Melinda Quilts etc
I finally got photos of all the projects that I made for Shop Hop. There were six projects that I made.
1 - Noah’s Ark
2 - Easter Egg
3 - Yellow Brick Road
4 - Wacky Devine Nine
5 - Jelly Filled
6 - Metro Maze
I am impressed with myself. I feel that I made a good contribution.
Melinda
Today we made cool ties for the troops. We ended up making 115 of them. One of the members has a relative that is in Iraq so we are going to send them to him to distribute to other soldiers.
This first photo is of the sweat shop we set up today. We had sewers. pressers, ironers, markers, fillers, and finishers. We managed to make 115 in only about 2 1/2 hours.
Here is the table I worked at. I put the crystals in the cool ties and then passed them to Lisa who finished them. I then stacked them in groups of 10 to keep count.
Here are all 115 of them.
We had lunch also. Gumbo that was leftover from Red Top. It was frozen and then reheated today in crock pots. Of course, there were other goodies, including blueberry cobbler, lemon cupcakes, yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. We also had some celery, dip, chips, olives and pickles. Great day with a good project, good friends and good food.
Melinda
Now that Shop Hop is over, it is time to move on to the next holiday and that would be Easter. A couple of years ago, my sister Robin and I made Easter Egg Table Runners. I found out that the pattern is still available and Tiny Stitches runs a monthly table runner class/club so I took it to the shop and as you might have guessed – I am teaching it this week.
We actually made three of them and even though I posted them long ago I am going to put them here again.
This first one is Christina’s – my daughter who lives in San Francisco.
This one belongs to Robin, my sister.
The last one is mine. Robin and I always say that we make things that are “exactly alike only different” and these are a good example of that. We used the same fabrics, same pattern but they turned out slightly different.
We had leftover fabric so we made coasters but I can’t find my pictures of them.
Melinda
Well, Shop Hop is over for another year. We had a great time greeting old friends and meeting new ones. I think we had more people visit than ever before.
One of the things I love about Shop Hop is all the show and tell that people bring in. A few weeks ago, Lisa came in with her husband to select fabrics for her first quilt. She loves the Chicago School of Fusing type of art quilt and wanted to make one for herself. She brought her husband with her because she is color blind and wanted his input on colors. We all had a great time selecting batiks for her to use and getting threads that would look good on her project.
She came in yesterday with her completed project. Here it is
I love what she is doing. I can’t believe that this is her first (and only) project and am looking forward to seeing how she progresses. I helped her pick out some more batiks and threads for her next project. Her husband decided that he didn’t need to come in since he knew we love to help pick out fabrics.
I love working at Tiny Stitches!
Melinda
After a long day of Shop Hop, I was too tired last night to post anything. I did take a photo of myself decked out with the flower wreath that Mary made for us to wear.
I thought I had taken pictures of each of my projects hanging in the shop but missed a couple. I will get the rest done today.
Thankfully, today is the last day of Shop Hop. I think we have had more people come by then any other year. The bad economy hasn’t seemed to cause many people not to get around to all the shops.
Melinda
Today was the second day of shop hop. I had a guild meeting this morning so didn’t get to the shop until noon. Unfortunately we had a lot of rain this morning and early afternoon but that didn’t seem to stop any of the hoppers.
I forgot to take my camera to work yesterday but did remember to take a couple of photos today. Our theme is Read me a Story and the shop is decorated with a lot of fairies and the like.
In the room where we stamp the passports we have the Princess’ bed set up. If you look at the left side of the bed you will see why the Princess had trouble sleeping.
The second photo is of the bedside table. This is where someone sits to stamp the passports and hand out the little gift we have for everyone.
We are giving out a small piece of fabric, a discount coupon for a return visit and a small charm for each person. We are also giving out a pattern for a pin cushion, using the fabric and the charm.
The last photo is of our shop hop quilt. My friend Dave designed, pieced and quilted this quilt for us.
He is becoming a very talented designer and we are lucky to have him around. He also designed the mystery quilt for our Murder Mystery we held in January.
One more full day on Saturday and then 1/2 day on Sunday. Shop Hop is a lot of fun but also a lot of work.
Melinda
Helen came in with her new purse this week. She saw this pattern a couple of weeks ago when she was in the shop and decided to make it in Purse class. Unfortunately, I had to cancel the March class due to a date conflict with our retreat but Helen was so excited about the new purse that she went ahead and made it on her own.
This is the pattern and fabric I brought home to make the purse at the same time Helen bought hers. Unfortunately mine is still waiting to be made.
Isn’t this a great purse that Helen made? Once Shop Hop is over, maybe I will be able to make mine. I hope it turns out as well as hers.
Melinda
I finished the Fourth Shop Hop quilt today. It was made using a jelly roll pattern called Jelly Filled. I used a Moda jelly roll called Swanky.
I was in a hurry to get it to the shop and forgot to take a photo of it before taking it in. I quilted it this morning and got the binding done this afternoon.
Here it is hanging in the shop!
We worked this afternoon and evening getting the shop ready for Shop Hop! It really looks great and I hope some of you will come by during the next four days.
Melinda
Yesterday, my Piecemakers group went to the Bulloch Hall Quilt Show. It is held in a wonderful old building. Teddy Roosevelt’s mother was married in the house. The show is wonderful and the setting is even more wonderful.
I took so many photos that I can’t post them all at once but have a few to start.
The one above was made by Ben – he is in the ECQG and a couple of other guilds. He has a great sense of color.
I have seen this pattern in many magazines and catalogs but this is the first quilt I have actually seen. It is beautiful.
This one was made by Cheryl. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a birthday quilt to put out for everyone’s birthday.
After the show, we went out to lunch so it was a really great day. I finished piecing the jelly roll quilt and will get it quilted and bound tomorrow. Then I will spend the evening at Tiny Stitches helping putting the final touches on preparations for the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop. Our theme is Read Me A Story! The theme of the Hop is Magic of Childhood.
Melinda
I taught the first class of the Magical Slice and Dice quilt tonight. This is another pattern by my sister. I was surprised that seven students showed up because I only saw five names yesterday.
We had a great variety of fabrics being used. Here are the fabrics and the first four blocks made by each student.
Somehow I only got a picture of the blocks that Dave did, not his fabric. Dave had to replace his original fabric because it was a batik and we just couldn’t get it lined up correctly. I think that batiks just don’t work for stack and whack type of quilts. He found a really interesting fabric that I hadn’t seen before.
They have a lot of homework to do before the next class. They need to make all 40 blocks, plus the setting squares and get the blocks sewn together. We will turn the quilt on point and put the borders on it during that class. I can hardly wait to see how they all turn out.
Melinda
I finished the third Shop Hop Quilt today and took it into the shop. It was made from the Daisy Chain line by Amy Butler and is a simple Yellow Brick Road pattern.
I think it turned out pretty good. I love the way it looks quilted.
Here is a close up of the quilting in the main part of the quilt.
Here is the border quilting. I used the same fabric on the back as in the outer border.
I love the look of striped binding and this stripe looked great cut on the bias. I really don’t like to do bias binding but when I have a stripe it just calls for bias. I usually just do straight binding.
Melinda
I finished the Noah’s Ark quilt and took it to the shop on Saturday. I forgot to take photos of it while it was here so tried to take some at the shop today. They didn’t work out very well but I do have this one photo of the top before it was quilted.
The next photo is of the quilt, after quilting, but laying on the floor since I didn’t have anyone to hold it for me.
Here are a couple of photos that show some of the quilting.
I did custom quilt it, since it will be given to my grandson Noah after it’s time at the quilt shop. I made kits for shop hop so hopefully it will inspire others to make quilts like it.
This is the third of the four quilts I am making for shop hop. I am doing the final assembly of the last one and hope to get it quilted tomorrow. I won’t have a lot of time since I am meeting friends in the morning to attend the quilt show at Bulloch Hall and am teaching a class in the evening.
Busy, busy, busy!
For the retreat earlier this month, Mary and I decided to make a little treat for each person attending. I found silicone cupcake wrappers on sale and we made a little cupcake for each person. We got some bright pins to put in each like sprinkles.
I found two different Mardi Gras fabrics to make the pin cushions. Mary made the ones with the diamonds on top and I made the Mardi Gras feathers. We discovered that it was a bit of a challenge to get the actual pin cushion to stick in the cupcake wrapper. I tried several types of glue but finally figured out that hot glue used generously around the inside of the wrapper would work. The reason that silicone is used for non-stick items it that nothing sticks to it.
We had planned on putting velcro on the bottom so that they could stick the pin cushion on the sewing machines but we couldn’t get it to stick to the silicone so we gave up. They were very cute and everyone seemed to like receiving them.
I got the Wacky Devine Nine quilted yesterday and finished the binding on it today. I really like how it turned out and love the quilting on it.
I did a simple feather in the outer border, a curvy line in the inner border and then an echoed swirl in the body of the quilt. I love the texture that the heavy quilting gives the quilt.
This quilt only uses 9 fat quarters and uses all of them. There is then the inner border and outer border but not a lot of either.
I love the look of bias striped binding. I only do bias binding when there is a stripe because the straight grain binding is so much easier.
