Let's just say.....

....it was a busy day at the store yesterday!  First there was a class in the afternoon - Curved Piecing with Elaine.....

Then the ladies showed up for the Beginner Machine Quilting class at 6:30 P.M.  - we had two new students for this class so everyone was trying to catch up.....

Here's the homework that some of them completed......this is Dorothy's.....

....and Lindsay's.......

...and Sarah's.......

So I started them off on their tasks for the evening and then I got to be in two places at once!  How did I do that - well, I left my unsuspecting students under Barb's tender care and I went to my guild meeting.

If you've been reading the blog then you know I have been secretly working on a Challenge Quilt for my guild.  You will also remember the "lovely" fabric I had to work with......

 The Challenge was the Past President's Challenge and Mitzi Zohar, our past president, came up with a good one.  We were asked to find a fat quarter in our stashes which we felt we had bought mistakenly - the ugliest fat quarter as it were!  We swapped fat quarters and the challenge was to make a treasure out of someone else's discard!

Owning a quilt store definitely has its perks!  The day after I "picked" this fabric out of a brown paper bag, I came into the store to find a stack of fabric swatches left on the classroom cutting table.  One of my suppliers had dropped off some old fabric samples which normally would find their way into the Healing Heroes boxes in the back room.  This fabric was destined for another use - Celebrating Abe was designed by Jodi Barrows and released in 2009 in honour of the 200th Anniversary of his birth.  These fabrics are all related to his presidency and his life..........

The challenge commenced at the November meeting and we originally had until the January meeting to complete them but we got an extension to February......and in true Challenge fashion I began designing this quilt about 2 weeks ago, cut out the fabrics last Thursday night and began sewing blocks together on Friday.  I finished the last binding stitch around 5:30 P.M. yesterday - the meeting was at 7:30 P.M. - whew! two hours to spare......

...and here's the quilt!

If you enlarge this photo you can see the quilting as well as the writing!  As you can see, I used the challenge fabric in the centre!  Each block is based on Abraham Lincoln's history.  Top left corner is Kentucky Patch, he was born in Kentucky,  top right is Indiana Puzzle where he grew up, lower right is the Illinois block which is where he pursued the law and became a statesman, lower left is Lawyer's Puzzle referring to his profession.  The log cabin blocks speak for themselves and the centre side fabrics depict the Civil War.  I tea-dyed muslin for the border and wrote a brief history of his life around the edge.  

I have to say first, this is the first challenge quilt I've ever completed (probably the first one I've started too!) and second, I truly enjoyed doing this one - it turned out to be a labour of love.  Since this month is Black History Month and since we do have an Underground Railroad Club at the store - it will hang there for awhile.  After that - it seems my cousin in New Jersey really has a "thing" for Honest Abe so it looks like she's getting a wall hanging!

I have to say I wish I had brought a camera to the meeting last night because a whole lot of awesome projects came out of this challenge.  It's amazing how creative everyone is.  Let us continue to amaze each other with our talents - it never gets old!

Thank you for letting me share this with you all and for all the encouragement I received from all of you in the construction and completion stages.....

Happy Quilting!

Jo-Ann