Three Sisters Blog

We started a project with our quilt guild, Maple Leaf Quilters. It’s a Pillowcase Challenge and even though we haven’t finished the challenge, I’m enjoying it so much that I am willing to “highly recommend” it! I hope you don’t mind.

Here’s how it works: We each picked out our own pallet of fabrics. Then we placed them in a pillowcase. At each guild meeting we will pass the pillowcase to the next member in our Challenge group (there are 10 people per group) until the pillowcases go through the complete list of members. Each member has one month to use the fabrics in that pillowcase to make any block she chooses. We applied certain limitation to the blocks that can be made – i.e. no smaller than 6″ square and you cannot make the same block every month. Blocks can be rectangle or square, they can be large or small. The challenge will be at the end of the 10 month rotation to put all the differently shaped and sized blocks together into a quilt. I can hardly wait!

I am looking forward to seeing how all these blocks turn out. It is going to be a wonderful challenge to find a creative and attractive way to put all of them together. Last night at the guild meeting, a member of the guild brought a couple of Pillowcase Challenge quilts she had done. They were stunning! It was encouraging to see a finished challenge turn out so nice.

I’m hoping my blocks will be big enough to make a queen sized quilt with, but if not I will be very happy with a throw. I used the pinks and creams from the Martinique collection along with the greens from the Glace collection. Moda is so great…. The green was a PERFECT match!! Martinique didn’t have any greens (my all-time favorite color) in the collection and I really wanted a breezy French country look to this quilt. I am totally happy with the final results. I sure hope the next 10 months fly by……

Tammy used the mahoganies, creams, and browns from the new Park Avenue collection. She was really hoping the fabrics would arrive before we had to bring our pillowcases to the guild meeting. They arrived just a couple of days before the meeting and match her color scheme better than I even expected. She had been a little hesitant about the commitment to the challenge… But after last night she too has caught the bug and is glad she’s doing it.

This month I have Carol Honderich’s pillowcase…. From previous posts, you know I consider her a special quilter in my life. Can’t wait to make her a wonderful block! Tammy has Marie Troyer’s pillowcase. She’s a special quilter friend too. We met her at the same time as Carol Honderich. (They came to visit our quilt shop in Michigan at the same time along with a Edith Shanholt and Janis Nelson.) It should be a great month!

This was a major accomplishment for me! Park Avenue arrived on our doorstep and made it to our website all in the same week! The fabrics are beautiful and I made it an absolute priority to share them with you.