A Challenge!

What a great term, eh? "Challenge." If we were in high school, it'd be called homework, or assignment, or something equally uninteresting.

I was yakking on the phone today with a quilting pal, and just before we had to hang up, she mentioned her guild had issued a challenge.

It was to be any size, in black and white, and had to incorporate the sample piece of material handed out at the meeting, which was white fabric with black on it.

The challenge could have one other color.

Immediately she said those words, my neurons went into overdrive. Hyperspace. Warp Nine.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" I said. "Make your top all in black and white, and quilt heavily in the third color, like, yellow!" I said excitedly.

"Oh," she said. "That's a good idea."

"Wait!" I cried. "Does it have to be only black and only white, or are shades of grey allowed?"

"I don't know," she began, "I could ask..."

But I was already in mid sentence.

"... because I have this variegated thread, black to white, and it has shades of grey in it. You could use your third color and quilt in this thread!"

"Huh," she said. "I didn't know they had..."

"Rail Fence," I said. "I've always wanted to do Rail Fence in three different tones of black."

"I though I might do stars" she slipped in edgewise. "With maybe a black star in the center."

"Oh, cool!" I replied. "I wonder, could you do it like stained glass?"

"Wow," she said, considering the idea. "Stained glass stars. Hmm..."

"Or how about Attic Windows, only this time, the windows are black, with white quilting, almost like redwork, in them, and the windowframes are in the white fabric!"

"Uh..."

"Of course, black and white is always suitable for crazy quilting. You can use the third color as well, and quilt in black on the white fabric, and in white on the colored fabric, and in the third color on the black fabric..."

"Uh..."

"Now, I've seen people doing a mosaic of real photos, been trying one out myself. That would work beautifully in black and white..."

"Uh ..."

"Candles would be a great theme! Black background, white candles, brilliant yellow flame - the flames could be done as thread paintings..."

"Uh..."

"Oh! What about taking something we always see in color, like a flower, and doing that in black and white? You know, there are a lot of ads on tv and in print where they use a black and white picture and just put one item in in color? Well, this would be unusual because the color simply isn't there. You'd need several shades of black and several shades of white...."

"Uh..."

"Ooh! A Landscape! Or Seascape - yeah, a seascape! Picture this: the land is black, with black quilting on it. The water is white, with white quilting! And the edge of the sun coming up, or the whole round disk, is brilliant yellow, with brilliant yellow quilting!"

"Uh..."

"Can you put sequins on it? Black sequins? White sequins? Oh! Did you know they have a black metallic thread?"

On and on, for as long as she'd let me.

No sir, no shortage of ideas here. Just not enough lifetime to get them all done!