Sew Night

 

 

Oct. 30, 2013

Guild had a sew night Friday, Oct. 25. We had a potluck salad supper and worked on our own projects.

I took my featherweight out for her inaugural ( with me) spin. Worked on the 4 inch bowtie blocks made with thirties prints for the evening group swap.

Guild Meeting

Last evening we met and enjoyed a program by The Fabric Cobbler, a very successful online (Facebook) fabric shop. The owner (Scarlett) lives here in Decatur and runs her business from her home. She told us about her background and how she started and runs her shop. Of course she brought fabric for purchase and here are the goodies I got:

 

We're also doing English paper piecing projects and using the book:

English Paper Piecing: Fresh New Quilts from Bloom Creek by Vicki Bellino   I plan to make "Starflowers" first - I bought the kit from Back Door Quilts booth at the Kokomo One Stop Shop Hop on the guild's bus trip in July.

 

And I signed up for the 1930's Bowties swap, 4 inch blocks that are so cute! Here are the blocks I got:

 

 

Keep calm and quilt on!

 

 

 

 

 

 







 

iPhone Update - Women of Influence

Working on the block for Sojourner Truth from "Women of Influence: Twelve Leaders of the Suffrage Movement" by Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith. This is a BOM project that the evening meeting of
DQG has started.

A Finish and some WIPs

Got the "Big Bang" wallhanging from Jan Krentz' Rainbow Star class finished the first of March, and registered it for QuiltFest.

Did block #26 of Grandmother's Choice. Am way behind!

 

Made block #1 Missouri Star for Women of Influence quilt, a BOM of the
evening group of guild that just started this month.

Finished the quilting on color challenge project, shown here with the paint chip I was assigned. Now to get the binding on.

Tuesday

Basting a kid's quilt for charity, the blocks were made by visitors to the DQG QuiltFest last March, guild members are putting them together, quilting and binding them - here is my contribution.

Free Motion Quilting Class

Look Ma, no BSR! Saturday was a wonderful class on heirloom free motion quilting taught by Millie Sorrells. Learned so much, decided to try it without the stitch regulator. Need more practice getting stitches an even length, but was happy to see that I could do better than I thought I would. She is a great teacher, very helpful.

Guild Trip to Cincinnati

a bus trip to Cincinnati for International Quilt Fest. Sooo much fun with quilty friends. The quilts were stunning, the shopping was wonderful-vendors galore! My favorites were Primitive Gatherings, Back Door Quilts, Homespun Designs, Heaven on Earth and Sew Batik. My resolve to not buy any more kits went right out the window; it only took 20 minutes after the show opening to pick one up at the Primitive Gatherings booth. Oh my they had so many pretty things. Lots of wool applique. I also saw a demo by the gal at Amidon Quiltworks on Pearl Piera applique technique using starch, freezer paper, glue, etc. I bought the supplies and have been using the technique to prepare a block of the Spring kit by Lori Smith that I bought. It has small blocks 5 1/2 inches.

Wool kit I got from Primitive Gatherings and have started.

After I got the shopping out of my system, I spent time looking at the quilts - WOW, I'm always hit with emotion seeing all those beautiful quilts that hold all those quilter's life stories. Saw the Dear Jane with trapunto triangles, an Omigosh quilt, and the Last Supper with thousands of half inch squares. I've seen them in magazines or online and was happy to see them for real.

Rainy Day!

Charity Quilt Block "Martha Washington Star"

I made the block for the guild's charity quilt; the assignment was to make a 12" block of our choice in 30's print with unbleached muslin.

I worked on the Friendship Medallion. The mitered borders are on. I still need to square it up, baste and quilt it. The bottom two photes show the half-square triangles that Edyta Sitar, Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims autographed.

Machine Quilting Marathon

I spent the last couple of days finishing the quilting ( eyeballing the straight lines with the walking foot, and marking Golden Threads paper for the free motions designs); and making the binding for "Summer Solstice", so that I could use it to do a demo at the guild meeting on Wednesday for making continuous binding. I made it in the nick of time, and several people told me afterwards that it was helpful for them. I gave the same demonstration about three years ago. I first learned it from Nancy Zieman on her TV show.

Monday



Putting my Friendship triangles from the exchange on the design wall, I have a feeling I'll be playing with these for a while.I'm mixing the SOTTT and Batiks R Us ones together today, may change my mind later.



Machine quilting in the ditch on Sunbonnet Sue redwork.



July birthday blocks for quild.



 

A" Crumby" Evening

At evening group guild meeting last month, we made Bonnie Hunter crumb blocks. I make mine 6 inch square.

Guild Retreat

The weekend of Sept. 13 we had a retreat at Threads of Time in Danvillehttp://www.threadsoftimefab.com/
So much fun! I took the quilt top from Virginia Walton's class in 2007- "Autumn in New England" and finally got most of it pieced. The curves were a challenge for me! The retreat center had a great sewing space: tables for machines, cutting tables and design walls. There were antique quilts on the walls, including one with wonderful embroidered bird blocks.

Spring Sewing

Started my granddaughter's graduation quilt, and finished the block for the guild's day group's outgoing president.

Sewing This Week

Made a cute little paper-pieced house block for the guild's evening meetings chairperson, did a feather design (my first attempt) machine quilting on my Illinois Sampler, sewed some blocks on Autumn, and made some prairie points for Il. Sampler.