Beginning Machine Piecing Last Classes

Bill was in the hospital for six days but is home now and making slow progress.  I am back teaching – we had the last classes yesterday.  There were wonderful quilts in various stages of completeness.

Here are some of the photos I took.

Melinda

Away for a Few Days

My husband is in the hospital so I will probably not post for a few days. Send good wishes our way please. 

Melinda

Away for a Few Days

My husband is in the hospital so I will probably not post for a few days. Send good wishes our way please. 

Melinda

Turned on Point

I was able to work on my lattice patch quilt a little yesterday. It now has the inner border on it and is patiently waiting for the outer border. Hopefully today.

Off to more doctor appointments and tests.  Hopefully we are on the way to a diagnosis. 

Melinda

Design Wall Monday–February 24, 2014

Today on my design wall is a Lattice Patch quilt for Shop Hop.

After I sew the top row together and attach it to the quilt, I will cut it and turn it on point!  Such fun.

Here are a couple of photos of the mystery from last Saturday night.  They still need to be sewn together and borders added but they look pretty good. The first one is the red, white and blue option, followed by the Kaffe option.

Sue had a slight problem putting the blocks together so here is hers.

It is different but still looks good.

For more design walls, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Mystery Till Midnight

We are playing at the quilt shop until midnight. 

Melinda

On the Needles–February 21, 2014

My never-ending socks are on my needles today.

I did a few more rows on the ribbing while waiting at doctors’ offices.  Still have lots of yarn left so need to do a few more inches.

I would really like to get these finished – so much yarn, so little time.

For more yarn projects, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Beginning Machine Piecing

We have had to cancel our Wednesday beginning machine piecing class two weeks so far so it is now going to go well into March.  Hopefully we are not going to get more bad weather.

Here are some of the blocks from the morning class.

In the evening class I only have two students and one of them was sick.  Here is Dennis’ quilt so far.

He is adding one additional block to each row for a slightly larger quilt.  We are trying to decide on an extra row for him to make.  I suggested pinwheels.

I  have been working on a lattice patch quilt but don’t have photos of it yet.  I did complete 10 more bowties – numbers 321-330.

Melinda

Grow Your Blog Winner

While I was gone on my blog break, the deadline for choosing my winner was the 15th.  It is now the 20th and I am finally getting around to it.  Sorry for being late but the random number generator selected number 24.

Vicki H10:44 AM

My first quilt was in 1992 and a Log Cabin done in greens. I attended a class at the local Wal Mart taught by the fabric department manager. It was my first introduction to rotary cutting, quarter inch seams and a whole lot more. I hand quilted it and it currently resides on the bed in the spare bedroom.

I am sending her a message so she can send me her address.  This is what I am sending her.

I have been hoarding Authentic fabric but finally made a quilt top from it – my Swoon quilt.  It still needs a couple of borders on it but I will get it done sometime soon.  I hope Vicki enjoys this charm pack and five fat quarters.

Melinda

I am Back

I know I disappeared and haven’t posted for quite a while and am sorry if you were concerned about me – although I do appreciate the caring that has been expressed.  My husband has been ill for the past two months and we have spent the last two weeks on tests and doctor’s appointments.  We now think we know what is wrong and that it is something that may take a while to improve, but it should improve.  I hope to get back to real life now.

Let’s start with Hexie Club.  We had a meeting on Tuesday night.  We have decided to do Julia’s BOM so here are our January blocks.

                  

Mine has the green/yellow background.  Michele as a white background, Karen has blue.  Look up in the corner of Karen’s block – you will see Rosemarie's 1/4 inch snowflake.  I think the one on the bottom left belongs to Carolyn but it might be Susan’s.

Next are the Valentine/February blocks.

       

Rosemarie's little heart is up in the corner of my heart.

I finished the applique on the heart and have started the Snowflake – lots of applique on that one.  I am using little tiny applique pins and they make a lot of difference.  I starched the applique – a lot of starch and then took the papers out.  At that point I starched the back also.  It was easy to hand applique.  Michele is machine appliqueing hers and that looks great also.  It is fun to see how different each of our blocks are.  Can’t wait to see March – we are guessing a shamrock!

If you are interesting in joining the BOM, all the information is at The Hexie Blog.

Melinda

Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler - C9

We weren’t able to go anywhere yesterday and looks like the same today, at least until this afternoon.  Bill had a doctor appointment around noon and it has been cancelled.  Both of my classes were cancelled because the store was closed.

I did sew a little and got the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler BOM done.  This is block C-9

Hope to get some sewing done today.

Melinda

Snow in Atlanta

 

Here is out the front window yesterday afternoon.

And my poor little car in the driveway.

The front bushes with the bottle tree in the background.

Out the kitchen windows and the deck.

We are having a horrible time here in the Atlanta area.  The snow started around 10 am yesterday and ended in the early evening.  The interstates were packed from noon on and several schools had to keep the kids overnight.  75 is still blocked and people have been on the road since yesterday.  The Home Depots stayed open as shelters for anyone who could reach them.

My beginning machine piecing classes are cancelled for today and tonight and the store is closed.  Actually, pretty much everything is closed in the whole area.  We are just going to stay home and stay warm.  Hopefully it will get above freezing tomorrow and things will clear up.  We are not used to snow and ice.

Melinda

Hexie Snowflakes

Rose Marie made two hexie snowflakes for the BOM. The first one is using 3/4 inch and the little one is made with 1/4 inch hexies. 

Design Wall Monday–January 27, 2014

Still on my design wall is my Smokey Mountain Stars.  I need to figure out how it goes together.  I believe the rows on the bottom, along with some others are the top left side.  It would have been nice if I had made notes when I stopped so I have some idea of how it goes together.  I did print out the EQ7 drawing so hopefully that will help.

For more exciting design walls, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Stash Report–Week 4, 2014

Simple stash report this week.  Nothing used and nothing added.

Used this week:                             0 yards

Used  year to date:                        15.5 yards

Added this week:                         0 yards

Added year to date:                       30 yards

Net used for 2014:                       -14.5 yards

Perhaps I can finish something this week.

For more stash reports, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Grow Your Blog

I found out about this blog hop a couple of weeks ago so decided to join in.  I have been blogging for since 2006.  Sometimes I have been more diligent than other times but I do enjoy it.  I use my blog for keeping track of my projects and especially my students projects. 

I have found that if I skip a few days, someone always asks if I am OK so I try to post most days. 

I belong to three guilds - East Cobb Quilters' Guild, Allatoona Quilters' Guild, and the Atlanta Modern Quilters Guild.  I am a longarm quilter and work at the local quilt shop in Marietta, GA.  I love teaching quilting, especially enjoy working with beginners.

I am having a giveaway with this blog hop. Please leave a comment and tell me about the first quilt you finished. Here is my story.

In the early 90's I lived near Sydney, Australia and decided to learn to quilt. I took a class and it was miserable. Fortunately I immediately took another class at a different shop and made a quilt-as-you-go log cabin which lives in Sweden with my son and his family.  I learned to quilt in spite of my original teacher. 

Leave your story and I will pick a winner on Feb. 15. The winner will get a fabric package to be decided from me.  

Looking forward to learning about your first quilts..

Melinda

Retreat at Amicacola Falls

We got here yesterday and started getting everything set up. Here is the room when we arrived.

Here it is when we finished for the night.

Here is is with 50 women hard at work. 

Lot of fun ahead.

Melinda

Beginning Machine Piecing Class 3

We had a great time in class yesterday.  Here is the homework and work in class from the morning group.

The evening people made these.

I am really liking the fabric combinations and they are doing good work.  Next week we are making double four patches so that should be fun also.

We are headed to the north Georgia mountains for the Tiny Stitches retreat today.  Lots of things to do tonight to get ready for all the retreaters tomorrow morning.  Debbie Caffrey will be arriving around noon and once she arrives at the shop, thanks to Caroline picking her up, we will start the drive up to the mountains.

More from the retreat tomorrow.

Melinda

Hexie Club

We had a great time at Hexie club last night.  We played with 1/4” hexies but most of us decided they were just too small.  Rosemarie finished a flower – she was the only one.  Here is the hexie flower.

Here it is with a flower made from l inch hexies.

Rosemarie also brought her little bowl we made a couple of months ago.  Here is the inside.

and the outside.

We all decided to work on the Hexie BOM that Julia has on The Hexie Blog.  Next month we are going to play with tumbling blocks and share our BOM progress.

Off to beginner class.

Melinda

The Hexie Blog–BOM

We have Hexie Club tonight and I plan to introduce them to Julia’s BOM on The Hexie Blog.  The January block is a snowflake and I put mine together over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun but now I need to decide on the background.  I am going to applique the snowflake when I decide.  Here are two possibilities.

White background (Kona).

Or a light green (batik)

What do you think?  I am leaning towards the batik but since I don’t know what the other colors will be, perhaps the white would be more sensible.

Melinda

Design Wall Monday–January 20, 2014

Lots of stuff on my design wall today.  I pulled out another quilt that I started a couple of years ago in the Allatoona Guild and put part of it up on the design wall.  The pattern is Bonnie Hunter’s Smokey Mountain Stars but I have confused myself and am not sure how big I intended it to be.  I have one larger section almost put together and several rows here.  Then there are lots and lots of small blocks that have to be laid out.

I also finished two more blocks for the BOM quilt.  I guess I need to press them better.

These are blocks 30 and 31 of 50.

The new SBS block for the week is A2 and I had already made that one.  Here it is.

With all this sewing, I made 10 more bowtie blocks.

These are numbers 301-310.  Not sure how many I need but I guess it will be time to figure it out sometime soon.

For more design walls, go to Patchwork Times here.

Melinda

Stash Report–Week 3, 2014

I added more to my stash this week but there are plans for most of it.  I bought 9 yards for the scrappy trips backing, my monthly Kaffe half yards came so that is 3 more yards and I brought home 8 yards for a shop hop project.  On the good side, I finished the scrappy trips top so that used 10.5 yards.

Used this week:                             10.5 yards

Used  year to date:                        15.5 yards

Added this week:                          20 yards

Added year to date:                       30 yards

Net used for 2014:                        -14.5 yards

For more stash reports, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Back to 2012

In 2012 we had a wonderful BOM at Allatoona that was 50 6-inch blocks.  As I started making Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler blocks again, I remembered these polka dot blocks.  I counted and I had made 27 of the 50 blocks so I decided to keep up with the SBS blocks every week but I am taking a detour and am going to finish up this old BOM.  I am using Kona White as a background and only polka dots for the colors.  Here is the 28th block.

Melinda

On The Needles–January 17, 2014

My socks are still on my needles.  I haven’t had much time to knit this last week.

Actually, this is the photo from last week -  I have added a few more ribbing rows since then.

For more knitting fun, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Beginning Machine Piecing

Here is the sample quilt for my Beginning Machine Piecing class.  I thought it would be interesting to post it so you know what the students are making.

Here is the morning blocks that were made yesterday.

And the evening blocks.

Great progress being made.

Melinda

BOM Day at Allatoona

We started the mystery quilt BOM at guild yesterday.  Since it is a mystery quilt, I can’t show photos of the quilts (not that there are any at this time) but I can show all the participants hard at work.  The first month is mostly cutting, cutting and more cutting so everyone was quite busy.

It was really fun to see all the different fabric that people chose to make this quilt from.

Off to teach my beginners.

Melinda

Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler

Now that my Scrappy Trips is on the to be quilted pile (or perhaps it should be named mountain), I decided to start working on my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler again.  I made about 15 blocks in 2007 and it has been sitting since then waiting for it’s turn.  I decided to do the BOW for the Yahoo Group and work on a couple more each week.

Last week was this one for the BOW.

The one assigned this week is this one that I had already made.

I also finished two others.  This first one is made from scraps from my NYD quilt.

I am using Southern Belle, a wonderful white for the background of all the blocks and scraps of batiks for the rest.  Most of the batiks come out of the scrap basket at the shop.

I am also getting organized to work on a Mystery Quilt at the Allatoona Guild which starts today as well as Bonnie Hunter’s Celtic Solstice.

Too many quilts – not enough time.

Melinda