Melinda Quilts etc
We had the third class of the Beginner Machine Piecing earlier this week and they loved making log cabin blocks.
This class is small and they are really learning quickly. Here are some of their blocks.
I really love teaching beginners. The colors look quite similar in the photos but actually they are quite different and their quilts will both be beautiful.
Melinda
As I have talked about before, I run the Elm Creek Club at Tiny Stitches. Back when Jennifer Chiaverini was starting to write the book she asked for input from people who were making the quilt. I wrote to her and told her about our Elm Creek Club.
Well, the book came out earlier this month and right there on page 9 is a whole paragraph about our club and quoting me! What fun.
I need to start working on my quilt again. I only have a few blocks done and the quilt has 140 blocks. I have been collecting scraps of batiks from the scrap bin and have quite a large collection of them just waiting to become blocks.
Melinda
I am sure most of you are aware of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival that Amy is running over at her blog. Over 500 bloggers have posted their favorite quilts.
I finally took a couple of photos of my favorite quilt so I can join in the festival. My favorite quilt is my Y2K quilt. If you remember, in 1999 there were a lot of swaps of 2 1/2 or 3 inch squares of fabric. Most of the time, you sent multiple sets of 25 fabrics and received back as many as you sent but from different swappers.
I decided that I wanted to make a Christmas quilt so traded Christmas fabrics with others until I had 2000 different fabrics. At some point my definition of Christmas fabrics expanded to anything remotely Christmas – red, green, gold, almost anything. Actually there may be some repeats but I can’t find them and I am not going to try.
Back then, I had a real job and traveled every week. Flying was much easier then and I carried hexagons with me and worked on them in airports, on airplanes and in hotel rooms. I bought precut 1 inch hexagons from Paper Pieces and cut the 2 1/2 inch fabrics to baste to the paper. I then sewed them into blocks of 25 and stacked them up.
Once I had exactly 80 blocks in my stack I started sewing them together. Unfortunately, 2000 1 inch hexagons is not enough to make a quilt to fit my queen-sized bed so I appliquéd the quilt top to a border. I then added a second border and the quilt was ready to quilt.
This was before I had my longarm so I sent the quilt to a great quilter named Shirley in Ohio. She meandered the center of the quilt and did lovely borders, including pine cones in the green border.
I put this on my bed the day after Thanksgiving and take it off on New Years Day. I love this quilt.
I left the photos large so you can click on them to see it much larger.
I really do love this quilt.
Melinda
Today was the second class of Beginning Machine Piecing. Although there are three students, so far only two have been at each class. Hopefully, next week all three of them will be able to attend.
They are all doing a great job. So far, we have covered cutting, pressing and finding that elusive 1/4 inch seam. They started by making rail fence blocks and today moved on to nine patch and nine patch variation with four patches in the corners.
Didn’t they do a great job? I really like the fabrics that they have chosen.
Next week we move on to log cabin blocks!
Melinda
I just heard from Lynda all the way from Australia that she received my package for the Spring Swap. I mailed it right on the deadline and it took until today for it to travel half way around the world.
Here is a picture of the box right before I packaged it up to mail.
Here is the first thing I made for her. It is a bag made from pet screen and Mexican food fabric. I hope Lynda likes Mexican food.
I also sent a steno book with cover.
Here is the last thing that was in the package – a Singer sewing machine tin filled with fat quarters.
It was fun putting the package together for her.
Melinda
I finished a second basket today. It is from the Moda Bake Shop site but I made a couple of changes.
This is the first one I made.
This is the second one.
I think I like the second one a lot more than the first. The major change was that I started with 8 rounds instead of 7. Also, the second basket tapers out instead of having straight sides.
I was able to make both baskets from one honey bun and just had a couple of strips left over. I love projects that use up everything. If I did it again, I think I would separate each strip when I cut them in half so that the baskets would be more similar in color.
The first basket has a lot more color than the second one – it was planned that way, it just happened.
Melinda
Today was the general meeting of the Allatoona Quilters Guild. We have a potluck lunch every month with great food – you should see all the wonderful dishes to choose from. Our program was the challenge quilts from the East Cobb Quilters’ Guild. The challenge was called “Name that Tune” and all the quilts were based on songs.
During show and tell, Rose gave quite a show. She loves to use every bit of fabric she has and she also loves to make bags. Take a look at what she had today.
It was kind of like the little dolls that fit inside each other. She kept pulling a smaller bag out of the larger ones. She was using up the last of her black and white exchange fabrics and at the end, she made two glasses cases with the last of the fabric.
The smallest bag, which is below is on that she made for me and it was filled with selvages. What a great little gift and a wonderful surprise.
Melinda
I received my Spring Swap all the way from Sweden today. Helena is a great exchange partner. I don’t know how I was so lucky for her to get my name.
I know I have mentioned that two of my grandchildren (and my son) live in Sweden. It was nice to have a package from there.
This first photo is of Max checking out the stamps. They were very pretty stamps and I just had to cut them out and save them.
Here are the packages that I found inside the package. They were wrapped with my favorite lime green.
Look at the lovely quilt/wall hanging/table runner that Helena made for me. I have it hanging on my front door which is my very favorite place to display a small quilt. Don’t worry, it is protected from the elements by a glass storm door and doesn’t get much sun, especially now that the trees are leafing out.
Also in the package was a beautiful card, some spring stickers and tea.
Thank you again Helena – I love everything.
Melinda
I taught the Magical Slice and Dice class last Monday night and three of the seven students managed to get theirs done. The other four were unable to finish their homework so still have some sewing left to do.
This one is Michele’s. The first photo is before we sliced it, the second one with the borders on. Michele used a Christmas floral fabric and it is more red than it looks in the photo. Isn’t it interesting how it different it looks when on point.
This next one belongs to Kristen. She used an Amy Butler fabric called Daisy Chain.
This last one is Marianne’s. She used a beautiful Asian fabric and it turned out great.
If anyone is interested in the pattern, you can purchase it from Tiny Stitches or directly from my sister.
Melinda
I am walking a little better. I did manage to work on Friday night. It was pretty exciting with the tornado sirens going off and having to herd everyone into the back of the store. We had a lot of wind and rain but nothing really bad happened. It was a little scary though.
I tried to work all day on Saturday but a full day was a little more than my foot would allow. I did manage to make it until 3:00 but just couldn’t finish out the day.
I have been putting ice on my left foot regularly and it is a lot better today. Doesn’t look a lot better but I can almost walk normally now. I guess I was lucky it wasn’t a lot worse.
Melinda
I finally got all my siggie blocks made and signed and ready to mail. I had planned to get them finished on Monday but because of the fall, I didn’t get them done until today. I will get them in the mail tomorrow so they will be there before the April 15th deadline.
We each made 60 blocks. Each block will finish at 6 inches so we will have enough to make a reasonable sized quilt. I can’t wait to see all of them.
Melinda
We lost power Monday morning and I needed to go to my car. Unfortunately, I missed the bottom step in the dark and fell. I don’t think I broke anything but both of my feet are not good.
I didn’t even notice that I had injured the right foot but it is bruised pretty bad.
I haven’t been able to do much of anything this week except sit with my feet up and ice on the left one.
I have taught 3 classes since it happened but can do that sitting down for the most part.
I do have lots of photos from the classes to share and will try to get to them tomorrow.
Melinda
Check out the Selvage Blog Today. My cup is featured.
http://selvageblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/melindas-selvage-cup.html
This is the cup I made during the Red Top Retreat last month. I am honored to be featured on this blog.
Melinda
Quilting Quarterly is the magazine of NQA – National Quilting Association. The current issue has the quilt that Charlotte made and I quilted in it.
I have posted photos of this quilt before – first when we won second prize in the two person category of the East Cobb Quilter’s Guild show two years ago and again when we won first prize at the NQA show last year. It is pretty exciting to have it published with our names on it.
Charlotte did all the beautiful curved piecing on this quilt by hand. It was so much fun to quilt.
Melinda
I mailed my Spring Swap right on schedule today. It is going all the way to Australia so probably won’t be there for about a week.
Don’t want to spoil the surprise so I am only going to post one photo of the package ready to mail. Will post photos of the contents after it is received.
I hope she likes it.
Melinda
I finished the Easter Basket made from Moda fabric. It turned out really cute and the pattern was easy to follow. One point she made is that you need to use a thimble – I agree and my sore fingers agree.
I used just about 1/2 of a honey bun. The fabric line is Aviary which is a very soft pastel line. I need to get another package of cording to make another one since the first one is at the shop and probably will stay there for some time.
Melinda
I saw a very cute Easter Basket on Moda Bake Shop so I decided to make one. I got the strips sewn together and am starting to form the basket.
Doesn’t look like much so far but really looks great on the blog. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the Swanky honey bun at the shop but I think this one will be great – softer but very pretty.
Melinda
