Chicago School of Fusing

I had so much fun today. Laura Wasilowski from the "Chicago School of Fusing" is here for the East Cobb Quilt Guild and I was fortunate enough to take a workshop from her today. She has such a wonderful imagination and is a great teacher.

The above it the art quilt that I made today in her class. Everything is fused and made from hand-dyed fabrics that she supplied as part of the kit for the class. We put wonder under on all of the fabric and then free cut all the leaves and flowers.

It still needs some hand stitching and then some quilting before it is finished. She also showed us how to put on a fusible binding which will be next.

Tomorrow is her lecture and she had lots of great quilts to show. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera today but hopefully with be able to take more photos tomorrow. If you ever get a chance to take a class or workshop with her, I highly recommend it.

Beginner Quilts

Here are the quilt tops when sewn together. Doesn't the blue and yellow look great!

This one uses bright Laurel Burch fabrics.

I named this one "Doggies run amok!" She used many, many different doggie fabrics and has border collies for the border.

Here is Tiffani with her red/white/blue quilt. Kimberli was still working on the last of her blocks. They started with the same fabrics but the quilts are quite different because of the choices they made while piecing. I am hoping to get a photo of Kimberli's soon.

They all did a great job on their quilts and hopefully learned a lot. It would be great to have the opportunity to have them in another class soon.

Last Beginner Class

We had the last class for my beginning piecing class today. It was scheduled to go for 6 weeks but for some reason, we fell behind and decided to extend it for one more class. They all decided that they wanted to come this morning, even though it is a holiday so that is what we did.

Almost all of them had all their blocks made so we spent the morning putting together the quilt top. Most of them were able to finish the center and hopefully will be able to add the borders.

We did talk about borders and I think they all understand what to do but if not, they can come on a weekend and I can help them.

Aren't the sisters cute! They missed some classes but caught up and are making quilts from the same fabric collection but they are turning out looking quite different. My sister and I often make quilts that we call "exactly alike only different" and that is what Kimberli and Tiffani are doing.

I have to sort through the photos of the quilt tops and will post them next. I have found that taking a digital photo is an excellent tool. The quilt looks different when viewed as a photo. You can see color and value much better than when viewing it directly.

I love teaching this class!

Spring is here

I had posted some pictures of my yard in the winter with some of the snow that we had this year. Thought I would take a few of the yard now that the trees are full of leaves. This is towards the back side yard.

This is the side yard on the other side of the driveway.

This is the same side yard but closer to the front of the property.

This is the other side of the front yard. Our neighbors have lots of trees in the front of their property and many of these actually belong to them. The bench is ours and we share the wooded area behind the bench.

Quite a different look from here, isn't it. Here is another view in the fall. I love Spring for everything except the pollen. The scale that they use to measure pollen goes from 1 to 100 or 120. We usually have a few days that are 5000 or above. I don't think I understand why they use a scale that is so out of touch with reality. Perhaps it works for other places that are not the South in Spring.

Trip to Mary Jo's

On the way to Mary Jo's with the Allatoona Quilters Guild and friends.

We had a great trip to Mary Jo's on Wednesday. We left Kennesaw around 7:30am and got back about 9:00pm. I was in charge of fun and games on the bus. I created a word search and crossword puzzle with clues/words that I selected myself. There is a great website that you can go and make puzzles. It is really fun to do this and everyone seemed to enjoy the puzzles. I also had a scavenger/treasure hunt that we played. Along with the games, we had other door prizes and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Here we are at Longcreek Mills, the thread store that is about 5 miles away from Mary Jo's. We are sitting on the "husband's bench" waiting for the bus to pick us up and take us back for another round of shopping.

Row by Row Quilt

I am in charge of the third row for our guild row by row quilt. I choose 4 fruit and 4 vegetable blocks. They are all paper pieced and measure 6 inches when finished.

Here is the beet and pear.

The carrot and lemon.

Eggplant and corn.

Strawberry and peach.

I decided to make the fruit and vegetables from some of the fabrics that I have been collecting over the years. I had everything except the pear fabric so it is made from lime green and looks great. I am continuing to use black and white fabrics for my backgrounds. I think I forgot to post photos of last months row so will try to take pictures tomorrow to post.

Tina, who is doing hers in 30's fabric had some of her blocks done this week. They really look good. The actual class is on Tuesday so it will be fun to see what other's do for their blocks.

Each month we are doing a row for a garden quilt. The rows can be different heights but must measure 48 inches wide. This row is eight 6-inch blocks to get to the 48 inches.

The guild is going to Mary Jo's on a bus trip on Wednesday. We had such a great time last year. I don't need much fabric ever again but will look for some more black and whites and probably lime green. Can't have enough of the basics.

We will also make a side trip to Long Creek Mills where there are lots of thread bargains. I bought some cotton thread on cones that I used on the longarm with good success. We have a good time on the bus going up. As usual, I am in charge of buying some prizes for games or drawings. Mary and I will pick them out on Sunday.

Max and Chula

Here is a recent picture of Max and Chula. Chula has been feeling bad recently. The Vet thinks that she has a bad back. She has had a rough couple of weeks but seems to feel better now.


It was way overdue for Max to get a haircut. He was really shaggy and unkempt looking when he went to PetSmart. I take him with an express appointment which means that we go before the store opens and they immediately take him and he never has to go into a cage. It is worth the extra $10 that they charge. Since he has heart issues, I feel much better about doing it this way.

Here is is after the haircut. He seems to be much happier now and seems like a puppy again instead of an old dog. He is still our baby even if he is a senior citizen doggie by now.

Back again - Cool Ties

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted. I don't really have an excuse but have been very busy. Since I have been absent so long I think I will start with a guild work day we had late in April. Once more we made cool ties to send to Iraq. In just a couple of hours, we made 143 cool ties that are on the way to the son of a friend. He is a chaplain's assistant and will pass out the ties to some of the men/women he sees.

Another exciting thing that we celebrated was Hugette becoming an American Citizen. We surprised her was a red, white and blue FQ shower. We also had a wonderful cake decorated by Angela.

Here is the table with the cake on it.

Here is some of the people working on the ties. Next we are going to make more soldier quilts. We are making them for a different organization this time and they are asking for larger (twin-sized) quilts.