Mystery and Mary Lou Quilt

I have decided to do the next mystery that Bonnie Hunter is doing at Quiltville. She calls it Orange Crush and is using her usual scrappy mix of fabrics. I am planning on using my usual mix also - brights.

The quilt calls for light and dark scraps plus four extra fabrics. For my fabrics, I chose lime green, bright pink, purple and orange. She posted the first clue today so I need to get busy making 150 four patches from my dark and light scraps.

The next quilt was made by my friend Robin from a Mary Lou Weidman pattern. She showed it at guild on Friday. Mary Lou is coming to the East Cobb Quilt Guild in August and I am really looking forward to taking at least one class from her.

Isn't it a bright, cheerful quilt?

Making Pillowcases for my Grandchildren

During the pillowcase class yesterday, I made 5 pillowcases. I made two standard sized pillowcases and three small travel sized ones. The grandchildren who live in Sweden use a different sort of pillowcase but I think the travel sized ones will be useful. On the other hand, Emilio (who lives in San Francisco) has his big boy bed and I want to make at least one pillowcase for him each month.

I used children's party fabric to make this pillowcase. We sell pillowcase kits and this was one of them. It will stay in the shop for a few months since his birthday isn't until July.

He also loves trains so here is a train pillowcase I made for him.

Hanna is seven so I thought she might like a girly travel pillow and pillowcase. I love the flowers and the stripe flange on this one.

I tried to use the store pattern to make the travel pillowcases but found that the measurements were too large for the little pillows. It was kind of like the three bears. The first one was too big but when I tried to cut it down, it was too small. The pillow fit into it but it was hard to get it in. The third time, I got the measurements right and the airplane/suitcase is for Noah in Sweden. I am changing the store pattern to reflect the new measurements.

I have one for Emilio just like this one (his is the too small one). Since the boys are only 1 month apart, it is easy to make two the same for them. I would like to make at least one more for each of the three before I mail them off. I think these will be fun for them to take in the car and on airplanes.

I also have one more regular pillowcase for Emilo - the hungry caterpillar. I need to find out if he has the book so I can go buy it for him if he doesn't already have it. This must be a newer book because I don't remember it from long ago when my two were learning to read.

Perfect Pillowcase Class

I taught a pillowcase class today - actually two classes. Making pillowcases is fun and easy but the hot dog method and french seams. This makes pillowcases with completely enclosed seams. They are so nice and make wonderful gifts.

These two pillowcases were made with the same base fabric, small flange or accent and different fabrics on the end. The flowers are for her and the geometric fabric is for her husband.

These were matching pillowcases made for the daughter of the maker who is moving to Arizona. It was a nice way for her to come to grips with her daughter moving away, knowing that she was sending some of her love to the new home.

Last was a pair of pillowcases for the bedroom. She combined plaid and floral to make a lovely pair of pillowcases.

Since these were small classes, I had time to make some of my own as a demonstration. Will do another post to show them.

Easter Gift Exchange

I participated in an Easter Gift Exchange on one of Mary Lou Weidman's Yahoo groups and received my package from Sandi today.
Look at the wonderful gel window stickies. It is hard to get a photo of them but here is the best I could get. They look much better in real life since the colors show up much more vibrant than the picture shows. The sun shining in the windows really makes them look cute on the living room window.
Here is the rest of my gift package. A very cute little bunny gift bag, a wonderful lime green purse (I really love the purse). There is chocolate in the eggs and a great picture postcard from the area Sandi lives in. There is also a cute Easter pen.

Thank you Sandi!

Third Winter Wonderland Block

I finally finished my third Winter Wonderland Block. I have been carrying it around with me but just haven't worked on it at all. The only thing I had left to finish was one of the snowflakes. They are a lot more complicated than they look.

I am starting on the fourth block which is a snowman making a snow angel. Hopefully this one won't take me as long as the last one. I would like to get this quilt made by Christmas - this year. Once all the stitching is done, I still have a lot of pieced blocks to do but I don't think I will start them until the stitching is done.

I really think I am going to like this quilt in blue instead red like most people are making it.

Piecemaker's

Here is a photo of my Piecemaker's group during our recent visit to the Bulloch Hall Quilt Show. Not everyone was able to attend but this is a good representation of our group. This is the group that did the house block exchange last year and I need to get working on this year's exchange. This year we all supplied our own focus fabric and will make a block for each other person using their fabric choices.

Starting our Garden Row Quilt

Today was the first day of our Row Quilt at Allatoona. We usually do a Block of the Month every year, using a book that everyone has to purchase. This year, we decided to do a row quilt instead. We voted on themes and the garden theme won. Many of us had wished for a beach or other theme but we went with the majority. We have 8 people who have agreed to design and teach a row. My turn is next month.

We were surprised to find that more then 30 people showed up for the kickoff this morning. The number will probably drop off over the months but it was a great start. This year we decided to actually make the row (or part of it) in class so everyone brought their sewing machines and we went to work. It turned out that the Senior Citizens monthly lunch was also being held in the community center and they didn't have enough seniors to eat all the lunch that had been prepared so they invited us to join them. We had chicken, mashed potatos, broccoli and toasted bread, along with sweet tea. It was a very nice surprise.

Each row will be 48 inches wide but may vary in height. Today's row consists of 8 6-inch blocks. As an option, Tina suggested that we might want to have the butterflies not all in an even row so I added 2 inches to the top or bottom of each of my finished butterflies.

Each person is selecting their own fabric to use. Tina is going to make her quilt using 30's fabric. Her row is at the bottom of this post. Most people followed her lead and selected a single blue for the background. I decided to make my backgrounds scrappy and used 4 different black and white prints. For the butterflies, I used bright scraps.

Here is Lisa's row - she has a big collection of batiks and is going to use them for her quilt.

Last is the rows that Tina put together as teaching samples. She used a solid blue background and a large variety of 30's prints for the butterflies.

Two more mystery quilts

At the guild meeting on Tuesday, a couple of completed mystery quilts were shown. Here is Arlena's. It isn't quilted and she doesn't like it at all. Some of her colors were too close together but it will make a great charity quilt.

This one is Tina's. She came by the shop on Sunday and bought Minkee for the back. Since she has a longarm, her's was quilted and she was sewing the binding on during the meeting.

I am sure there will be a lot more quilts showing up over the next few months. I am going to make one someday but probably not for a while.

Fun and Games at the Quilt Shop

It has been quite a weekend here in the Atlanta area. I was teaching a class at Tiny Stitches on Friday, which was a very nice day. I had a session in the morning and then another one in the evening. Morning went fine and actually the evening did also, at least until after dark. Then the thunder and lightening started. It was pretty scary and everyone finally decided to go home a little early instead of staying until 9;30.

I got home in time to see the TV reports of tornado warnings. A tornado actually went right through downtown Alanta shortly after I came home. This has not ever happen before in Atlanta's history - which is a long one. Almost all that was on TV was news reports about the weather but Bill was watching the SEC basketball game and we actually saw the coverage of the tornado hitting the Georgia Dome and other downtown buildings.

We didn't have any damage, just lots of debris around the yard. The next day was Saturday Sampler at Tiny Stitches so we were there early to get set up. Everything went fine for a while until afternoon when the tornado warning siren went off - for the first time. It rained buckets (and we are supposed to be in a drought) and there was a lot of thunder and lightening. Kind of a repeat of the night before.

We took everyone into the back of the store (we had practice like this a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday). After a few minutes the siren stopped so we went back out to continue the day.

Not much longer and the siren came on again - for the second time. Same drill and back to work. The siren came on again for a third time - herded a new group of customers to the back and took chocolate with us this time.

Finally, it was all over and everything was fine. In fact, the sun came out and the rest of the day/evening was great.
Maetha (the shop owner) always dresses up for holidays and she had two head bands - this is the one I wore. The button attached to my name badge says Quilt Diva.

I also have new cute St. Patrick's Day socks from the $1 section at Target but didn't take a photo of them to share. Our anniversary is tomorrow - 13 years.

Yet Another Magical Slice and Dice

One more picture of a Magical Slice and Dice quilt. This one was taken at the retreat last weekend. Debbie recently moved to Georgia and took my class at Tiny Stitches. I told her about the guild and she joined.

Debbie was sick the second day of class so she brought her blocks to retreat and put them together. I then helped her do the "slice" part of the quilt and she managed to get it all put together. She used a bright fabric that looks great.

Mystery Quilt from Red Top Retreat

Here is the sample mystery quilt. Clues were given for two days before Dave put out the completed quilt.

I think it is a wonderful quilt but for some reason Dave doesn't like it. He used a dark background which I think turns out better than a light background (the clues offered both). Since he did not like the quilt and did not want to keep it, he offered it as the prize for guessing who the murderer was. Today at the regular guild meeting, he gave Michele (who won) a wonderful label to add to the back of the quilt.

I plan to start looking for fabric to make the quilt when I get time.

Here are three of the quilts that were in progress during the retreat. Isn't it interesting to see how different the quilts turn out with other fabric choices. I really like the blue and yellow one.

Murder Mystery at Red Top Mountain

Well, the retreat was wonderful. The murder theme was great and we had a good time trying to figure out who did it.

As you can see from the above "rap sheet", it turns out that the murderer was me! We got clues on the first day - both for the mystery quilt and the murder. The second day we received the final block instructions for the mystery quilt and more clues for the murder.

No one guessed the correct murderer that day so everyone was given a second chance to guess. Five people guessed correctly, including me. One of the final clues was about a book and I saw the book at a work station and opened it to find my initials. My guess read: I am certainly not confessing but I think that perhaps I did it. Since five people guessed correctly, one name was drawn to win the prize, which was the mystery quilt sample. Unfortunately for me, Michelle won.

My rap sheet reads as follows:

1979: Illicit use of polyester fabric in a quilt. Convicted. Served 2 months probation
1982: Didn't prewash fabric in red and white quilt. Convicted. Sentenced to 4 months hard labor remaking quilt.
1991: Failure to press to the dark. Convicted. Sentenced to 2 months probation and ordered to buy new iron.
1996: Overpinned pieces/broke 5 consecutive needles. Convicted. Sentenced to time served.
2008: Charged with 1st degree murder of Polly Pureseams - pending trial.

Dave did a great job on the mystery and the retreat was even better than last year. I will post a few photos of the mystery quilts being made in a later post.

Bulloch Hall Quilt Show and Piecemakers

Today was our usual day for my Piecemakers Bee group meeting. Since 10 of our house quilts were displayed at the Bulloch Hall Quilt Show, we decided to make this meeting into a road trip to the show.

My block is the second one from the top on the right hand side. It is in a few other quilts but since we had more people than 12, each of us ended up with a slightly different set of blocks.

The last one is Nancy's and it was on the cover of a section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution yesterday, along with a few other quilts from the show. This quilt show is held at Bulloch Hall which is the childhood home of Theodore Roosevelt's mother. The house was built in 1839 and survived the Civil War or as it is known in the South as the War Between the States.

I didn't get my quilt finished or even pieced but it is still on my list of projects to work on.

Scrappy Bargello Center Completed

Another project that I worked on is my Scrappy Bargello from the workshop I took with Bonnie Hunter. I checked her blog today and found a picture of myself on her blog. The last photo in the section about the class is my and my quilt. It sounds like we talked Bonnie into getting a SewEzi table. I got mine last year at the Nashville show and absolutely love it. It is easy to take to retreats and sew-ins and I sometimes set it up in the kitchen for one more place to sew.

My bright bargello is turning out just like I had hoped. I am planning to take it to the shop tomorrow to try to pick out a border. I think I will just put on a small inner border and then a larger outer border. Bonnie shows a braid border on one of hers but the sample she made for our class had a non pieced border and I think that is what I will do. I like the quilt but do not want to put more time into it.