Little Quilts Blog: Parade of Quilts!!!

Little Quilts Blog: Parade of Quilts!!!

Here is the latest post from "Little Quilts".  I realize I don't have a picture of Julie's
Saturday Sampler.  I will ask her to send me one and post it later.
Judy

Here is Julie's sampler from 2013.  It will probably show up on the Little Quilts blog at some point.  I love her colors.  These are not Julie's usual choices, a little out of her box.  We all need that once in awhile, don't we?

Sewing in Atlanta

      Sewing with friends is always fun, but when it involves travel, new experiences and new quilt shops, it doesn't get much better.  You may remember that I hosted a sew- in in Florida last winter.  This winter, Julie took a turn at hostess and had the group come to her new house in Atlanta.  Sandy and I drove, while everyone else flew in.  Lola came from Tucson, Janie from northern Colorado and Teri from Mississippi.  We converged on Julie on Thursday and Friday. spending the week-end.  Sandy and I drove home on Monday and Lola, Janie and Teri left on Tuesday.  We had a great time with five machines running at full speed and everyone working on something different.  Teri was our novice and progressed so well that she left with a completed quilt top.  Here are some pictures:

The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY.  We stayed overnight,
so we could visit the museum and Hancock's.

No photos were allowed in the museum, so this was the best I could do.
The quilts were amazing!

Hancocks.   We did some damage here.

This is only one half of the store.

The next day we drove on to the Atlanta area.

After spending the night at Julie's, we took off to visit a quilt shop I have heard about for years, Little Quilts.  I have two of their books, which feature small quilts or doll quilts.  The shop was everything I thought it would be, and then some.

Here's Julie and I at the entrance.  She has done their Saturday Sampler for years.

After visiting Little Quilts, we went to "Tiny Stitches", another very nice shop.  Meanwhile, Lola, Janie and Teri are sitting in airports waiting on delayed flights.  I felt a little guilty, just a little.

Here is Julie's sewing room.  Those are built in shelves under the dormers.  Its a great space.

There were six of us sleeping in three bedrooms, so an air bed was sleeping space at night and served as our design wall during the day. 

Here is a fast, easy quilt.  Lola calls it "Disappearing Rail Fence" and brought the directions for it.

Here is Teri, our new quilter, carefully using her rotary cutter.

Janie working on her quilt.  At last count, she had made 45 blocks.

Lola was making a Kaffe Fassett quilt with his signature fabrics.

Lola

This is Sandy's project.  It is the KC Star's "Women of Influence", 

from a few years ago.  She had the blocks done, and added the setting blocks and triangle border during the sew-in.

This is the Disappearing Rail Fence in red, black and white with the blocks framed.  It doesn't even look like the same quilt, does it?  Julie made this one.

Here is what I was working on.  The blue border is the air mattress.  It will have a green and yellow border.

Here are two of Julie's recent quilts.  We had lots of show and tell.

This is made with a panel Julie bought in Stover, MO

Julie's friend, Laura, brought this over for show and tell.

It is a Kaffe Fassett design and she used 25 thrift shop dress shirts to make the blocks.  They are all stripes and yes, she matched the stripes.  Each block is four triangles.  It was spectacular!

Here is Teri's completed top.  Not too bad for a newbie.

Good job, Teri!

  

It wasn't all work and no play.  Julie cooked a great Italian Dinner (family recipe) and we didn't leave much of it for leftovers.

Here are the quilters, getting ready to attack those meatballs.

One last picture.  Here is the pincushion I made for everyone.  The pattern is on Kathleen Tracy's website.  Avoid it if you don't do tiny.

It was a great time with lots of inspiration.  Thanks, Julie. 

February Guild Meeting

    This was an enjoyable meeting, although they really all are enjoyable.  We have been working on Quilts of Valor as our charity project this year.  The January meeting was spent sorting blocks and beginning the putting together process and this meeting we were able to see the fruits of our labors.  Several members took blocks home to finish putting them together into tops.  Here are the results:

String Blocks

Half Log Cabins - I love the setting!

More String Blocks

And a sampler

All of the tops were taken home by someone to quilt and they will be donated to some local veterans.


Gina gave a program on Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesty. This was lots of fun and I can't wait to get some of these other projects done, so I can start one. Here is Gina's demo quilt:

Isn't it great?

 I hope to have it and my Split Nine Patch done by the time Bonnie comes to our guild in September 2015,  We are on her teaching schedule and the planning has already begun for a trunk show and workshop.  She will be teaching in three Missouri locations during that visit.  Keep checking in and I will be posting more details as they emerge.

Keep on stitchin'

Judy

And The Winner Is:

     The winner of the Kit for the vintage feed sack doll quilt is …..CYNTHIA!!!

Congratulations, Cynthia.  If you will email me privately at pickinstitchin@yahoo.com, I will make arrangements for getting the kit to you.  Enjoy.
    The sun is shining in Missouri today and our feline random number generator system preferred to play outside instead of inside, so we were a little late with our drawing.  Eventually, he came inside to clean the snow off his paws and take care of his responsibilities.

     My project this morning has been to type the directions for the mystery quilt class I will be teaching at Arrow Rock Quilt Camp this spring.  See www.arrowrockquiltcamp.com if you are interested in attending.  Spring in our historic village should not be missed.  

     I will try to post some pictures later of the fabric I have chosen for my demonstration quilt.  It is a huge leap out of the box for me.  For now, the directions are typed and on their way to Paula to be proofed, and I'm on the way to my sewing room to…

keep on stitchin'.

Judy

Finished!

    The Snow Globes quilt is finally finished.  I started it shortly after Thanksgiving to have some seasonal appliqué to do during the holiday season.  With all the interruptions of Christmas, moving the sewing room and some guild projects, it began to look like I would just put it away until next year.  But, finally, after pressing on, it is finished.  This was my first experience with a large quilt-as-you-go project, but it went pretty well.  The only real challenging part was putting on the outer border after it was quilted.  Here is what I learned about that:  make the border about an inch wider that you expect to use and then cut it down.  The quilting takes it up some and the layers shift, so they no longer line up.  When you are trying to get the sandwiched border into a quarter inch seam, you will miss some if they aren't even.  I might even machine baste those edges together next time.

Here it is.

Here's my favorite snow globe.

I need to report that the leaders and enders have won the battle in the sewing room.  My morning was spent making split nine-patch blocks and they now have their own project box for all the little squares and HST's. 

 Then they started begging to go play with the treadle machine.  After ignoring them as long as I could,  I picked up the project box and went upstairs to the treadle.  They were right, it was fun.

You still have until Sunday to leave a comment on "Ice and Snow" to enter the drawing for the vintage bow tie quilt kit giveaway.  Please include a way to reach you if you should win. 

Keep on stitchin' (and treadling),

Judy 

Bow Tie blocks

     Here is the short tutorial on the Stitch and Flip method of making these bow tie blocks.  Sure beats inset seams.  For each block, you will need (2) 2.5 inch white squares,  (2) 2.5 inch print squares and (2) 1.5 inch print squares.

For each block, draw a diagonal line across the 1.5 inch print squares, place, right sides together, in one corner of a white 2.5 inch white square and sew along the diagonal line.  

Trim away the corner, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

  

Flip it open and press.

Repeat with the other white square and arrange with the 2.5 inch print squares into the bow tie block. 

The blocks can be arranged several different ways.  Just play around with them.  

Here is a crib quilt done with charm squares and 2.5 inch squares on the corners.

Here is another arrangement in a baby quilt.  These were both charity quilts and really sewed up fast.

Its snowing in Missouri today, so I plan to bake some scones, then spend the rest of the day in the sewing room.   

Keep on stitchin'

Judy

Ice and Snow

    We had an ice storm this past week and a large snowstorm is in the forecast for tomorrow, so I am spending lots of time in my new sewing room.  The best part of that story is that I am making some progress on some UFO's.
     The little doll quilt which was pieced on the treadle has been hand quilted and bound and is ready for it's photo op.

The camera keeps wanting to give it a peachy cast, but it is definitely pink.  I cut the pieces for the little kit I promised, so leave a comment or click the follow button and I will enter your name for the giveaway.  I will put the directions in a separate post.

I shall use the feline random number generator again for our fair and objective drawing.  He is eagerly awaiting his photo op. 

My other finish is another Quilt of Valor, which our quilt guild is focusing on this winter.  We had a work night in January and there were seven orphan blocks, which were left from a guild project several years ago.  They found their way home with me.   I made two more blocks, sashed them, added the piano key border on top and bottom and bordered it.  Here it is.

     I am still working on the snow globe quilt, quilting the borders, but it should be ready for it's photo op soon. 

      I have been reading Bonnie Hunter's blog, http://quiltville.blogspot.com and was fascinated with her leaders and enders project, Split Nine Patch.  It uses 2 1/2in. squares and HST's.  Since my 2 1/2 in. bins are over flowing and I use fabric scraps for leaders and enders, I thought "why not?"  Little did I know it would be very addicting.   So I went from here:

To here:

Now you can see why I can't leave them alone.  They are now in competition with all of those other projects in my sewing room for priority status.  I keep telling them they are a bonus quilt, destined to be completed a couple of years from now, but they are clamoring to have their own project box and dedicated sewing time.  We'll see how this goes, they are being very persuasive.

   Enough for now, 

   Keep on stitching'

               Judy