Design Wall Monday–November 15, 2010

Well, finally something new on my design wall.

This is what I have done so far with the string blocks we exchanged earlier this year at Piecemakers. Here are what the blocks looked like before I started cutting them up.

We were each able to request a primary color for our blocks and these are what were made for me in June.  At our holiday meeting early next month, we are supposed to show a quilt made from the exchange.  I must admit that I have never gotten mine done but hope to this time.

This will be a small quilt/table runner that I will probably hang on the front door when finished.  For more design walls, go to Judy’s blog and check them out.

Melinda

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday.  I worked yesterday and look what was delivered in the afternoon.

These were from Maetha and the staff at Tiny Stitches.

I received a box from my sister Robin on Friday but didn’t open it until this morning after we went out for breakfast. Inside were three wonderful gifts.

Look at the large tower of Moda fabric.  It even includes cute chickens.  I received an elephant pincushion and a great little green wrist pincushion.  I haven’t bee using my wrist pincushion recently and now remember how much I like wearing one.

I usually work every Sunday but my friend Barb volunteered to work for me today so I have a whole day off to just putter around and enjoy being home with the doggies and Bill.  We do plan on going out to dinner tonight but just to O’Charley’s.  It will be fun.  I might even bake myself a cake!

Melinda

Purse Class

The monthly purse class was Thursday night.  We had seven people working on various purses and two Letty Bags were finished.

First is Carolyn’s bag.

This one belongs to Mary.

As long as I am show Letty’s bags, here is a couple of ones that customers have brought to the shop to show us.

I need go make a couple of them soon.  I want to use some of my oil cloth for one of them.

Love this purse and pattern.

Melinda

Raffle Quilt Progress

We finished putting the center of the raffle quilt yesterday.  It is beyond beautiful.

After it was put together, there were a few minor repairs that needed to be made.  Here is some of it in progress.

Now to make a final decision about the borders.

Melinda

Magical Slice and Dice

Last night was the first of two Magical Slice and Dice classes.  We layered the fabrics, cut the squares and started making the four patches.  Here are the first blocks on the design wall.

Look at the upper row.  The second from the left block and the right hand block look alike so Lisa is going to take one of them apart and rearrange the four parts to make a different look.

The bottom blocks belong to Carolyn.  It is going to be a beautiful quilt.  The next class will be in early December where we should be able to finish the quilt tops.

Melinda

ECQG Raffle Quilt–Dear Hannah

Brenda Papadakis of Dear Jane fame graciously gave her permission for us to use her Dear Hannah quilt patterns for our 2011 Raffle Quilt.  We will hold the drawing for the quilt at our quilt show in 2011.  We bought the Electric Quilt DVD of the patterns, as well as the book.  I used the DVD to blow up the pattern from the original 4 1/2 inch to 6 inch blocks.  I printed a color copy of each block, along with a line drawing and set up a notebook to turn over to the raffle quilt chair.

Carol then selected the fabric to use in the quilt.  The background is Kona black and there is an assortment of bright colors for the piecing and applique.  There are 143 blocks and she passed them out a couple of months ago.  We received all but one back.  Thankfully Carol had made a couple of extra blocks and brought them to the sew-in yesterday.

Since there are so many blocks, we worked on the top eight rows of the quilt and got that much put together yesterday.  This first photo is of the blocks on the design wall in the order of the original quilt.  We moved them quite a bit to get the colors spread throughout the quilt.

We then added a bottom and left side sashing to each block except the first block in each row.  We cut the sashing at 2 inches instead of 1 1/2.  After pressing the blocks, we cut each to 7 1/2, including sashing.  This allowed us to accommodate the slightly different sized blocks you always get from a group project.

By the end of the day, here is the top of the quilt.

Don’t the blocks look much better with the sashing?

Tomorrow is another sew-in and hopefully we will finish the top enough to sew on borders.

Melinda

Saturday Sampler Reveal

Here is the Saturday Sampler quilt hanging in the shop.

Here is the black version of the quilt.  Barb made this one.

For the finishing of the quilts, the customer can select either the on point or straight set in either color.  The on point version is a little larger than the straight set.

There is one more version that Terry made.

Now on to cutting kits for next month.

Melinda

Design Wall Monday–November 8, 2010

I finally have something new on my design wall but the photo is sort of fuzzy.  Sorry about that.

These are test blocks for a new Saturday Sampler series.  The ones on the left have black and white or white and black polka dot backgrounds and bright scrappy houses with green grass.  The ones on the left are the same blocks but done in black Kona Cotton and a single tone on tone.  They have an Amish look to them.

If we decide to use these, I will need to remake them in the actual fabric we are going to use.  I like them so far.

For more design walls, go to Judy’s blog here.

Melinda

Baltimore Bunnies–Customer Quilt

I delivered this quilt yesterday – she was pleased with it.  Warning – lots of photos.

Didn’t she do a wonderful job on the applique!  It was a pleasure to quilt this.

Melinda

Saturday Sampler Finish

We are going to show the finished Saturday Sampler quilts today so that people can select the type of finishing kit they want to order.  Barb did one with a straight set and mine is on point.  Here is a preview.

It is just the back of the quilt but it show the quilting pretty well.

After we unveil it today I will post some photos.

Melinda

Birthday Fat Quarters

At the Allatoona guild we have a birthday club.  How it works is that each member decides on a fabric that they would like for their birthday.  In December we get a list of all the birthdays for the year, along with fabric preferences.  Each month we bring in the fat quarters for the month’s birthdays and a basket is put together for each birthday person.  My birthday is in November so I have been waiting all year to get my birthday basket.  My choice of fabrics this year was bright dots.  Last year, I got black and white and the previous year I choose lime green – surprise!

Here is what I received on Tuesday – lots of fun bright dots!

For next year, I am requesting yellow and/or orange.  I don’t have enough of either color in my stash.

Melinda

Evening Beginning Machine Piecing Class

Another great class last night.  Here is their homework – stars.

Again, they made flying geese with no problems.  Here are the results.

Off to the quilt shop to work today – will be back later.

Melinda

Beginning Machine Piecing–Morning Class

Great class again this morning.  Here are the friendship stars that they made last week and for their homework.

Today’s lesson was on flying geese and they did so well.  They all got at least two blocks finished and some of them actually got all three done.

We take a break next week and then will meet to put the quilt tops together in two weeks.  I can hardly wait!

Melinda

My Talented Sister–Robin

I have talked about my sister Robin before but as I was working at Tiny Stitches on the weekend, I realized that we have three quilts made from her patterns displayed.  I made each of them and thought I would show you them.  I have posted each of them previously, but not all together.  The first one is my Halloween quilt made from the Wacky Devine Nine pattern.

I taught this quilt a couple of weeks ago and almost everyone who makes it, makes several.  Here are a couple more from the class.

Next is a Five, Ten, Twenty Christmas quilt.

This one is made from 10 half yards of a Moda Christmas line.  Last is the Magnolia Lane that I made last summer in Las Vegas.

Check out Robin’s website for more patterns.

Melinda

Design Wall Monday–November 1, 2010

No change on my design wall today.  Actually there is nothing on it so I am showing my design floor from last week.

I have a busy week with customer quilts but hope to get this put together this week.

Go to Judy’s blog to see other design walls.

Melinda

Friends Swap Received

I got my Friends package yesterday from Melissa and didn’t actually open it until this morning.  What a great package.  Here it is before I opened up the packages.

and here are the wonderful things in the packages.

I got a water bottle with Crystal Lite packages to put in it, a small journal with graph paper – great to carry in my purse for quick sketches of quilt ideas.  Chocolate covered edamame, green note cards, a green mug with Chai tea to have in it, sea salt chocolate and dark chocolate Chex mix.  Lots of yummy things.  The best is the small quilt/mug rug she made for me.  I love it!

I forgot to take photos of what I sent her but hopefully she will post about it on her blog and I can share with you then.

Melinda

Almost Halloween

Here is my favorite quilt from the Allatoona Guild’s Halloween challenge.  It was made by Lisa and is wonderful!

There is so much to see in this small quilt.

Off to the quilt shop for a busy Saturday!

Melinda

Blogger’s Quilt Festival

Here is my entry for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  It is a quilt that I designed to each this summer in Las Vegas.  It is a variation of a disappearing nine patch.  I used five inch squares to make nine patches and then slashed them, added sashing and sewed them back together.  If  you look closely, the sashing weaves across the quilt.  After quilting, I used leftover strips of the sashing to make a colorful scrappy binding.

I really enjoyed making this quilt.  In Las Vegas, I taught a group of 35 people how to make it.  I learned a lot from that experience about trying to write a pattern that is understood by a lot of people with different levels of experience.  The most difficult part of this quilt is to make sure you follow the pressing directions so that the blocks easily go together and that was the hardest part to communicate.

Don’t forget to check out all the other quilts here.

Melinda

Evening Beginning Machine Piecing Class

We had quite a weather day here in the Atlanta area yesterday.  It rained lots of times but not long each time.  Of course, it was raining at the beginning of each class.

Here is the homework done by the evening class.

For last night we first worked on Square Dance blocks.

Then we moved on to friendship stars.

Lots of good work was done yesterday.

Melinda