An Emotional Challenge

In 1998 at a meeting of the Fringe, we decided to have a group challenge. Our first group quilt, affectionately known as the backasswards quilt, was so easy to complete, that certain members were determined not to make another anytime soon. Actually, in the end, Gardens from the Fringe was a wonderful quilt and has won many ribbons as it traveled to a number of shows. See Fringes at Work for the full story. But we decided that a challenge seemed like a good alternative to another group quilt for now.

We came up with the idea of trying to create quilts which expressed an emotion. We further decided that we would not all do the same emotion, and ultimately came up with four words which described an emotional state: Joy, Confusion, Anger and Serenity. Some time later those of us who had the word Serenity decided to use "Tranquillity" instead, since the word Serenity had taken on some peculiar connotations from its use as the brand name for a personal hygiene product and its long term use in AA.

So we each chose our words from those available, although those members not in attendance at the planing meeting didn't really get that much choice.

There were not many rules, and by the time we were well underway the few rules we started with, well, went out the window.

The quilts were supposed to be between 36 and 50 inches per side in size. You can see below how closely we stuck to that one.

They were supposed to be done in one year. There were 13 members of the Fringe participating. You can see in the photos below how well we did on the whole deadline thing, and it has been about 3 years.......

But the quilts so far have been pretty great and those still in progress promise to be equally wonderful. So check back again sometime to see if any new ones have been added to our emotional challenge.

Joy
Shirlee Gotterbarn	Sylvia Richardson

Confusion
Elaine Boyd	Linda Fiedler
	60" x 60"
Anger

Ann Reardon
Tranquillity
Susan Brittingham	Phyllis Street
67" x 68" (OOPS)	I believe Phyllis has finished a lovely quilt, but I do not have a picture, yet.

Another challenge has been issued, with equally successful results, hard to get us going, but some great quilts coming out of it. Read on for more about the Small Quilt Challenge. The phase "like trying to herd cats" springs to mind.

This page was designed by Susan Brittingham.
All photos and images are copyrighted by their respective artists
and may not be reproduced without permission
Created on : 03/18/99
Last Updated : 11/22/01
sbritt@swva.net