Bandana Quilt Challenge Demo Event

My friend Michele Muska is in town, putting on a great event at our local Fabric Institution, Fabric Depot in Portland, Oregon. I've been a customer there for 20 years.

Her company, Simplicity, is sponsoring the Cherish: Great Bandana Quilt Challenge. It is a contest with some big cash prizes...all to promote breast cancer awareness, raise money for research for a cure...and get people to try Simplicity's wonderful challenge tools, too.

At least one of the little rulers here must be used in making the quilt entry....entrants must also use one of the pink bandanas Simplicity has produced in their quilt somehow, too.

Michele has asked me to demo my own take on this challenge at Fabric Depot tomorrow, so I will be there having a blast working with some fun supplies and inviting store customers to join me at the sewing table.

To prepare for this, Michele came out to see me yesterday and did we have fun!

I put her right to work, trying her hand at embellishing one of the crazy quilt blocks I had made using the rulers (in my own offbeat, CQ way of course.)

Michele is a fine fiber artist herself, so she jumped right in....

...and pretty much immediately invented her own unique seam treatment, which we named "Michele's Knotted Chain Stitch".

I played around with some Simplicity trims....

..which was really a lot of fun, and so fast! That little ruler helped me keep things square, too.

I got quite a few naked blocks done and ready for people to play with tomorrow...you can see where I've cut up the bandanas and pieced them into the blocks. This quilt is hopeful and cheerful, as it should be...good medicine for the fight!

Michele and I had such a great timetogether, and we look forward to the event tomorrow. Hope you can come!

You can get information about entering the contest here and here, too.