June 2025

 The time is flying by so quickly and it is almost summer.  We met today at Joan’s house and the weather was perfect.  Deanna and Sandy were not able to come today and were missed.  I didn’t see Sandy’s message this morning and brought some batting for her and I wanted to show Deanna how she inspired me to make a16 patch block from flower fabrics.  Hopefully they’ll be able to make next months meeting.  This will be on July 1, 1:30 at Alice’s house.  She will send a reminder the week before with her address for those who forgot.  Marty agreed to host August and Mindy will host October.

Mindy and Bobbie

Bobbie was able to make the blocks for this king sized 95x95 quilt for her granddaughter.  Mindy was able to help her with the white blocks and sewed it together.  They plan to put on a 5 inch border and have it quilted at Hello Stitch. 

Mary

Mary had three quilts to show.  The first was the butterfly quilt which she finished quilting.  She got the butterfly pattern online and said if anyone wants it let her know.  The border is made with scraps to match the colors used in the butterflies. She quilted butterflies and did simple outline quilting.

The second project is the R E challenge quilt which was due today.  For this she REpurposed napkins to make an 18x18 quilt for the Alameda show.  She added some appliquéd flowers and outline quilted the motifs.  If anyone else finishes their quilt, Mary said she will drop it off for you by the deadline.

The third project is the horse quilt for her friends grandchild.  She saw the pattern from a Hello Stitch class and copied it. She used tracing paper to quilt on the horses and horseshoes.  She quilts right on the tracing paper.  Nice.

Arleen

I had three small baby quilts and a new project to show.  The first baby quilt uses Alice’s paper pieced block as the center.  I bought four jelly rolls from JoAnnes for 6 dollars each to make the three quilts.  It was fun and easy to see what you can do.  Surprisingly the fabrics were pretty good.

My new project uses old Japanese fabric that my friends father had and some flower fabric that I bought at a garage sale.  I layered the two fabrics on top of each other and freehand cut it into 16 pieces. Wonky and not precise at all.  I like the No pin and not so precise piecing.  I’m hoping to make a full size quilt.

Marty brought her block of the month which was a checkerboard pattern but she didn’t want to show it.  She gave me some fabric from Deanna (thank you) and a book to share.

Alice

Alice has been inspired to make medallion quilts with her blocks that she made during Covid.  Most of these blocks were 6 inches and she made so many birds and flowers and chickens.  The feet, eyes and wings were embroidered.  You can tell that she had a good time putting these together.    They came out so bright and cheerful. Beautiful.

Happy Birthday to Bobbie 90 years old.  To celebrate the day, Joan bought a special cake from Lavendar Bakery on Colusa.  She gave us each a huge slice and we sang birthday wishes to Bobby.   Thank you Joan for hosting this month.

May 2025

 Today we met at Mary’s house on a nice spring day.  Unfortunately Joan was not able to join us, but she will be hosting the next meeting at her house.  The meeting is on  June 3 at 130.  Mindy will bring the dessert.

Mary

Mary started us off with two quilts and plans for the third.  The first quilt has butterflies but I don’t remember if she said where she got the pattern.  She has been going to JoAnns every week and says the discounts are now 50 % off now.  A lot of the fabric in the next quilts are from JoAnns.

The second quilt is her crumbs quilt which is finally put together and ready for quilting.  She still has a lot of scraps and wants to start using it.

The horse fabric is going to be the focal fabric for the next project.  These are the fabrics that she has gathered to make the next baby quilt.  Nothing too bright or splashy but special.

Sandy has not been sewing this month but she brought some photos that she printed from Shutterfly of the Quiltcon Show.  She took over 200 photos and printed the ones she really liked and inspired her.

Bobbie is making a king sized quilt.  Since the blocks are on the design wall, I got a photo of it from Mindy.

Alice

Alice has a new quilt to show.  Frogs with felt eyes.  This is from a pattern she got from Etsy and is paper pieced.  She searched the internet to find the fabric using water and bubbles and came up with these wonderful fabrics.  The flowers in the middle came from her earlier project of 6 inch fpp flowers that seemed to really match the frogs. With Mary’s encouragement she made the back using all the fabrics and another frog.  It looks great.

Deanna

Since Deanna wasn’t here for the last meeting, she had a lot to share.  The first is her 16 patch of flower fabrics.  They are made from 2.5 inch strips of all the flower fabrics that she has saved.

The second quilt came from a layer cake of batiks.  The quilting is a simple stitch in the ditch.  The interesting thing about this quilt is the binding.  1 inch binding.  To get this you have to cut 4.5 inch strip of binding and be sure to leave about 5/8 inch batting.  She machine stitched the binding on.

The third quilt is a string quilt started from Marty’s 1.5 inch strips.  She used origami paper as the base and just started sewing the strips on.  The back came out really nice.

The last top is made from donated blocks from her Frisco quilters in Texas.  Apparently they had a whole box full of these blocks which everyone has been using to make quilts for donation.

Marty

Marty also had a lot of show and tell since she also missed last month.  The first are her block of the month for April which was Card Tricks and May which is an X block.  Since she is using black and white as the background and a pop of color for each month, hopefully she’ll be able to put them all together at the end.

12 x12 quilters graph pad is her design book that she found at JoAnns.  She is using it to graph out her blocks and is having a good time figuring out the blocks that she sees and wants to make.  I took a picture of the bird block that she is making. Nice.

The four patch of 3.5 inch blocks was put together with 6.5 inch blocks to make a simple but nice baby block.  She said it was easy.

The second quilt is made with 5 inch blocks from Betsy’s stash.  Simple and easy to make.

The third quilt is a disappearing 9 patch using white as the middle fabric.  Also very easy to make

The fourth quilt is titled Becky’s Quilt for the pattern she got from Becky Keck.  She saw Becky making this quilt at Bishops Ranch and copied the pattern.

Arleen

I had two quilts to share.  The first uses a lot of the fabrics that I have made in the dyeing workshops.  I pulled out all those little pieces of dyed fabrics that have been piling up.  I also got some hand dyed fabrics from the Tuesday drop in.  The backing is mostly Shibori pole wrapped fabric.

The second quilt came from fabric that Mary Benson put on the donation table.  It was a whole plastic bag of 7.5 inch stripped fabrics.  She must have been saving these for a long time and most of them were cut and ready to be sewed together.  I added some stripped men’s shirts to lighten the fabrics.  I added a 1.5 inch strip of blue to each row of strips to add a pop of color.

Mindy

Mindy is looking for true red fabric for her granddaughter Vannie.  She is making a doll quilt and has made the doll and has some fabrics.  She showed us her box of 3/4 inch hexagons.  She cuts the paper using cricut and the fabric with a scissors. So tiny.

Mary made a nice raisin cake with yogurt.  It was so nice to just sit around and talk about what everyone is doing.  Marty wants to go to the Ruth Asawa Exhibit at SF Moma, so let her know if you are interested to set up a time. I won’t be able to go, but I saw the article and it looks like a good exhibit.

April 2025

 Today we met on April Fools Day at Bobbie’s house.  The day started out stormy and windy but then cleared up and then drizzled then cleared up.  Luckily it was clear when we met at Bobbie’s house.  The brown door code wouldn’t work, but the garage door code was fine.  Unfortunately Marty, Alice, Sandy and Deanna were not able to join us.

Joan

 Joan started us off with two huge quilts. The first is the king sized quilt she is making for her son.  Most of the fabric came from her stash.  She sent it to Hello Stitch to have it quilted.  So far that makes 4 quilts for Greg.

The second quilt is called Sisyphus.  She paper pieced 16 point stars which she appliquéd on the green background.  Angie Woolman quilted this quilt. Nic.

Mary

Mary had one quilt and a story about another.  The first quilt was made for a friends 5 year old granddaughter.  She fussy cut flowers and used mostly purple fabric on the front and back.  She did her own quilting which came out very nice.

The story she had was of a quilt she made for Debra school auction.  She found out that Buffy Wicks won the auction and her quilt.

Mindy

Mindy has started three new projects.  The first is the start of red and white paper pieced hexagons which were so small.

The second project is a canvas that she has started to paint by numbers with acrylic paints. The company is canvasbynumbers.com.  She took a picture with Takeo, Jenna and Sarah and sent it to the company.  They printed it on canvas and supplied her with the acrylics.

She wasn’t going to participate in this years round robin, but when the modern robin was short by one person, she decided to join in the fun.  No pictures yet.

Arleen

I brought two quilts and a top.  The first quilt is the colorful stars surrounded by dark fabric.  This was given to Mindy who said she is going to keep it for herself.

The second quilt is the Hawaiian cotton polyester quilt made in the quilt block of the month.  This pattern is a shoo fly cut in a disappearing 4 patch.  Deanna found 21 fat quarters on the Wednesday drop in table and gave them to me. I went through my fabric and pulled out all my Hawaiian fabric.  The back is made up of my stash cut into 10 inch blocks.

The quilt top is similar to the first quilt, but the stars are the dark fabric and the surrounding is the colorful fabric.  This was a good chance to look through the fabric that I made in dyeing workshops.  Half of the fabric came from the donation table and half from my stash.  I still have to make the back which I’m going to make with my Shibori dyed fabric.  I’m so glad to finally use these fabrics.

Bobbie

Bobbie submitted her Pods quilt to Houston but hasn’t heard from them yet.  Her circuit board quilt has been quilted by Hello Stitch.  It’s coming together very nicely.

She has a new project that she is going to make for Samantha and John.  She decided to make the Junctions block.  She drafted the pattern and made the pieces in cardboard.  The block will finish at 24x14 with 6 across and 4 down.  They helped her by picking out some of the fabric in her stash that they liked.  Nice fabric. At first she thought the orange too bright, but we thought it would lighten it up.

Although our quilt friends were missing, the time flew by because everyone had a lot to share.  The SF Quilt Show, Social Security changes, Kaiser and OTC medicine, knees, cataracts, wills and …. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with our friends in our next meeting.  May 6 will be held at Mary’s house at 130.  We all enjoyed an apple pie and ice cream.  Yum. Thanks Bobbie for hosting.  I love going to your house.  I was able to stop by the JoAnns store.  I found two 14 inch pillow forms for Joan but they were only 20% off.  No batting except for the $199 roll which also has only 20% off.  4 left with no buyers.  They’re bringing in liquidation inventory, but all the thread and most of the quilting supplies are gone.