Once again, OC Modern Quilt Guild is participating in the Modern Quilt Guild’s charity quilt challenge to be showcased at QuiltCon 2019 in Nashville, TN. Color palette and small piecing theme of the challenge are described in more detail here.
PHASE 1. We met at the Batty Lady in Orange to work on this year’s QuiltCon Charity Quilt. Once we had our design concept of trees, our members got kits to sew and turn in. Each kit made into a block of small piecing in all the challenge fabric colors except blue. Now the magic begins. 
PHASE 2. We originally envisioned drawing an outline of the trees and fitting the blocks into the composition. We struggled with how to fit in all the different sizes, shapes, and colors of blocks into cohesive trees. After much discussion we quickly adapted our design approach to ‘build trees’ from the blocks first, then create the composition. It continued to evolve through many, many changes as you can see from the progression of photos below.
Plans went from straight trees to curved-pieced trees, from 3 trees, to an addition of a stubby tree with a broken branch. The next day the plan changed again. Now five trees, do we have one going off the left side? Or not? How many branches should we have? Could some go down rather than all going up? Everyone had their input and it was a sight to see this beautiful quilt take shape.
Thanks to our great volunteers who put the quilt top together: Trudy, Helene, Julie and Mary Anne both days and Susie and Gail on Sunday.
A huge thank you to Alicia Campbell of Batty Lady who generously allowed us use of her studio space for several days. Kudos to all the Guild members who contributed to this project!
PHASE 3: Great brainstorming session at the last Guild meeting. We generated lots of creative ideas on quilting design and use of embellishments.
Orange County Modern Quilt Guild 
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