Hoffman Challenge 2016

Since I haven't posted here on my blog for awhile I thought that today I would take some time and share some pictures of my 2016 Hoffman Challenge entry.  I thought that maybe I wouldn't enter this year, but Hoffman Fabrics decided to do everything different, so I thought I would go ahead and enter and see how things turned out with the new judges and rules.

They announced it this way:

"Renewed, refreshed, reinvented. Hoffman Fabrics is excited to announce that we are bringing the Hoffman Challenge home with some exciting updates.
2016 marks the first time Hoffman is offering a digitally printed fabric as the Challenge Fabrics, and in two versions — black and white!"

This year instead of sending your finished quilt to them for judging, you had to send a photo of your finished project.  Then, if they decided that you would be in the final judging you had to mail your completed quilt to them at that time. 

I of course went to my friend Mia and asked for some help.  She had digitized a set of beautiful flowers and vases in machine embroidery a few years back that I absolutely loved.  I asked if she would be willing to digitize another larger one for the 'main' block of the quilt and change all of the vases to applique for me.  That way I could incorporate the challenge fabric into the vases.  Of course she said yes and of course the results were beautiful.  This is a close up the main block.  You can see that I have used the challenge fabric in the vase and in the tulips.

 

Here are some of the other block I used, these pictures were taken before I put the quilt together and quilted it.

 

This is the picture of the completed quilt that I sent to Hoffman for judging:

 

The back is even more colorful :-)  You can see all of the different Hoffman fabrics that I used.  And yes, there are two more embroidered panels on the back. 

 

 

 

On July 17th I received this e-mail:

Dear Cherri,

"Congratulations! Your appliqué entry, “Wallflowers,” was chosen for the final round of judging and for travel with the 2016 Hoffman Challenge. Artwork chosen to travel showed strong workmanship and design. The time and effort you put into your piece is apparent."

How exciting!!!  So I packed it up and shipped it off.  It was selected for travel, but didn't win any prizes.  Here is the link if you would like to see the winning quilts.

http://www.hoffmanfabrics.com/the-new-hoffman-challenge/