Winter woollies & challenges

Good morning on this chilly day, great for sewing and blogging!
I think I said earlier that I swore off challenges, well looking through some old photos I came across a couple more!
The first one was for Wellington Guild, not sure which year and it was to make a small quilt to ecapsulate Women's role in society - sounds grand and I am sure there were many deeply thought out pieces, for mine I used every piece of conversation fabric I could find in my stash that showed what I thought a woman could be or do! The centre was a house, a pretty cottage type.

The sashing strip was the required fabric.


The next one - well I can't remember! except that I bought a kit when I was at the Hamilton Symposium and had made a mistake in what classes I had enrolled for and found myself classless one day - so off to the UFO room with my friend Yvonne to work on the kit because I loved the colours.

Later I finished it and called it "Making Jam" because it reminded me of the patterns you get when stirring the pot - there is a recognisable block in there somewhere, maybe the Ohio Star.....

And the third one was a paper bag challenge with Capital Quilters,  Have you ever done one?  You make a centre block to the proscribed rules, put it in the paper bag, mark the outside so you know it is yours but others don't, then next month you get someone else's and you put the next round on, again according to the rules.  I found it so hard as the ones I picked were usually pale pinks and blues, not my usual colours.  I made my centre block and was delighted with what others did with it

The block remains the property of the owner of the first round, but one of the women who worked on it liked it so much, I was happy to give it to her as she said it cheered her up.

One of these days I want to make a true Amish style quilt out of woollen fabric, but until then here is one woollen quilt I made using a pile of samples -

I backed it with a strong calico, tied it and then donated it to the City Mission.

This one was made using double knit jersey, it is backed with a similar material, bordered with velvet and tied - and is the quilt of choice to cuddle under on the couch when one is feeling poorly!

How do you choose the background for your quilts/blocks?  Do you know when you start? Is the quilt planned to that extent - well this last quilt was actually another swop!  We all made friendship stars and then I started auditioning various fabrics......

Do you see the top corner has a 'bite' out of it - I will explain another time!

And my final choice
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        To get the splotchy green I cold dyed some very wishy washy pale blue fabric I had bought from Shaws which, when put into water became stiff!!  Therefore it wouldn't dye evenly but that is, I think, the making of the quilt!
I named it "Floribunda stellata" [my translation is many star like flowers]

I am off to the sewing room to make up some samples to take to the prison next week, we had such a productive time yesterday and I need to show various ways to join Quilt As You Go blocks.  I found a great video on YouTube and am about to see if I remember it properly.
Thank you for your comments
Take care and keep warm
June - I really must see about getting a decent signature!