Guild Ideas from the Gathering of the Guilds Conference - Part 2

Here are more great ideas from Barb's notes.

• Hobo Lunch Challenge where each participant was required to provide fabrics inspired by the “recipe” and then ties them to a stick in a bundle. Fabric bundles were exchanged and projects were made from only those fabrics.
• Jelly Bean Draw where members are asked to bring a fabric strip 2.5 inches wide, each month being a different colour scheme. One person who has participated by bringing fabric in goes home with the jellyroll made from the strips. They also have a draw for a bag of jelly beans.
• Another challenge was a Christmas challenge where the challenge coordinator handed out fabric with instructions to create a strip with a Christmas theme. It could be one fabric and you add other fabric, or it could be two or more pieces. These are brought back at the Christmas party and judged as best in show, or drawn for by those who participated.
• Out of the Box Challenge, where in the fall box tops were distributed to members and they were challenged to make a quilt, the size could range from 18 inches square to a bed quilt. At least three colours from the box top had to be used with one additional colour added by the participant. The judging categories included most creative use of colour, most attractive, best quilting (hand or machine), most creative interpretation of package, most literal or representational design of package and favorite/best in show.
• Tickets by the arm, every meeting the guild sells tickets on a quilting prize such as charm packs, layer cakes, and jelly rolls. Tickets are one for twenty five cents, five for a loony or an “arm length” for a toonie. The advice was to have your arm lengths pre-cut because they go fast.
• Christmas “Money Tree” which is a small Christmas tree decorated with 50 scratch tickets, and they sell tickets on the tree.
• Brown Bag exchange early in the fall where there is usually a fat quarter and it is crafted into an inspired gift and returned at the December meeting. This guild have also used the Brown Bag to provide required items needed by local community organization such as the SPCA, soup kitchen, women’s shelter etc.
• Silent auction at Christmas with the proceeds going to a charity.
• “Ripped off” challenge where each member brings a brown bag with a piece of materiel in it and the bags are exchanged like musical chairs, then they start to rip the material till you have a certain size (predetermined) and keeping one piece you pass the bags around. The challenge is to make something with all the material you end up with.
• “Pizza Box project” where those that wanted to take part made a block for the box which they took home for a month. Each box had a different theme and some theme material to use in the block. The box was traded each month. At the end of the year a draw was held for those who had participated to get the various boxes.
• Round Robins, such as doing one involving borders, where the owner made the centre block and the next four borders made by different individuals using a specific theme.
• Fabric shuffle where members are challenged to make something out of the fabric they receive.
• Theme exchange where members were challenged to make blocks of a specified size and colour, and then they are either raffled or drawn for.
• Game of name the block contest.

Now all this is great stuff to start planning for next year's guild activities. Happy Stitching and Happy Planning!!