January 2016 Workshop

We had a great workshop on January 23rd.  Two very large projects are off and running.  The first one is the  4-H T-Shirt project.  There was a mountain of T-Shirts leftover from events with the 4-H Club.  Brand new ... they musn't go to waste.  So, our club is making T-Shirt quilts.  Some will be raffled for fundraisers and some will be comfort quilts.

We got a great start on this project.  Here is Stephanie organizing the beginnings of the  T-Shirt Sweatshop.  Look at all the supplies she brought.

Here is Lesa  hard at work sashing up the t-shirt panels.

and here is Lesa planning the layout and preparing the shirt panels.

Here is Margaret.  She looks like she's running out on us, but actually she spent alot of time preparing the shirts, making plans and probably went home with a batch to sew together.

and here is Dee.  She's experienced with making T-Shirt quilts.  Her table is stacked with a project also.

There is not a photo of me,  thank you very much.  (g)  I spent my time collecting ideas from the girls and planning the beginning of our Bicentennial Quilt.  I got the background panels prepared with fusible interfacing . I brought them home to section them off for townships.  I must also get the hand embroidery traced on each one.  Then I can start planning the center panel.  I also came home with 3 childrens quilt tops to quilt up.   I am a magnet, I always bring home work from these workshops.

Alice also stopped in for a visit and spent some quality time with us.  We had a most productive day!

January 2016 Meeting

Greetings quilting friends.  We passed up our meeting for December in lieu of a Christmas party at Stephanie's home.  We had good food and a good time.

January's meeting entailed lots of decisions about club activities for the new year.  Stephanie was presented with a stash of T-Shirts from the 4H Club.  We are using them to make T-Shirt quilts for fundraisers and donation.  This is our project for the January 23rd sew day.  All supplies are provided, just bring your cutting tools, sewing machine and caring energy.

Here is Stephanie demonstrating the process to prepare the shirts for quilting.......

Here is an awesome and very personal T-Shirt quilt that Stephanie made for her Father.  He was a very dedicated baseball player.  It is unique in design and very special.

Now on to our mission of charity comfort quilts................

These two quilts were made by our Alice.  The yellow one  is for donation and one is for a family member ........

Here is another fine batch made by our Joyce D.  These will go to the local hospital children's ward.

Here is a large lap quilt, 60 x 71.  The log cabin blocks were orphans donated to the club.  I surrounded them with a dark brown so the blocks would shine.  I'm pretty sure I had help constructing the blocks  from quilting friends at one of our sew days last year. I finished it up with simple quilting and binding.

This is another quilt made from donated orphan blocks.  We decided to use the entire batch which is why it's queen size -- 81 x 97.  It will be saved for a very special purpose.  Lesa S. helped sew the blocks with me.  I finished it up with quilting and binding.

That's it for now.  I hope to see you all at the sew day this Saturday.  We will have plans for the Bicentennial quilt project going on too, so please stop by for an update, even if you can't stay the day. Bring your lunch and share some social time at noon.

November 2015 Meeting

Here's a review of our November meeting.  We grew by 2 new members.  Welcome Margaret and Teresia!

We covered plans for our Christmas Party.  We covered details of our upcoming Christmas charity projects......  and  we discussed the beginnings of some new projects for 2016 whereby our club might be recognized in history in a small way.

Now on to the show.   Click on any photo for a close-up view.


We were so blessed to have Arlene at our meeting.  Here she is displaying a quilt of many flower pots.  There was alot of fussy cutting involved in making this quilt.  Dee is holding up the right end and Lesa is studying the design.

Arlene used up her fabric collection of large flowers by putting this top together.  Arlene makes very large quilts and her designs and fabric choices are always exceptionally appealing.  Some folks just have a natural calling.

These comfort quilts are being donated to The Salvation Army for their Gift of Warmth mission.

This mountain of comfort quilts was made by Joyce.  These will go to our local hospital children's ward.

Here is Karlita and Susy.  Look at those radiant smiles - picture perfect!  Karlita is showing off her chatelaine.

Here's Lesa showing her wild and stringy quilt.  It's also for donation and I know the kids will love those bright colors.  Stephanie is looking on -  she presided over our meeting.

and here is Lesa's other wild and crazy quilt - also a donation for the kids.  I missed getting photos of the backs of these quilts - Lesa was practicing some very serious free motion quilting.    Here also is Dee with a hand on her hip - probably thinking  "humm!  I can do that too!"

Shirley made this fun whimsical quilt.  She calls it  "Ooops".

Kat S. showed off her hand-embroidered Christmas wreath, finally finished just in time for the holidays.  She also had a few doggie stockings and a Winter Scene W.H. to show (no photos).

Our group has been making ornaments for this year's mission for Pathfinders and our sponsored tree at the Forks of the Wabash.  We will finish them up on Saturday, at our sew-day workshop.  Here are some pics of the collection so far....................

Thanks for visiting your clubhouse.  I hope you see you at the next workshop.

October 2015 Meeting

Oh dear.  It's October, it's Fall and life just got alot busier. Christmas and parties and fairs and charity programs, so much to prepare for.

Our meeting began with a delightful program presented by Sherry Gorrell, currently of Ohio.  We enjoyed a lovely trunk show and heard many stories about the quilts.

Sherry told us how she came to be a member of her quilt club in Ohio. The club was restricted to 40 members and so she was put on a waiting list.  When she finally got into the club, she was befriended by a member named Betty.  They formed a great bond.  Eventually Betty moved on to a nursing home and gifted Sherry with her stash of fabrics, scraps, blocks and tops.  Since then, Sherry has made it her mission to turn Betty's stash into quilts and gift them out.

She said this quilt was made  from 9 - patches.

I forget the name of this pattern, but doesn't it make a lovely quilt.

This quilt evolved from large 4-patch sampler squares.  Sherry signed up for a class one time, the class ended up being cancelled and she was 'put'  into a  "free motion quilting"  class.  Each block was used as a sampler for specific FMQ designs.  It was her beginner sampler.  You will see on the back that she poo poo'd  the  'beginner' title.  The quilting was spectacular to us.

and here is the back which shows all the quilting

This is another quilt using scraps from Betty.  This is a card trick quilt.  Sherry hand quilted this quilt.  It is truly amazing!

This is a pansies quilt.  I think Sherry said it was her very first quilt. She also said she was not fond of purple, and quickly gave the quilt away once it was finished.  She also hand quilted this one.

One day she set out to use up all the flannels in the bunch, and so this quilt was made.

This is a scrappy bricks pattern.  She said the fabrics on their own were quite ugly,  but when all put together, makes an appealing quilt.

This little project was an experiment with unfamiliar textiles and paints and textures and methods.  She turned it into this floral wall hanging.

Sherry presented several more useful items made from smaller pieces of fabrics.  She also showed many examples of items made for charity drives.  Finally, she passed around a basket of goodies to share with our club.

What an enjoyable meeting time we had!




Was our only show and tell from Kat S.  (me) ??  .... some christmas stockings for family.

and here's some more ...... there are 12 stockings all together.  Only 5 doggie stockings to do now.

CHARITY COMFORT QUILTS

some quilts by Joyce D

2 quilts from Suzanne B.

and some quilts by other club members

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Monday, OCT 12th,  charity sew/craft day open to club, church & friends, bring a project or Stephanie will provide supplies for sewing and yarns for knitting and crochet.  There's little jobs to do also in case you don't want to bring a sewing machine.
• Saturday, OCT 24th, club sew day; a good time to work on ornaments and/or charity quilts.

GROUP PROJECT COMMITMENTS

• 3 christmas tree ornaments (any theme) for Altrusa party
• 3 christmas tree ornaments - ** theme:  quilt blocks,  make 3" or 4" ornaments with a quilting theme
• Secret Santa.... $8.00 max - can be handmade, purchased, or both,  (for those who missed October's meeting and signed up for the secret santa program, the remaining names were drawn for you by Pres. Jen.

I think we had a great meeting.  I hope to see alot of members at our Oct 12th sew day.

September 2015 Sew Day

We enjoyed a great sew day of fellowship and creativity (and chocolate) on Saturday, Sept. 19th.

I chose to work on a club charity quilt. I get crazy when planning a quilt top that works with orphan blocks.  Our club inherited a collection of orphan blocks. I am often encouraged to create something with them.  These log cabin blocks are full of flower prints.  I decided to surround them with a dark, solid setting.  I do hope it is not overkill.  Here is my great assistant, Susie S. helping to put it together.

and here is the W.I.P., it will be a very large lap quilt. I am pretty sure there are enough of these log cabin blocks for 2 more quilts.

Here's Alice straining her back while pin basting  her vintage UFO.  She said she won the block lotto from the club a long time ago.  I expect some of you will recognize your block in this pic.  It's going to be a beautiful quilt.

Here's Jean S. working on little dresdens which will become turkeys for a holiday quilt. I hope she remembers to show it off at club when it's finished.

Here's Lesa S. hard at work.  She made several small items that day and offered lots of encouragement.

and here's Val.  She's cutting her pieces from a kit so interpreting instructions and accuracy is most important.  Good luck, Val.  Can't wait to see this top too.

We had a great day and accomplished much.  I got to bring home another project to work on.  (Thanks, Steph!).

September 2015 Meeting

After taking care of business, we had the monthly prize drawing.  This month, our President Jen had 2 prizes to gift.  (If you are wearing your name nag, your name goes into the bucket for a prize drawing).

One of the prizes was this awesome wooden quilt rack.  It was very wide to accommodate those lovely queen quilts.  Mary D. won this prize.

The other prize was a tote bag filled with batting!  Dee won this.   Now,  I had to include the entire photo this time, as I couldn't resist showing you  all the faces here of our happy, happy quilters !  Hilarious!!  Aren't we a grateful looking group. (Oh I goofed and cropped off most of the sour-looking faces)!  You should have seen the original .............. gone now.  But Dee looks tickled for her win.  LOL

President Jen concluded our 4-part color lesson sharing books explaining how color placement, fabric scale, etc. can make blocks look totally different.  Plus, she brought these quilts to show how color tones, hues and scale can affect the quilt's appearance.

Kat S led the program demo with her rendition of the microwave hot pad bowls, just in time for holiday giving.

Kathy B and Stephanie also had a project handout for the paint-chip challenge.  Most of the club is willing to participate.  The project reveal will be February 2016.

Show and Tell

I think this wonderful childs quilt was made by Jan B.  I can't say I recognize the neck.  I'm so sorry I missed the full head shot.  I did not claim to be an above average photographer when I applied for the job.

Here are 2 wonderful child quilts made by Malinda T.  She says these blocks were hanging around for a long time and finally got to finishing them.

This quilt was made by another Jen M. of the club.  She said it was made for a dear friend and will be gifted very soon.

This lovely quilt was made by Shirley.  It is the disappearing 4-patch pattern.  These fabrics play so nice together.  It must have been a joy to make.

Comfort Charity Quilts

This quilt was made by Jan M., with fabrics to delight a young adult.  She is donating it for our charity programs.

Saved the best for last, another bundle of quilts for our hospital children's ward,  made by our dedicated Joyce D.

Next Thursday, Sept. 10th, is a charity sew day at the church - open to everyone.  Please come, and bring your sewing friends.  All fabrics and thread provided, just bring your machine and some cutting tools, pins.  Lots of helping hands make fast finishes.

Finally, Saturday, Sept. 19th is our quilt club sew day.  Please come and bring your own project to work on.

The year gets busier as the months fly by and the merry-go-round keeps rolling along.