A suggestion was made on the Project Quilting Facebook page to make these challenges into ‘seasons’. After pondering this thought, my mother-in-law and I both agreed that this would be a good idea.

Everything will pretty much continue as they are EXCEPT that the ‘x’ out of 10 points you earn each week will be kept track of until the end of the season – prizes will still be awarded to the public and judge winners. At the end – I will add up the points and a GRAND PRIZE for the winning quilter. I haven’t figured out what the GRAND PRIZE will be yet but I’m pretty sure it will be amazing!

The first season will consist of 8 challenges with one 'bi-week'*** (you’ll be able to earn a MAX of 70 points). We’re going to start the first season NEXT week! Here’s a list of the Days:

May 9th, May 23rd, June 6th, June 20th, July 4th, July 18th, August 8th and August 22nd.

Diane will be sure to come up with a wide variety of projects so even if one thing isn’t your specialty the others might be. This we also hopefully encourage everyone to participate in each challenge. Even if you don’t have much time – if you make something small you will still earn points. Now, you still can participate in whatever challenges you choose, but it will lessen your chance at the GRAND PRIZE!

I would love to hear any questions you may have about this little ‘change’ in project quilting. I’m sure there’s things we haven’t come up with or could use some clarifying.

Check back tomorrow to see the entries for the second Project QUILTING Apple Blossom Challenges – trust me - you’ll want to – they’re all pretty amazing!

***Looking back at this and realizing that this will occur during the summer we are going to give everyone ONE 'bi' week - if you are on vacation, swamped with life, whatever you will still not loose out. At the end of the 8 weeks of challenges we will drop everyone's LOWEST score - if that's a zero - it's gone, a six - it's gone. This gives you a little leeway to still have a life (hopefully).

I would like to note that the second season will tentatively start in January 2011. We wanted to give everyone a little 'off' time during the busy holiday season. Between September and December we will still post challenges but they may be shorter, they may be longer, we're not sure yet - but we'll keep you on your toes!