Where the Day Takes You - QuiltCon Charity Quilt

 Last summer, our Guild had been throwing around the idea of creating a quilt that we could use to raise funds for our Community Outreach Project, "Stitchin' Time" where some of our members teach women to quilt at a low income housing complex in London.  We had approached Cheryl Arkison for permission to use her "Oh, Canada!" pattern.  She generously said yes.  

Then, not long after, we were given an opportunity to participate in the QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge. We, of course, were eager to participate.  We went back to Cheryl and asked one more time if we could use her "Oh, Canada!" pattern for this specific challenge.  She again said yes!  We were very eager to use this pattern because we wanted Canada to be clearly represented at QuiltCon 2015!

The rules of the challenge were simple:

• Guilds will complete a quilt using the predetermined color palette of white, light gray, chartreuse, burnt orange, sky blue, cerise and a deep turquoise.
• Guilds will complete a quilt using alternate grid work.
• If your guild decides to use a pattern, be sure to get permission from the pattern designer

Oh wait?!  Did you see the requirement that the quilt needed to be created using alternate grid work?  That one threw a bit of a wrinkle into our plans of using Cheryl's pattern.  So we went off to the drawing board to create some ideas for our members to vote on.  Here were our concepts:

Option 1 - Improv Canadian

This quilt would be improv pieced using the specified colours with one lone Canadian Flag take from the "Oh, Canada!" pattern.

Option 2 - Asymmetrical Canadian

9 Canadian flags asymmetrically placed with a large amount of negative space.

Option 3 - Modern Canadian

1 large Canadian flag. The word “modern” can be pieced or appliqued.   Some members suggested that instead of using the word "modern" we could use "London".

We took a vote and we had a 3-way tie!  So much for voting! In the end, we decided that we would use the idea that involved the most members, Option 1 Improv Canadian.

We held three sew-in's at Hyggeligt Fabrics.  Some of our members had never improv pieced before.  One of our newest members had never even made a quilt block before!  We had a lot of firsts in this quilt.  We didn't really know what the quilt would look like, but it was fun to see where the day took us.

We made our improv blocks 12"x12" with the goal of having 70 percent be negative space and 30 percent be colour & pattern.  Once completely assembled, the quilt would have the appearance of alternate grid work.

Once we had all of our blocks assembled, we worked as a group to sort out their order.  One of the most important blocks to place was the Canadian Flag block.  We placed this block on the top right side of the quilt.  This way when you lay beneath the quilt the Canadian Flag will be over your heart!

We were very fortunate to have our Member, Kristyn of Melon Patch Quilt's volunteer to take the quilt home to quilt on her long arm.  She chose a very random overall pattern.  The quilting suits the quilt perfectly!

Here is our quilt!

Just before Christmas our quilt was sent to Austin, Texas.  It will be on display with more than 58 other quilts created by other Modern Quilt Guilds from around the world February 19-22, 2015 at QuiltCon.  Are you going?  Be sure to drop by and have a look at all of the Charity Quilts.

A big THANK YOU to ALL of our members that helped create this quilt!  Without such a great group of ladies, this would not have been a possibility.  A special thank you to  Chantal of Hyggeligt Fabrics, for generously donating all of the fabric for the quilt and Kristyn of Melon Patch Quilts for donating the batting!  Thank you to Cheryl Arkison for providing such a fantastic and inspirational pattern as the basis for this quilt!

Isn't it great to see where the day took us?!