Feb meeting

This was such a fun day.... Dee and Kathy started pin-basting the last of the 'blue belly' quilts (how many did we make??). Sometimes you have to put your hair up to continue (Dee 'swishing back her hair') 

"Blue belly Corn Rows"

Janet brought this top in and we found backing material to put with it. Now just to decide how to piece the backing (it's not wide enough).

"Lime bordered Wonky Stars"

Marilyn made this top and since it's so small, we need to add borders (Dee and Kathy are adding them, while Janet looks on.)

Here it is with the blue borders (so far). We may be putting the raspberry batik on the outer border edge.

Someone cutting borders

- Love a 'butt shot'!

Delaney (our teenager) putting the ties into the Beach panel quilt.

 This one, we had a hard time with. I had an idea in my head, but after getting the four blocks sewn together into four rows, I couldn't explain it well to tell them that they would be 'floating' on the denim stripes.

This is what I meant ladies... (I took this home to put together for the group.) Top done!

This will be homework for ladies next month (see the last post for the actual block).

This cute one ("Tabby Tans") was made by Kathy from someone's Attic Window top. She added borders and machine quilted it. Beautiful. However, she noticed an 'oops' in it. See it? Nope, I didn't either, but she forgot to machine quilt upper left corner. We'll see it next month, finished.

I think we all gushed over this one, that Kathy made. Had a panel from Missouri Quilt Co- on sale- and added scrappy blocks to enlarge it. Even got to put in two 'heart' blocks (top and bottom) from the Orlando Pulse quilts.

Cute Colorful Critters

Thanks ladies!! (all six of you that were able to show up). Hope you are feeling better, Jane.

First meeting of the new year

Off to do our first meeting... I'll be posting photos of our accomplishments. Hope anyone who can come, does!  Bring a lunch, and I'll provide drinks and desserts! See you there! (9am-3pm)

Okay, ... first workshop done, however, Until I can figure out why my computer won't let me post the photos I took, I'll be just talking/typing to you... I'll post photos when I figure this out.

We had a few people show up I didn't expect! Dee and her daughter, Delaney (and Dalton helped to take down everything at the end), the usual suspects, Margaret, Kathy, Marilyn and Jane (and me of course).

Premmie hearts for the Premmie Project! In Iowa. Sixty two of them made by Kathy S.

This one is spoken for....a man with cancer.

This one doesn't have a backing yet.... just 'borrowed' a piece of batting from another one.

We finished tying a few quilts and had bindings for Marilyn to take home (she had the bindings on them by 4:30pm!), one that needed some seam ripping (my fault) that Kathy took home (she needed some busy work in front of the tv) with the binding. We'll see if it comes back finished (wouldn't that be nice?).
I also took one home to get done... We have two more pinned, one more tied and I really couldn't look at another one, so they are put away for the next meeting in Oct.

Two of them are spoken for already, so as soon as they are done... off they go.

All in all, I think we got a lot accomplished!!! Great job, ladies!

Nice day for our April meeting!

Finally, there is no snow on the ground... no one was sick, although we did have half of our 'crew' pricing May Fair items downstairs, but on the bright side, they came up for the second half of the meeting.

First I must tell you of a wonderful award we will be getting. One of our members, Brenda K, belongs to the CT Emblem Club and she put in for us to be considered as one of their charities they make donations to. Well, we came in first as their choice to get a $200 award. They want someone to appear at their annual meeting (unfortunately on May 9th-same day as our May Fair) and accept this award and say something about the group! Yup, I'm going. Since we get no funding from anyone in particular, when we're awarded something, .... you bet, I'm going!

Okay, now about our 6 hr day today... Mary Ellen couldn't come, but stopped and dropped off one finished quilt and one top to have us use.

Kathy came and brought a quilt finished... beautiful. Calling it "Leap Frog"...doesn't it look like frogs leaping from one strip to another?

 Back side of the "Leap Frog" quilt.

We finished tying one that we'd started on last month, and all that's left to hand-bind is about 2.5 feet (I'll have my 87-yr old mom do it tomorrow, when she's at my house). It's called "Sunny Patch".

Marilyn brought in two quilts (one is just at the top stage)... "Vermont's Green Mountains"

and choosing between "Earth to Japan",... or "Japanese gardens"

I also finished machine-quilting a purple one (one of my favorites) and stitched down the binding that was rolled from the back. There was a name for this.....darn. Can't think of it.

We did organize a few tops to have bindings ready, added two borders onto one of our heartstring quilts. It just needs a backing (may take it to Marden's). "Blew Balloons"... (hot air balloons, and play on word, blue/blew)

OH! Speaking of Marden's, we are going up there (Maine) on the second Sat of June. YEA!! Finally....

Amazing what these ladies do when I'm sick

I had to cancel October's meeting, but came back with a vengance (kind of, lol) for Nov, because I knew were wouldn't meet in December (church's schedule is crazy). Mary Ellen brought it two beautiful quilts, one in my favorite colors/Purple and batiks, no less (I'm calling "Royal StripTwist")... and a beautiful paper pieced block of the month quilt (I'm calling "Early Snowflakes", since it came to us in November and looks like snowflakes- each one different). These both need labels.

"Shifting into Gear"

Kathy brought in a cute jungle-y one and a shifted pattern (which I'm calling "Shifting into Gear"). The jungle-y one, I'm calling "Wild Thing" will go with the quilt "Wild Fences" to my grandson Felix, who was hospitalized and brought into surgery for a Diaphramatic Hernia at the age of 4 days old. His twin sister, Phoebe and big brother Finn will be getting one also (have to contact Jane P for a Project Linus Quilt for Finn). We worked on three quilts and got one to the point of the binding on it before we left. I pinned the binding to the other side and had my mom (who doesn't make the meetings anymore- 86 yrs old with Alzheimers) sew the binding on it. All it needs now is a label. I'm calling it "American Farmer", since the backing on it looks like hay.

"Wild Thing"

center of "Wild Thing"

"Royal StripTwist"

Beautiful border on "Royal StripTwist"

Backing was perfect

Paper-pieced by Mary Ellen, called "Early Snowflakes"

backing for "Early Snowflakes"

"American Farmer HS" quilt

backing for "American Farmer HS" quilt

Lots of ladies attended this meeting, Jane P, Kathy S, Mary Ellen, Margaret M, Anna R, me, AND Jane G- been missing you , but glad you're feeling goo enough to attend...and Lee made an appearance to help set up tables. Thanks to all the ladies.

Marden's trip 2014

Well, we planned the trip according the the weather (kept getting snowed out all winter, either here or there), but unfortunately we switched the day one day ahead, so it'was Bonnie's day off (Manager of the Fabric dept). Next time, Bonnie.

Here is what we ended up with though.... great day (the group only ran a total of $108, with $100 of it being a donation from Dee, one of our members). Thanks, Dee.

This is the pile when I finally got it home. Of course, our tops are intertwined (so I can keep track of which fabric bought, goes with which top.

The pile!

  When Jane and I saw this great purple gray panel fabric, with the word 'believe' in it, we needed to bring it home. Nice that we found the purple and aqua fabrics to go with it.

Totally new stuff!

We loved the paroon and yellow striped fabric for this top, but we knew we'd have to widen it, so we chose this maroon tone on tone fabric for a middle stripe down the back.

Maroon Blue Belly

 This quilt top was picked a swirly red print that we'll split diagonally to widen  the backing.

Red Blue Belly

 This one will get warmed up by the brown in the backing. Also will get split diagonally to widen.

Cozy, warm bellies

 This is one of our serged quilts that we combined with another to make it larger. The prints are very 'vintage' and 1940-1950s type, so this lovely yellow print fit it's style just fine.

Kitchen Sink Squares

 This panel was bought last year at Marden's for a potential backing, but no one wanted to use it as a back, so we got a pretty pale grass green print to back it with... sweet.

 This hearstring quilt will get widened with the red stripe as an inner border, the blue stitching stripes as a wide outer border and the beige pieced backing is already made (let's see if it needs to be widened after we add the borders to the front).

Great fabric for a strippy quilt!

 Great deals on sewing machine needles and threads (also, my red fabrics from Marden's will go good in a baby quilt- or two). These last two are my personal projects, but always nice to put a piece of Maine in them...

Thing One and Thing Two supplies

Border fabric for the Selvedge quilt