Needlework Tuesday

This is the tenth year of my local quilt guild The Elmira Needle Sisters.  At our celebration banquet in May we received a fat quarter of this challenging fabric.  It is blue, teal and a very light tan.  We were to make a small (48 inch perimetre) item that was to be displayed at last evenings meeting where we would vote for a viewers' choice.

The next two pictures show the 20 items that were completed.

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Quite the assortment of projects.  Though I have to admit, with the exception of a few, I found them very boring and un-inspired.  A few people attemped to liven their work up with colour, but most stuck with monochromes.  Blah!

I was at the craft store on the weekend and in the clearance bin were colour wheels.  I bought one for myself and took it home to play with.  I turned the wheel to select blue-green.  The triad colours for this are yellow-orange and red-violet.  With my colours chosen I had only to select my fabrics and start sewing.

At Christmas my mother had given me a pattern "Clutter Bug" by Sherri K. Falls.  I spent the day at my sewing machine, listening to an audiobook, and completed my challenge item.  I found it a challenge in two ways: I had to use a fabric that I probably wouldn't have bought on my own, and second, I put together fabrics solely on the basis of what the colour wheel said would work.  In other words, I stretched myself.  I am left wondering though, how many of the other participants stretched out of their comfort zone to complete their project.

This final picture shows two versions of the bag.  The pink one on the left was made by my mother for my daughter, and mine is one the right featuring the challenge fabric.

I am curious if my readers participate in fabric challenges?  If so, do you play it safe or do you go out on a limb?

I am still stitching away on the star afghan.  I am on the final colour. Only left to decide whether to do one final pattern row and then purl a row and then cast off, or make the band wider with three pattern rows, then the purl row and finally cast off.  My hands and arms are getting tired as this is quite heavy now.  Also at almost 1000 stitches and round 123, it takes ages to complete one round.  If I finish tonight I will post a picture this day, otherwise you'll have to wait till next Tuesday.

For the curious mind, the audio book I am listening to is The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberta Urrea.

Have you finished a project this week and you want to share it with the world, then pop over to Lit and Laundry and add your link to "Finished for Friday".