Quilt Therapy, March 2017

March 2017 at Bobbie's House

We met at Bobbie's house and all were in attendance except Sandy who has a heavy course load this term.  Hopefully, we will see her next month.  We meet at Deanna's next month and in May at Betsy's.

Bobbie and Barbara were eager to show us their progress on their quilts inspired by Joan Mitchell paintings.  They each do parts of the painting, then merge the parts together to make the whole quilt.

Here is the first one and Bobbie is holding an image of the painting which inspired the quilt.

And here is the second work:

And the third.

There are more to be done with the goal of having them in a show in New York, perhaps.

Betsy continues to get distracted in the cleaning up of her studio space by finding things that she has to stop and make into quilts.  A precut packet of blue strips and white strips inspired a single Irish Chain quilt for her to use as a summer quilt.

And there were still scraps left from the last attempt to use up the Cherrywood Hand Dyes Scrap bags, so a second quilt was made.   Binding is on one side and the second side ready to be sewn down.   This one is reversible.  Here is the front.

And here is the back.

For hand piecing, Betsy started another hexi quilt with precuts found during the cleaning process.  We discussed how best to set this piece and the suggestion of having it on a background of a dotted fabric seems like a winner.

Arleen showed us the "fashionista" pieces she made in Kathryn Pellman's class at EBHQ.

And in true Arleen style, she is making a French braid style quilt.  There are about three more rows to add, but here is the progress so far.

 Mary is back from Cuba.  She has finished the quilting on this next baby quilt and used a lovely green for the binding.

Here is a quilting detail. She uses contact paper as a template to quilt around.

Marty brought her flower with a request for suggestions on how to quilt the background.  Frustration with her new sewing machine is making it difficult for her to want to tackle this next part.

Her intent is to have the top resemble rain and the bottom be floral in nature per the suggestion of the fabric she chose.

She also took the Kathryn Pellman class and her is her piece.  That's Marty gardening in her yard.  Love the shoes.

At a Christmas gathering a couple of years ago, Marty got a packet of fabric.  She has now crafted that packet into a marvelous modern style quilt.  With two types of gray polka dots, the quilt shines. 

 

The squares within squares are almost an optical illusion.

Deanna is still semi-retired, but learning to take more blocks of time off.  Here is her rooster with the most marvelous striped legs.

The background is shirting materials and includes pieces from one of her son's shirts that the dry cleaner had put a hole in.

 Rescued from a donation made at drop-in, Joan is putting together a set of Dresden style circles into a quilt top.  She has successfully found a fabric with the right color to use for sashing (at that great new quilt store, Bay Quilts).

Joan has been busy English Paper Piecing with fabric her daughter brought to her.  With a marvelous border fabric the "fell out of her closet" and was purchased in Hawaii, the top is now ready to be quilted.

And she has quilted the jelly roll quilt she showed us a few months ago by quilting from the back following the lines on the backing fabric.

Here is the quilting on the back:

And Mindy has gone bonkers for English Paper Piecing, She is now entertaining the idea of going  going even smaller than we thought possible.

Here is a close up of a smaller piece.  Note that container of so many hexis in waiting.

Mindy is also doing Mindy type needlework on these pieces she found in her studio from years ago.  Tiny stitches.

Arleen brought a Tile Quilt pattern and fabric and requested our help in making a block each as part of the gift to give Joan as outgoing President.  She did a brief demo showing where to join pieces and where the partial seams occur.  The directions also give the complete info.