will be on Aug. 22.

As much as I love the whole concept of this, I just don't have the time to make the challenge quilts right now. Kim recently posted a request for judges, and I decided that I did have enough time to judge the entries and offer comments to the quilters. I did my first judging duties last week for the "Road Trip" challenge. I did have an idea for this challenge, and maybe sometime in the future, I'll make one following the challenge guidelines.

If you want to join in, you can "Follow" Kim's blog so you'll get reminders about when the challenges are due and when you can vote. There's also a Facebook Fanpage.