Quilting is a group sport.

I started this post 3 months ago and just got it finished. Pretty sad.
One of my projects over summer was a quilt challenge for the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. We were to prepare a block and provide fat quarters of what we used in the block and then our blocks would be swapped with others.
I received the wonky house w/the number 5 in it's door, along with a Rural Jardin, white w/red polka dots, red w/white polka dots, some more numbers, and the newspaper Authentic print.

I must admit that I was totally confounded as to how to combine 1700's French reproduction fabric, newspaper print and red polka dots, but then that's the challenge part! Things like this really help you get the creativity flowing.
I started by slapping a Heather Ross gnome and mushrooms on it, but then didn't know where to go from there. I knew I wanted a garden and a tree, but that was it.

I worked on it at my lock in at Tammy Tadd's, and Dee, Michelle and Jennie all helped w/what else to put on it.  The clothes line was totally their idea. I thought the upper part needed something. I had quilted in a sun, but it wasn't very apparent. My friend Dori suggested a yoyo sun. That's my very first non-yoyo maker yoyo, which is why there's a button in the middle of it. If you don't like it, embellish it!

This is another of those Hemingway's cats things. Then the tree was too bare, so I found a piece of fabric I had w/a bird. Then the left was a little bare, so I added a Fairy Frost tire swing. The little quilt is 3d. I even quilted it. Someone asked me what the #5 was about, and I said I didn't really know, but then it occurred to me Harry Potter lived at #5 Privet Drive, so I decided to name it that.  However, I was mistaken, he lived at #4 Privet Drive, so I guess the gnome lives next to Harry Potter. Or would that be across the street?
I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.
I've also finished an Irish Chain quilt with the Anna Griffin Georgette Christmas line. I must say, this fabric challenges me. It's very subtle, and kind of mushy. I started w/the 'Peace' Irish Chain pattern by Late Bloomer Quilts. I got the blocks together and thought is was blah, w/a capital B.

Then I was brainstorming with my friends Ann and Bobbie at the store one day, and came up w/wool ornaments in the solid blocks.

Better, but not quite there yet. I took it to my quilt guild meeting and we decided it need a flange! Seriously, how did I not think of that? A flange makes everything better!

Then I took it to my guild retreat and it was still missing something. Then Carol said it, "How about another flange between the outer and middle border?" Eureka!!! A quilt designed by at least 10 people!

Then I quilted the snot out of it with metallic thread. I did the bows and ribbons on the ornament (Dori's idea) in silver, but you couldn't see them, so I requilted them in blue metallic. I used my no marking technique to quilt the designs in the ornaments. I used silver lame and fusible web for the tops of the ornaments. Tammy suggested 3D organza ribbons. I may do that after the holidays.

One Christmas quilt done! By the way, that teal flange is the Gees Bend fabric. Heed my warning, if you use that fabric, pretreat and prewash it! It runs like the dickens. I have a couple of spots to fix where it bled in my middle border. Boy was I not happy!