ICAD : Spiked-Border-A-Day challenge

Index-Card-A-Day (ICAD) is an annual creative challenge facilitated by DaisyYellow and now in it's 5th Year. You can read about it HERE. Starting June 1, Create something on a 3x5" index card every day for 61 days. On the back of each card, add a number to keep track of your progress. ICAD #1, #2, etc. Whatever day you start, it is your own official ICAD #1. Motto: You do not need to catch up, just start.
It looks like fun, and this challenge has inspired me for a couple of different reasons.
First, I love creations that combine paper, fabric and stitch. There are a couple of bloggers from Denmark who are doing this beautifully. Be inspired by the work of Anni and Tina Jensen.
Second, the philosophy of creating a little and often fits right into how I find time to create. This challenge has got me thinking about applying the "A-Day" idea to a project of mine that hasn't been moving forward. You might remember that in January I did a couple of day classes with Karen K. Stone. One was called "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues" - read about that HERE. By the end of the day I had completed 8 borders. Here they are lying on the feature fabric 2nd February.

I really do want to make this entire quilt. I needed more blue fabric in my stash, and when I went to a couple of quilt shows, I managed to find some nice additions (did you know that blue is a very hard colour to match?) I cut my feature fabric centres and stitched those edges on, and made a little progress. When I went looking for the last progress photo I shared, I was shocked that it was back in April - last school holidays! 

I hadn't done much more since. On Monday of this week, ICAD properly penetrated my consciousness, and as I was driving home in the dark after dropping my son off at 6.15am for basketball training (good thinking time) I decided that I could do my own project : "Spiked-Border-A-Day".... I have 21 blocks left to make = 84 borders. If I divide that by 7 days in a week, that's 12 weeks. So if I only make one border a day (with hopefully some time on weekends for attaching them to centres) I will have my 25 blocks made ready to assemble the quilt top by 5th September. That seems a while, but better than getting to the end of the year and wishing I'd done more!
So I set myself up and got started. 

My new machine now has centre stage on the large table in the middle of my studio. Every time I walk into the room and see it I am reminded that I want to make good use of it and make quilts :-) At the end of my first week of effort I had a whole new block + 3 borders completed. 

Each spiked border takes me less than 15 minutes, so I decided I could find some extra time and now I have 2 whole blocks completed

Sharing this feels very encouraging! Looking forward to sharing an update with lots more progress soon....

Have you set yourself any art challenges lately? I'd love to hear what you're up to.