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The Brown Bag Challenge

Yesterday was a marathon day for my art quilt group, the Pointless Sisters. We had the unveiling of the brown bag challenge and in the afternoon, we had the second session of our design class with Marilyn Felber.

First, I will share some show and tell from the group. We had a new member, Sylvia, who brought some work to share:

In this one, she used African fabrics.
Sylviaafrican

For this one, she was inspired by a Japanese wall hanging in a decorating magazine. I apologize for the blue hues in these photos – reflection from the window, I think.

Syljapanese

Patsy’s sister from MA, shared this piece she made while she was here. She is afraid it will shock all of her conservative New England quilt friends!
Mlscircles

Now to the challenge. First, a caveat – these were placed on the floor, so the perspective is a little off! For the challenge, we each brought in a brown bag containing an object which was to inspire an 18" square art quilt. We could use the object in the quilt or not.

Ann Hines received the paint brush. She painted the center section and framed it with the striped upholstery fabric.

Annbrush

Cathy Hansen received an egg. She did  4!!  quilts. This one is titled Find the 3 Eggs.

Cathy3eggs

This is titled Egg Planet:

Eggplanet_1

This is Egg Head: (The hair is fussy cut and not pieced)

Cathyegghead

And, my favorite, Egg Drop Soup

Cathyeggdrop

Cathy Zeleny received a bell. She used the silhouette as a  design element.
Cathybell

I received the 3 clothespins and did this blended photo of my grandchildren’s clothing while camping.

Clothesline

List mom, Diane Hock. received a liquidambar pod.

Dianemypod_1

Diane Land received a piece of lichen and small pine cones. She used the pine cones in the bird nest. She painted the background.

Dianenest

Genie Becker received some yellow roving which she was going to use for the mermaid’s hair, but it didn’t work. This is all done with the Caran d’arche water soluble crayons.

Geniemermaid

Janet received a silver spoon. The background fabric in this is a Kaffe Fasset.

Janetspoons

Joyce Marty received a twig with stag horn moss, from moi! She used it in the large tree, by encasing it in tulle. She calls this Rainbow Forest.

Joycemoss

Linda Simms received a chocolate kiss. She and her granddaughter put on lipstick and pressed their lips on paper to get the patterns for the lips.

Lindakiss

Marjorie received a (very ripe) pear. She looked at the back after she quilted it and used crayons to color it and has a reversible quilt!

Marjoriepear
Marjoriepearback

Pat Marabella received a shell, some turquoise fabric and a poem about the sea.
She used a photo she took at Point Reye’s seashore and did this blended quilt.

Patsyseascape

Ruth Rosenberg received the blue roving seen in the center of this quilt.
Ruth_roving

Sandy Chan Brown received a Chinese food take out box with a little gift box inside containing a pearl.

Sandychinesebox

Selma Sklar received a whistle.

Selmawhistle

That’s all ! Aren’t they great? A couple of people didn’t get theirs done.

I’m off to  make some sopa de Azteca for supper.

13 Responses to “The Brown Bag Challenge”

  1. Robin says:

    beautiful stuff! Recipe, Please!

  2. rayna says:

    Gerrie, these are inspired and inspiring! Isn’t it wonderful how credative ideas can emerge from one simple idea? Thanks for posting them.

  3. Elle says:

    What fun quilts! Thanks for sharing!

  4. Sonji Hunt says:

    What a clever idea! You all have such a lot of fun together and produce beautiful work. I adore the chocolate kiss piece by Linda. It reminds me a little of Keiko Goke (the hearts and the colors). Of course, they are all superfantastic!

  5. PaMdora says:

    Ha ha, love the eggs. What a great idea for a challenge. Did anyone get an empty bag?

  6. Micki says:

    thanks for sharing. these are all great. such a large spectrum of creativity.

  7. gabrielle says:

    You are so lucky to have such a great group. Wow! the creativity must fly around like static electricity. Thanks for the brown bag challenge photos.

  8. JulieZS says:

    Those are all so great! I love this idea for a small group challenge. Thanks for posting all the pics so we can see all the creative responses to the mystery items.

  9. jen says:

    How much fun is this? Love the variety in creative thought, color choices, and design! Tried to pick a favorite, but kept changing my mind.

  10. Cathy says:

    Thanks for sharing. I love seeing how everyome interpreted their item. My favorites are the mermaid and the blended quilts.

  11. lisa says:

    i loved looking at this post! thank you!
    lisa

  12. Deborah says:

    What a fun challenge. Thanks for sharing all those pictures. Honestly… yours is my favorite. You had that amazing photo to work with. I also think the pear is superfantastic!

  13. Karoda says:

    Gerrie, the results of the brown bag challenge are cool. And tell us more about the sopa de Azteca dish.