Fungly blocks!

We had a blast making Tonya and Bonnie's fungly blocks at last night's Project Linus worknight. The Fungly (fun + ugly) Challenge is to use your ugly fabrics to make a really fun quilt.It's a perfect project for using donated fabrics. Our guild members very generously supply us with lots of fabric for making Project Linus quilts, but sometimes the pieces are small, the fabric is dated, or the designs are not really cheerful or appropriate for children. We try to use them as creatively as possible, but it can be challenging! If you click on the above photo, you'll get a better idea of the variety of fabrics we have to work with -- big prints, calicos, novelty fabrics, brights, pastels...
I precut some 3-1/2" strips yesterday and cut fabric for a couple blocks, too. I set them out with a bag full of fabric ends for people to choose what they wanted. You can see in the photo that I also printed up pictures of one of Tonya's blocks as well as her finished quilt top to show people what the Fungly Challenge is all about. We used the Easy Angle ruler that Bonnie recommends to cut the triangles. Being able to use only one size strip for all the pieces is easier for a group than having strips of different widths for triangles and squares. I encouraged people to be free and not to worry, but I've learned that when working with a group, there's always lots of variation anyway. Our guild has members whose superb technical skills have won them national awards, and at worknights we also get walk-ins who have never sewn a stitch! We'll make it all come together when we put on the sashing.
These are two of my favorite blocks. I wish I had thought to photograph that red fabric before I cut it up (we just had a very small piece). It's lip prints, like you'd get if you put on lipstick and then kissed a mirror. Very cute, but not really the best choice for a Linus quilt! We can use it here, though. And look at those adorable roosters in the next block! They are a lot more fun when cut up and re-assembled!