Each month on their way to a meeting room here at the International Quilt Museum, the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild (LMQG) members pass a large digital rendering of the quilt Big Blue. Ardis James, a quiltmaker and philanthropist whose vision for a quilt museum is part of the IQM's history, made the quilt. Big Blue is an Album Sampler quilt, meaning its design is a collection of different quilt patterns. LMQG members challenged themselves to each create a spin-off (an adaptation, outgrowth, or development of another similar thing) of one of the blocks in James's quilt.

The Modern Quilt Guild (MQG), an international movement and organization, encourages quiltmakers to find inspiration in quilt traditions and then to branch out in new directions. One approach is to select an essential element from a design that becomes the focus of a new interpretation. LMQG members chose to make spin-offs of seven of the 20 patterns in James's Album quilt. These were more than enough inspirations, and each pattern yielded multiple adaptations.