Paint Chip Challenge

My quilt guild is having a paint chip challenge.  The idea was that we each got a paint chip with three colors on it, and we have to make a project using only those three colors - no added background colors.  For an extra twist, we got a piece of fabric we also had to incorporate, which may or may not have matched the paint chip.

Here's the paint chip and fabric I got:

The paint chips are very PINK, and the fabric is red, so this was definitely a challenge!  I also decided to make do with what I had on hand in the fabric stash, so that added an additional element of challenge.  The thing that popped into my mind as soon as I saw this paint chip was "Malibu Barbie,"  so I made Barbie quilts for this challenge.

First I made a modern quilt for Wisconsin cheerleader Barbie:

This was my own design, and quilted on my sewing machine.  One of my 2014 goals is to get more proficient at machine quilting, so I practiced on this quilt.  As you can see, the red fabric became a few flowers.  I couldn't figure out what else to do with it.  It really matched nothing!

Vintage Barbie also needed a quilt:

I thought for a vintage doll I should use a more traditional pattern, so this is a basic four-patch quilt, and hand quilted.  When I was setting it together, I thought the corners looked cute without that final triangle, so I finished it that way.  So, yes, that was a plan and not an oversight!  The red fabric is used as the backing on this quilt.  This is my original Barbie doll, and she is probably close to 50 years old now.  She doesn't look too bad, considering the life she's had!

The daughter of one of my coworkers got a Barbie dream house for Christmas, so I think I'll give these quilts to her to furnish her house once we're done showing them at our May guild dinner.


We are all revealing our projects at our January meeting, so it will be interesting to see what everyone did with their paint chips.  They weren't all pink - that was luck of the draw.  I was surprised how many pink fabrics I had in my stash, though.


This was my #10 item on my list, so the January UFO is done!  I started these back in September or so, but they got put on the back burner over the holidays.  This was a fun challenge - sometimes it's nice to be forced to go out of your comfort zone a little.  This much pink is definitely out of my comfort zone.