String Blocks and Bad Weather

The first two set of blocks were sent in by Rita. One is for her for January and the second set is for Linda. Since Glo already made blocks for Linda for January, we will save the second set for Linda's February blocks.
This last set is from Barbara. The last mailing date is today so will probably get a bunch more in when I get home from retreat.

About retreat - there is a winter weather watch out for tonight and the morning and since the retreat is being held in the local mountains, we might have a problem getting there. I have been checking the Weather Channel every hour and it still says the possibility of freezing rain and sleet from 3am to 3pm.

Since we were scheduled to start in the morning so far we have decided that if the schools are cancelled we won't start until at least noon. Everything will be dependant on the weather. Once the morning is over, the weather reporter seem to think it will be past so we should be OK for the afternoon and evening.

This is the first time in over 10 years of having the retreat in early February that there is a weather issue. We usually get snow or ice once or twice a year and there hasn't been any at all so far this year. I remember the year we moved here - big ice storm over Superbowl weekend - that time was really bad.

Getting Ready for Retreat

We are going on RETREAT on Thursday! We have an optional project that I decided to do. I am going to make a queen-size quilt. My friend Mary and I decided to use the same fabrics but we are using different backgrounds. I have a black background and hers is white. Neither of them is a solid but has specks of other colors. I may have to repaint my bedroom to match this new quilt.

We chose 8 color families for our quilts. Each color has 5 shades so we are starting with 40 fat quarters. The quilt is made from 2 1/2 inch strips so here are all my baggies of strips cut. Each color has 5 baggies full of strips.

The retreat is for 3 days and hopefully I can get the blocks done, maybe even get the borders on it. Then I can add it to the stack of my own tops to be quilted. Actually, when the piecing is done, it is going to the top of the list of my quilts to be quilted. I thought when I got a longarm that I would finish a lot of my own quilts but that doesn't seem to work that way.

Wacky Devine Nine

We had community service today at guild. I taught from a pattern by my sister called "Wacky Devine Nine" which uses nine fat quarters. Each person brought their own nine fat quarters, that coordinate. They will need to add borders but the goal today was to get the center top done and five of them finished. There were several others that have the blocks completed and just need to do the final assembly. This first picture is of a blue and beige top. The colors are even prettier in person.

Next is a very bright quilt with cute kids prints. There is some green in some of the prints and I think she is going to put a narrow green border on it before a wider border of one of the prints.

These are dog and cat prints! It is really cute. She is talking about a black and white narrow border before adding a wider border.

Next is a quilt from green, beige and various reds. It is beautiful also.

The last completed top is from a Thimbleberries collection. She wants to use of some of her stash and is happy with how this turned out.

We do community service on the 5th Tuesday when there is one. That gives us 4 days a year that we get together to make quilts or other charity projects. Many of our members do more but we sew together on these days. Our goal this year is to make enough quilts that we can give them to the local police for them to use when they are in an emergency situation with children.

We plan to make cool-ties for the soldiers at our next community service day. We did it twice last year and made about 100 so we want to make even more this time.

We have changed the day to include lunch. Today, we had Subway sandwiches that the local Subway donated to us. Our leader asked for a discount and the manager said he would donate them to us. If you are near Acworth, GA be sure to get a sandwich at the Subway in the new Wal-Mart on Hwy. 41 - they are wonderful people there.

Glorified Nine Patch Borders

I picked out borders for the Glorified Nine Patch while I was working yesterday at Tiny Stitches. The colors in the floral is perfect with the colors in the blocks. Of course, these were chosen not because I like them but to satisfy the color challenge at guild. After selecting the floral border, I found the polka dots that will be a great inner border. I also got enough of the floral to back the quilt. Found a great binding fabric but I will wait until I get the quilt done before showing it since it needs to be done on the bias and hard to photograph until it is done.

I am teaching a class at guild tomorrow using the Wacky Devine Nine pattern by my sister. We are making these quilts for our community service project. Each person is bringing 9 fat quarters that go together and we will get the top pieces ready for borders.

I will try to take the camera tomorrow so I can show some of the quilts in progress.

Easter Ornaments

On one of my yahoo groups, Georgia Crazy Quilters, we have been talking about an Easter ornament exchange. Several of the women were concerned about how to make an ornament that was specific for Easter.

Here are several ornaments that I have from past swaps. Some are flat, some are stuffed to make them more round. There are small quilt blocks, paper pieced, appliqued and embroidered. The hummingbird is stenciled and the Easter basket in the top row is done with crayon.

The point is that anything that can be hung on a small tree will work.

String Blocks for Swap

I got the first blocks for our string block swap on QuiltingSisters. The first group of six is from Sandy. We plan to swap the blocks monthly for a year and the number to swap each month is six.

Glo send in six for herself and then

six more for Linda.

In addition, I asked for one extra block a month made from red-white-blue that I will make into a quilt to be donated to a wounded soldier. Both Sandy and Glo send in the extra block. In fact, Glo sent in an extra for Linda.

The last photo is the RWB that Sandy sent in.

If everyone sends one extra per month we will be able to make 2-3 extra quilts for soldiers during the year-long swap. This is a great group of women who have been together for many years online and I have managed to meet several of them in person. We have made longlasting, close friendships and have been through hardtimes and good times together.

Glorified Nine Patch

Here are the first three glorified nine patch blocks that I finished in a guild workshop yesterday. The workshop teacher was Sharyn Craig and she is a wonderful teacher. I had the opportunity to have dinner with her last night after the workshop.

I have 5 more blocks that have the center nine patch done and at least one of the melon pieces attached. It won't take long to get the rest of the these done. I did buy enough fabric to make a total of 20 blocks. That should make a nice sized quilt for a child. I have a six year old granddaughter in Sweden - Hanna and I think she would love this quilt.

Sharyn did a program at guild this morning about her "Great Sets" and gave us many ideas on how to set these and other blocks but I think I might just do a straight set 4x5 because I like the football shape that is formed when they are joined together side by side. I think it will be fun to quilt.

We have some great bright floral fabric at the shop that I think might be a good border. I will take the completed ones to work with me tomorrow and test out the border fabric.

Purse Classes today

I taught two purse classes today. The morning class had 3 students and the evening one had 2. The name of the class is "Choose Your Own Purse". Each student picks a pattern and we make the purse. Most of the time they choose something that I have already made but even if it is new, I have made enough purses that it is usually pretty easy to figure it out.

First is going to be a bright purse.

Next one has a Mola that she is going to applique on the front of her tote bag.

Next we have two beautiful batiks.

This one has a focus fabric of New York fabric and a mottled black for the base.

Lastly, these are beautiful floral fabrics that will make a great purse.

They have a lot of homework to do before the next class. It is in 2 weeks and they have to quilt the base for the purses and we will finish them - hopefully they will walk out with completed purses.

In the past I always taught from one pattern at a time - it is sometimes hard to find enough people who want to make the same pattern. Out of these five, three choose the same pattern and the other two had different patterns. It seems to work out well and we all have fun.

I also teach a "Choose Your Own Jacket" class.

Swap Blocks going to a new home

Kathy from the QuiltingSisters list asked if any of us had extra blocks to donate to a project that she is working on with her Church quilting group. I went through my stack of blocks and found these.

I counted them and I have 44 12-inch blocks that I will never do anything with myself so I am going to mail them to her. These were from a Nifty Fifty swap several years ago. Most of the Nifty Fifty swaps (one swapper from each of the 50 states) had a theme and I have other sets of blocks that I will make into quilts someday. Because this swap did not have a theme, there are a large variety of blocks.

I think Kathy will be able to put together several smaller quilts with these blocks. Although they are quite mixed, she should be able to find ones that go together enough for childrens and lap quilts.

I am glad to have them out of the stack of things for me to do someday.

Color Challenge

At the Allatoona Quilt Guild meeting earlier this month we started a color challenge. The basis of the challenge is the each person picked out two crayons from a box of 96. Of course, they were not allowed to actually choose their colors, the box was held over their heads and they randomly choose two crayons. Mine are posted below.
I picked Hot Magenta and Cyber Grape - bright pink and bright purple. This probably isn't quite as much of a challenge for me as it is for some of the members who like calm county colors but still not colors I would have picked for myself.

The rules are that you must make something quilty using SIGNIFICANT, RECOGNIZABLE amounts of these two colors. The next photo is the two fabrics that I chose to use for the challenge.

The purple looks blue in the photo but is purple and matches the crayon pretty well. The pink is much brighter in person.

I had signed up for a workshop on Thursday for a class with Sharyn Craig. She is our speaker at my other guild, East Cobb Quilt Guild and is teaching two workshops. I signed up for the "Glorified Nine Patch" workshop and decided to make a small quilt for either my granddaughter Hanna or to donate.

Next step was to add a background color. At our meeting in early January, we had a color expert talk with us about the color wheel so my next step was to get out the color wheel and decide what to do next. What I decided to use is in the next photo.

Yes, my favorite lime green! Not sure you will be able to sleep under this quilt without wearing sunglasses but it should be fun. I will post some pictures of the blocks I get done after the workshop.

I found some fun floral fabrics that might work for a border but will decide on that after I get some blocks done. The challenge isn't due until May so I have plenty of time to piece it and get it quilted.

I am still quilting on the ECQG's raffle quilt so that comes first.

Scarf from Yarn and Ribbon

At our last FiberArtBee meeting Sharon led us in making scarfs from yarn and ribbon. I finally finished mine a couple of days ago and actually wore it to work at the quilt shop today.

These were easy to make a a lot of fun. We used Ultra Solvy, put it on a table and sprayed it with basting spray. Then we just started putting yarns and ribbons out. I used lots of blues, purples and a few of my favorite lime green. I was able to use some of the fiber packages that Linda and I got in Paducah. I love to buy them and love to look at them, but rarely get around to actually making something from them.

Anyway, after laying out all the yarn, we sprayed the whole thing with the basting spray again and put a second piece of Solvy on top. At that point, we stitched across all the fibers about 1 inch apart and when finished with that, did the length about the same distance apart, making a thread mesh on top of the yarns.

Then the really hard part - washing out the Solvy. That stuff is really sticky. I rinsed and rinsed but it is still a little stickly. Back into the sink tomorrow to do it again and maybe again. I am sure eventually it will rinse completely out.

I love our little Bee - we have so much fun trying things out that we would probably never do by ourselves.

Last 3 Months of Calendar

I went to Blogger help and the suggestion was to go to Blogger.com instead of BetaBlogger. I did that and was able to post the photos.

Here is September - done by Emily. On the left page is a removable fabric book with several great pages.

Ann did the Ocober page. It is very tactile and has yarn, ribbon, old photos and what looks like an old rhinestone pin attached.

Susan did the last page, complete with a pocket made from a Starbucks coffee sleeve, with a tag in it, a crown made from fabric and buttons. For Thanksgiving, she put on the following quote "There is always, always, always something to be thankful for."

I still have December to do when I get around to it. I worked all day at the quilt shop and am to tired to do more tonight.

No pictures today

Well, Blogger won't accept my photos today. I am trying to post the last three of my calendar pages and can't seem to get them posted. I guess I will try again tomorrow.

Postcard Class

I taught a postcard class at Tiny Stitches, my local quilt shop earlier this week. I only had one student sign up (I think it was because the newsletter was published late) but decided to teach it anyway. I have taught this to one of my guilds, to a bee group and at the shop before and the students always have a great time and make wonderful projects.

Cathy decided to make a birthday cake but we after looking at it, it looks more like a skyscraper. Fun anyway. The second card was a valentine for her daughter. It turns out that we both have daughters living in San Francisco, only a few miles apart.

First UFO of 2007 and one older quilt

I made this quilt a couple of years ago. It lives hanging over the door in the living room. I was going through my webshots and discovered that I had not taken a photo of it. I made the quilt for a class sample and taught it a couple of times at Tiny Stitches. One of the students made a great example of the pattern using fruit and vegetable fabric - I wish I had taken a photo of it at the time. It is a pattern by Pat Sloan and makes a very quick, easy quilt.

I am participating in the UFO challenge on Stashbusters and my name was very close to the top of the list so I finally got the binding done on the next quilt. It is a simple panel that I quilted when I first got my longarm and was playing with quilting. I plan to donate it - probably to Ronald McDonald house.

More Calendar 2006

Here are four more months of my calendar from last year. May was done by Puff. She did tags and used 3-D flowers on the page.

June was done by Karyn. She used lots of different colors and textures on her page and used a quote from Oscar Wilde in The Picute of Dorian Gray. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June..."

July was done by Cassie. The quote says "I'll keep running. Because it gives me a legimate excuse for looking in the neighbor's windows at night. Nice sofa"

Marci did August. I love the "Now What?" and the collage on this page.

There are still 3 more pages that I will post in a day or so. Maybe I will get December done before I post the rest.

Coasters for Guild Retreat

We are going on a retreat Feb 1-3! The theme of the retreat is Quilter's Tea Party and I am in charge of decorations for the tables. Today at sew-in we made 34 coasters - we need about 16 more but I can get them done in an afternoon.

At each place, we are putting a coaster, a teacup and a cloth napkin. Mary made the napkins using her serger out of some teacup fabric that I had in my stash. I am not sure why I had so much of it, but I did. I must have thought I would use it as a backing but the napkins look great!

I had done nickel swaps over the past couple of years and pulled out all the blue and yellow nickels I had and we put the coasters together today. With 4 people working, it went very fast.

I have a surprise for the group at the retreat - we are going to decorate hats! What would a tea party be without hats! That is enough for now, will post more after the retreat.

2006 Round Robin Calendar

For some reason, I am fasinated with Calendars and alphabets. When the opportunity came up last year to participate in a Round Robin Calendar, I jumped at the chance. The rules were loose. Provide a calendar to alter and work on the first month before sending it off. I looked at lots of calendars but finally just made one on my computer. I printed out the months on the right side and left the other side blank.

This is January. I used images that reminded me of New Years Resolutions that we all make. Used MLK's picture out of the Atlanta paper for his birthday. Also managed to fine a couple of small phots of Yorkies that look like Max.

Christine did the February page. It includes several polymer clay objects glued to the page. She also made a cute fun fold book on the right page.
Effie did March. She included a tag in a tea bag envelope and comments on the calendar of what she did during the month. I love it.
Felica did the April pages. Another colorful page with comments about her month.

I will post more pictures tomorrow. I still have December to alter because we had one person drop out right at the time we started and it was too late to recruit a replacement.

This project was really fun and I would love to do it again.

November and December Calendars

Here is my calendar from November. Not much added to it this month but the peachs are from the election. Everyone in Georgia wears them after voting on election day.

The quilt pictures are from a class that my guild had with Marti Michell. As program chairman, it has been a busy year and she was the final speaker. I make nametags with a photo of the project on it. The students seem to get a kick out of having the project on the nametag along with their name.

Of course, December is a busy month. I got some new stamps and managed to stamp the D in December backwards so went ahead and did a couple of the other letters that way on purpose.

This makes 6 months that I have managed to keep up with the calendar and it has been fun to decide what to do each month to make the basic calendar. I usually use post-it notes as a mask for the paint or stamp pad and have played with different techniques but want to try more new things in 2007.