Ideas for Small Group Projects

There are many projects that a small group may take on. From a mystery quilt, to a block exchange, to giving a fat quarter to for birthday gifts. Below are some ideas. If you have any ideas for projects for this page please contact the webmaster. External web sites will open in a new window.

Quilting for Charity

Does someone in your group have a room big enough for a couple of sewing machines, a cutting table and an ironing board? Thats all you need to have a charity sewing session. Not everyone needs to have a sewing machine. Some will cut fabric, others will press it, and others will sew it. And it is amazing how much you can accomplish in a couple of hours, so you do not need to reserve whole days if your group doesn't have the time for that. Our community service committee has fabric that has been donated to the guild that you can use. Email them or talk to them at their table at the next guild meeting. They will happily give you fabric to put together into quilts for charity.

Not only do the quilts benefit charity, but quilting as a group is a lot of fun. As much chatting gets done as sewing!

Round Robins

A Round Robin is a quilt that is made by a group of quilters, a variation of doing friendship blocks. To start, everyone makes a block for the center. There can be all kinds of rules for size, color , theme, etc. The blocks are passed to someone else in the group. They add the first border. Then the next quilter adds the second. This usually continues until there are three borders that have been sewn by three different quilters. The quilter who made the center block then gets the quilt top back to keep and finish.

Row Quilts

There are a number of different ways to do row quilts. A row quilt is a quilt where someone makes a row, sets the theme and then the row gets passed on to the next person in the group, who makes another row, and then it goes on to the next person, who makes another row. Eventually the set of rows return to the original person, who puts all of the rows into a quilt. The person who does the first row, owns the quilt.

One small group in the US wrote: "Each of us made a row of blocks, no wider total than 48". We put the row in a decorated pizza box with a little memory book telling the theme of the quilt, likes and dislikes in colors, and just sharing our thoughts as we made the quilt row. Also in the box was a treat, candy, cookies, etc. We all passed our box to the next person in the group, took their box home, ate the treat, and made a row for them based on their row and their specifications. We could put some fabric in our boxes also. After finishing the row, we put another treat in there and took it back to the next quilt group meeting, oohed and ahhed over the other's work, and passed the box to the next person, and this continued until we had about 8 rows, at which point our own box was returned to us. It was a lot of fun and very challenging to make rows based on other peoples preferences and styles. "

Mystery Quilts

A mystery quilt is where you make the quilt not knowing what it is going to turn out. One person in the group runs the mystery quilt. Each meeting (or other designated time) the leader hands out instructions for what to do next. Generally the first set of instructions to be handed out are fabric requirements. In general suggestions for lights and darks and scale of print are given to try and make it so that the quilt looks fine in the end. The next step given is often cutting instructions. After that sets of instructions are given for sewing the quilt together step by step. Doing a search on google or any other search engine on "mystery quilts" will give hundreds of links to mystery quilt pages. There are many for free on the internet, and places that sell mystery quilt patterns.

Block of the Month

Do a block of the month, choosing a more difficult one every month to improve skills and have a drawing, winner takes all or have everyone use their own colors all year so they end up with a sampler quilt. There are books where every chapter is a different way to quilt, from piecing to applique, to foundation piecing to curved piecing. Try the local library or guild library for such books.

Fat Quarter Birthdays

Whenever a member of your small group has a birthday, everyone in the group gives them a fat quarter. Its an inexpensive gift to give, and if everyone joins in, the birthday girl or boy, goes home with a little stack of fat quarters for their birthday.

Quilt-a-month

Each quilter in the group is assigned a month. If it is your month, you are to supply a block pattern, listing a color scheme and/or fabric theme (For instance - 30's reproductions, snow people, whimsical, patriotic, etc...) to each quilter. Each quilter will make a specified number of blocks to give to the recipient of the month. The recipient of the month should then have enough blocks to make a quilt. (The group would need to decide some paramaters, such as approx. final quilt size, block size, etc...)

A cutting party

Your small group can have a cutting party, (Fons and Porter have shown this on TV and in their books). Basically you bring precut strips a certain size and trade so everyone gets some. Pick a size where you can do different patterns so everyone does not have identical quilts.

Create a vest

Have a make a vest session where you pick something in common for your group, a heart, log cabin, a color, whatever so you can go to shows or your big group coordinated.

Basting Party

Meet at a group members place with a large amount of floor space or table space, and baste quilts as a group. The not so favorite task goes much quicker with friends. If no one has enough room, your local library or elementary school might allow you to use their facilities.

General ideas

And when all is said and done, don't forget your small group when the time comes. A little humor.