challenge idea for our quilt group...any ideas?
 

I have to come up with a new challenge idea for our quilt group...any ideas?

Our quilt club just had one, 12-1/2" pc. of fabric for $.25 and the theme was flying geese. You had 2 months to do a 12-1/2" block. Then you brought it in, and all participants' names were put in a hat; someone drew the winner and you got all the blocks unless there were a lot and it was divided into 2. That way you as a winner would have 12 blocks to make a quilt. After you put it all together and quilted it (maybe years, haha) you brought it in and showed it to the group. One person actually made 2 Canadian geese flying in the sky. They were all cute.

Have you tried the crayon challenge? Pick one or two crayons from a paper bag. You have to show those colors on the front of your piece. You can also do it with paint chips. Not sure if this is what you were looking for!

These are exactly what I'm looking for!

Choose a Geometric Shape Challenge -- draw from a bag either circle, square, triangle, hexie, etc. and use that shape in a noticeable form within your piece.

Jan in VA

we had one that we each contributed a 1/2 yd of batik--the coordinator then took all the 1/2 yd cuts and subcut into different sizes, those were put into a brown sack and we drew out one of each of the different sizes and could add another 1/2yd of our original batik to our creation--very interesting! Some did some awesomely creative stuff--can't say I did as it seems I didn't get enough light color batiks and wasn;t very creative.

then there's always the challenge of doing a small quilt depicting a song title or phrase.

I heard of one that sounded interesting. Everyone brings 1 yard of fabric. The fabric is 1/2'd keep half pass half, then the 1/2 yard that was passed is halved and half is kept half is passed. Each round continues halving and passing one of the halves. In the end everyone has the same fabric but in different sizes. Those fabrics need to be made into the project.

You could go in a little different direction that those listed above...
(1) Have a set size (like a wall hanging), then choose a "block" - like the Ohio Star or whatever - and everyone chooses their own fabrics.
or
(2) Again, have a set size, and a "focus fabric" (everybody buys FQ or 1/2 yard of the SAME FABRIC) then everyone do whatever.

My longarm group does a challenge every year. Of course, our focus is more on our stitching skills, but here's what we've done the past three years:
2014 - we all had the same pattern (about 40" square). We could use any colors we wanted, stitch it however we wanted and so on. It was amazing how different they all turned out.
2015 - 40" wholecloth. Any way we wanted. Just had to be cotton or dupioni silk, 40", one solid color, no piecing (duh, WHOLECLOTH!!) Again, the differences were amazing
2016 (we meet and share them in November) - 40" square, treat as a "round robin" except we do it all ourselves. Center must be 12", subsequent "rounds" no smaller than 3". Can be pieced, or wholecloth.
It will be interesting to see what comes up.

I like this challenge idea!

how about something like make a wall hanging (provide size guide lines) titled, "Outside my kitchen window," and allow people to creatively interpret that (Real or imagined, or from a long ago memory from being a child, or living somewhere else) . Even those people who don't have a kitchen window currently can imagine what they would see if they did have one.