At the November quilt guild meeting, we were given envelopes with a short list of instructions and 5 paint chip colors for our guild challenge piece. I opened mine and was saddened to have 2 chips of one color and 3 chips of another color. We were allowed to toss out one chip but if I tossed one, I still would have 1 or 2 of that color, just a different shade. Our finished project was due at the April meeting.
back of my tag for voting display
I put the chips back in the envelope.
I saw a fellow guild member at a quilt shop sale in February and remembered the challenge. Nothing started yet.
In March, a guild member asked on Facebook who was working on the challenge. Not me.
I have wanted to be in challenges and have been glad the guild was having them so I MUST participate!
I lamented. I whined. I fiddled. I shopped online.
paint chips on tag
You know I love paper piecing so I first drafted a New York Beauty block on EQ6 (a quilt design software program). I wanted two blocks for the front of my purse. Of course, I’d want a new purse for summer and these bright colors I had to work with would be quite stylish I hoped.
One of my favorite online quilt shops is eQuilter.com. They have a TON of fabric, great search results, and I like the design wall.
For this shopping challenge, I did a search for my 2 colors: turquoise and orange. As I sifted through the results I put a yard of each fabric I liked in my shopping cart. Another day, I sorted my cart. I finally had one fabric to be my focus fabric and tie my pieces together, then I added other coordinating ones. I also downloaded the images of the fabrics I liked and input them into the program. I colored my block with the actual fabrics I wanted to use!! 🙂
Once the fabrics arrived, it was time to work….
In piecing my smallest arc, I learned a key point in drafting my own patterns… and in this one, I had backed myself into a corner! LOL! Instead of starting over and redrafting a new block, I printed off little sections to pre-piece and then add in as 1 piece. 
This is the add-in piece.
And it goes in here.
Stitched in.
Pressed open.
.
I feel smug, it worked!
Here are the 2 blocks finished and pinned to the purse front:
At this point I had a panic and called in my behind the scenes advisors 😉 thinking this was a tad wild. Everyone said they liked it, so I continued on.
I hand stitched the arc to the background piece. After layering with batting, I quilted various arcs and the star points. I did free-motion meandering quilting on the background and the back of the purse which is just the plaid fabric.
Then I assembled the purse. The lighter background of the star points is the lining of the purse and I added 2 pockets inside.
This is the commercial pattern I used for purses at Christmas time but I made the pattern 2″ taller.
I also made a coordinating cosmetic bag. The pieces are stitched on my embroidery module and then I assemble them with the standard sewing machine.
I love having these to keep my lipstick, eye drops, and spare set of car keys easy to find. 🙂
Report from guild — I won in my category – they put purses in Clothing. There were about 6 purses/totes and no actual garments. So I’m happy that I wasn’t the only one in my category and still pulled it off. 🙂 I would guess there were around 25 entries overall. I wished the entries had been sorted into categories before voting as I think it would have been more fair. We, the voters, had to decide what category we’d put each item in.
It sure was fun to see what paint chips others received and how they carried out their colors! I was pleased with the participation level!! (a bit less than 50% of membership)
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and sew on... 