Design It! Challenge - Phase Two of A Red and White Quilt Challenge

Welcome to the Design It! Challenge, for the Year of Red and White Quilt Challenges, hosted by SewCalGal.  This challenge is for designers, want to be designers, those that enjoy designing their own projects, as well as quilters that just want to be challenged with the process of designing!  

But first, I want to recognize all of the sponsors for the Year of Red and White Quilt Challenges:  Martingale, Fat Quarter Shop, Aurifil, Classic Metal Company, Island Batik, Leah Day Designs, Miska's Playground and Prairie Sky Quilting.  SewCalGal is also working with other sponsors that will be announced shortly.  

You can enter one or all of the challenges, as well as one or more of the shows.  For each event in the Year of Red and White Challenges that you enter, you will be entered to win prizes that will be randomly awarded at the end of all of these challenges.  The exception is with a special prize sponsored by Island Batik.

Island Batik has a special prize that will be awarded to one lucky winner of the Design It! Challenge, as they will select their favorite design and the winner will receive fabrics from Island Batik to make their design.  The possibility also exists for that winner to work with Island Batik to have their design turned into a free pattern offered on the Island Batik website (great PR opportunity for any designer), as well as the possibility that their finished quilt may be displayed in Island Batik's booth at a future quilt market!  

Participants in this Design It! Challenge can use any software by Electric Quilt, other quilt design software packages, or draw your design out on paper.  And, your design can be any quilt style of any size, but it does need to be a Red/White quilt design (scrappy quilts are ok, including various shades of red and shades of white). It also needs to be your own design.  DO NOT COPY someones  design and enter it in this challenge.    If you are uncertain about your design, please be sure to check the FAQ and if you still have a question you can email SewCalGal to clarify. 

I also want to thank all of the participants in the Red and White Quilt Show for quilts made prior to 2014 as well as remind others that these quilts are beautiful and you may find inspiration for your design when viewing these quilts (just be sure to not copy and enter a design owned by someone else).  Inspiration is completely different from copying when it comes to designing!

Bloggers and non-bloggers are invited to enter this challenge by adding a direct link to their post (for bloggers) or a photo in the flickr group for this challenge (for non-bloggers).  But before you add a an entry in this linky, please be sure you read the rules below the linky.  Click here if you do not know how to add a link.

Rules:

1) In keeping with the spirit of this show, your design is a design not a finished quilt.  It can be any size, any style  and it has a red/white theme to it. 

2) You need to own the right to enter the quilt(s) that you share in this show.  You can not take a photo of another red and white quilt and enter it as your own.  This breaks the rules, brings you bad kharma, and makes you a quilter with bad integrity.  You can use blocks that do not have copyrights to them (e.g. blocks that come with EQ software like EQ6 or EQ7 or Blockbase, as well as blocks published in the Kansas City Star newspaper that were free, as well as free blocks published on various websites).  But you do need to incorporate those blocks to create your own overall design.  Think of it that you are submitting your design for publication in a book.  They wouldn't want to publish a design that you copied and presented as your own, when it was originally designed by a professional designer!    Simply stated "respect copyrights  when you enter this challenge".

3) While you can create more than one design and share it, you can only enter one link per person. Obviously bloggers can have multiple designs on the post and non-bloggers can upload more than one design to the Flickr group, but again you only get one linky entry.  

4) Bloggers need to: 

• have their entry be captured in a post that is dated during the show dates.  Links to old posts will be removed.  
• announce in their post that they are participating in this show and include a link to this show, encouraging others to participate as well as come to have fun and view all the entries.  After all, the more participants the more fun and inspiration we will all have.
• Share insights about your design in your post.  For consideration to win the prize sponsored by Island Batik, please be sure to provide information on the finished size of your design, as well as yardage requirements for red and white fabrics that you would need to finish this design.  Designers that wish to later sell their design can share "sneak peaks" of their design and need not provide more info than they feel appropriate.
• For bloggers that wish to use the logo for this challenge in their post, you have my permission to take a copy for such use.

4) Non-Bloggers need to also do what is asked of bloggers (see above), but this is more difficult so don't get overwhelmed with it. Just try to incorporate what you feel appropriate into the text description when you upload your photo entry to Flickr.  To clarify, SewCalGal realizes that there are a variety of tools that support uploading photos, but it is easier to provide Q&A support for one tool. And Flickr is what I'm asking non-bloggers to use.    

• Non-bloggers will can upload as many photos of their quilts as they wish to Flickr and share in the group "A Year of Red and White Quilt Challenge".  Click here for a tutorial on how to do this.  Think of this step as a version of what a blogger goes thru to write a blog post, but yours is much simplified.
• Non-bloggers will need to copy/paste a direct link to their favorite photo that they've uploaded to the linky in this post.  Click here for a tutorial on how to do this. 

5) Designs can be for quilt projects of any size or any style.  If you wish to later sell your design you can enter a sneak peak photo of your design.  Some may wish to share a tutorial or free pattern for their design.  How much info on your unique design will be up to you, but you can not enter a design created by someone else and enter it as your own design.  

6) Designers use a variety of tools as will participants that enter this challenge.  Many will use Electric quilt Software, which allows you to easily create designs and export images that you can use to enter your design.  Those that use other designing software can also enter, as well as those that design by way of doodling on paper.  At a minimum, you'll need to submit an image of what your quilt will look like (but you need not make it for the Design It! Challenge).  

Having problems entering by way of the Linky or how to use Flickr?  Click here for a tutorial.

For questions, be sure to check the FAQ post. There is also more info shared in the FAQ about copyright issues. If you still have questions Email SewCalGal 

After this quilt show, SewCalGal will host the Make It! Challenge. The Make It! Challenge will be held from  March 24th  thru September 30th 2014 with the goal of leaving everyone time to make a red and white quilt in 2014 that they may have designed, purchased a design or created using a free pattern.   During this challenge SewCalGal will also be showcasing products and tips and tutorials that help quilters with precision piecing skills and free-motion quiltings.  Participants will also be encouraged to share such tips and tutorials when they enter this challenge (but not required to do so).  This challenge is really all about showing your commitment to make a red/white quilt project in 2014.

UPDATE:  The winner of this challenge was Laura C (LC's Cottage).