The Retro Pillow Challenge Begins!

Today marks the first day of the Retro Pillow Challenge (RPC)!  I am celebrating by adding a "quilted" background to my blog.  I just love the pretty fall colors!  I am totally pumped to make a quilted cover to hide one of my ratty sofa pillows.  My only obstacles are that I have never attempted the following:

1. Quilting, by hand or otherwise
2. Regular applique.  Yikes!  My forte has always been reverse applique.
3. Patchwork.  Well, this t-shirt bag, but that was a headache!

The ratty pillow!

I will mostly likely be tearing my hair out, but I am going to attempt to do all 3 in one pillow.  I'm not sure how it will turn out, but anything will improve the look of my sofa!  The point here is to LEARN something NEW.  I'm really excited to see how my new skills will translate into my bag-making.  It will definitely be an adventure.


Before I blabber on any further, I should give you RPC virgins some back story.  This is the brainchild of fellow stitch-lover, Keren (sew la vie) and myself.   Keren and I met through BurdaStyle and eventually started emailing each other.  In the beginning, we wanted to do a project together that involved sharing/learning new sewing techniques.  This idea grew into the Retro Pillow Challenge that is starting TODAY!!!!

I recall Keren saying something like, "...because everybody loves retro, and everybody loves a challenge, right?..."  Simple ideas, but really poignant, don't you think?  Retro encompasses many decades of style inspiration, from the 40s to the 70s usually.  That is a vast pool to draw from, so you are bound to find some aspect that speaks to you.  As for the challenge part, that's a no-brainer.  Making and achieving goals is how we improve and feel better ourselves. 

We have 13 very talented participants:

Becky of Buzzy Bee Creations

Kasia of Designs by Kasia

Kadie of Seven Alive

Lauren's BurdaStyle Profile

Emily Fish of Domestic Deadline

June of Creations by June

Adrianne of Happy Hour Projects

Kate Walker of Kate's Curios

Lakshmi of Adithis Amma Sews

Amy Lauritsen of MoMomma

KatieB of Crafted by KatieB

Plus, Keren and myself!

We have participants from all over the world!  That fact alone makes this challenge very exciting for me.  I mean, I've never even been east of the Mississippi, and here I am, meeting wonderful women from all over the planet!  I hope you'll take the time to visit their blogs and get to know them better.  I hope you'll visit our RPC homepage and grab a button to show your support. 

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana!

P.S.  Could you please head on over to Creating my way to Success! and vote for my link?  It's number 3, Ruffles gone Wild!  Thanks so much!