Habitat Challenge Reveal

The 2nd Thursday of every month is always special for me because it's time again to jump in the car and make a 45 minute drive to meet with the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild.  I always come away with my tank filled with inspiration and excitement for quilting. Last night's meeting was especially anticipated ...the long awaited Habitat Challenge Reveal!
Here's what we all started with last August....

 ... Neat little packets containing six fat-eighths of Habitat fabric donated by the designer, Jay McCarroll. Our guild chose the earth color way. These are the fabrics that were in my packet. The challenge was to create a quilt (or other sewn item) using some of each fabric either on the front or back of the quilt. We were allowed to add solids and/or more Habitat only.

 I may just be prejudiced, but I have to say that the quilters in the KCMQG are one creative bunch! 

 Fifty one stunning quilts and projects were revealed and every one of them, without exception, was fantastic.

We each could vote for our favorite quilt and, boy, was it hard to choose just one!

 You can see close ups of all of the quilts on the MQG flickr site here.

Here are a few of the more "creative" entries that I was able to get a good picture of...


The quilting in Beth's 'home' quilt featured all of the addresses where she has lived as well as words that come to mind when her family thinks of home...
Robin's log cabin quilt, right above it, was one of my favorites...

 This quilt is called "The Other Side" because the quilter used the back side of all of the fabrics...

 Jennifer's simple birds and awesome quilting details made this quilt look more like art... 

 "Training the Girls" was the name and theme of this conversation starter!.....

 Barbara cleverly used all  of the trimmings saved from the day we put together the Habitat packets to create "Spaghetti and Meatballs".....

 The fabric's colors looked like Easter eggs in this clever quilt, complete with an embroidered recipe for potato salad along the border..

 I would never have thought of using olive green and orange with the pastel fabrics, but this quilt shows how well they work...

 On the other hand, pastel pink was very effective in Jaime's quilt....

 Therese liked the golden yellow in some of the fabrics and effectively emphasized it in her popular quilt....

 Using white as the background really let the fabrics sing in this quilt....

You are probably wondering which of these wonderful creations was voted  the "Viewer's Choice". Here is the fantastic winner by Tracy Lewien featuring 30 different liberated blocks combining the Habitat prints with bold solids on a burgundy background. You can see a full view of Tracy's quilt here.

Hope you enjoyed the quilt show and were as inspired as we all were. Next time I'll show you some photos of my entry in the challenge. Have a lovely weekend!