December 2023

 We met today at Bobbie’s house for our holiday potluck and gift exchange.  The meeting was changed from Mindy’s house due to a new grandson’s birth which has occupied Mindy’s full attention. Congratulations Grandma Mindy👵.  Great Grandma Bobbie was happy to have the festivities at her place with hopes to see her new great grandson soon.

The next meeting will be held at Joan’s house on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at 130.  This is.a week later than usual to allow for the Bishop Ranch meeting.  Deanna was not able to make it to this meeting and was missed.  

Mary

Mary started us off with her new baby blanket of penguins.  It is for a girl but she went with the blue and yellow fabrics because it went so well with the penguins.  They are nine patch blocks and penguin blocks that measure 6 inches.  She just arranged the blocks as she saw fit, added some extra blocks and it all came together quite well. Good job.

Sandy was next but did not bring anything to share.  She will be taking a dyeing class from Carol Soderlund and Sarah Nishiura next month so she’ll be busy next month.  I’m so impressed with the classes that she’s taking.

Marty

Marty told us of her Korea trip with Youngmin Lee and Japan trip with EBHQ members.  Her 23 day journey was long and tiring but full of adventure and discovering new things.  She learned a little bit of Korean bojagi, indigo dyeing, weaving, Korean embroidery, gift wrapping, making coasters or hanging bojagi and the importance of a good translator and tour guide.  Here are some of the things she made an indigo stenciled bag, 2 indigo silk scarves, 1 cotton indigo scarf, and a coaster.

Thank you for the gift of Korean chopsticks with holder from Koreancraft.com.

Mindy

Mindy showed her new grandsons stocking.  It is almost finished with just a few more details.  Her grandsons name is Takeo.

Arleen

Arleen got a new Sashiko Babylock sewing machine and has been experimenting with the stitch on baby blankets.  So far, I’ve noticed it doesn’t like Gutterman thread or Pellon 100 percent cotton batting.  It would skip stitches or get fussy and I would have to retread it.  The polyester thread from Superior Bob works okay, but I’m still trying out different battings.

I started a new quilt with the cut up 6.5 inch fabrics. I used scissors to cut out the triangle, so they are not perfect, which is what I like.

Bobbie has been working on her Pods quilt and asked us for help.  She asked that I don’t show the pictures, but it is fantastic.

Joan and Alice did not have anything to share but we were able to catch up.

The potluck as always turned out great with so many home made dishes, desserts, soda bread and Martinelli drinks.  Thank you Bobbie for hosting last minute.  Have a happy holiday and see you in the new year.

November 2023

 We met today at Alice’s purple house in Berkeley and were greeted by her purple poodle at the door.  Unfortunately Joan and Marty were not able to make it but we’ll hope to see them next month at Mindy’s house.  The December meeting will be on Saturday Dec 9 at 11:00.  The earlier time will be for the potluck lunch.  Deanna said she will be in Texas for December and won’t be able to make it, but everyone else should be there.

Sandy

Sandy started us off with her continuation of her inspiration photo of stripes.  She stopped by New Pieces the last time she was in town and found a lot of stripe fabrics.  She likes the Freeform way of the stripes and the colors.

Mary

Mary was inspired by the challenge to look through old projects.  She found a stack of old blocks that she put together with extra fabric to make this quilt.  I like the way she reimagined the original block to make a totally new design.

She finished the quilting on the Koala quilt.  She outlined the koalas to give it more definition and added more free motion quilting.

Mindy

Mindy showed us a picture on her phone that showed the Halloween decorations that she made for her friend that won a prize from the city.

She got her round robin quilt back and loves it. She loves the way the zigzag layer and the tumbling layers frame the middle and sets it off.

Alice

Alice has been busy this month taking care of her poodle.  She did have time to complete the 9 blocks needed for her puppy quilt for her daughter who is due in January.  She found the perfect fabric for her backing and sashing fabric.  She also showed her giraffe and zebra quilts that she made with paper piecing.

Arleen

Arleen has been busy taking a workshop with Uzoma Samuel and making baby quilts.  The workshop was a 1 day class at PIQF to collage a portrait quilt by using Roxanne’s glue.  Uzoma provided the portrait of a girl with a bun bun hairdo drawn on a canvas fabric.  We cut and glued small scraps of fabric to make the eyes, eyebrows, nose, etc.  when I got it home, I ended up free motion quilting the raw edges.

Since I had pulled out all my scraps for the workshop, I made 6 baby quilts.

Deanna

Deanna finished an old project that started off as a background for dragonflies and ended up as a baby quilt.  Pretty fabric with pretty dense quilting.  Se started off quilting each leaf and it turned out to be pretty dense which is good for a baby quilt.

The second quilt was also finished.  The freehand quilting was “By guess and by gosh”.  She has three to go motifs when quilting. A leaf, a daisy and a curly flower.

Bobble 

Bobbie made a new pattern for her next quilt.  She wants to make a bed sized quilt for her new apartment.

We ended with cheese puffs from Fat Apples and fresh fruit from Monterey Market.  Alice is so lucky to be so close to these two fabulous Berkeley stores.  It’s what makes living in the Bay Area so special.  Thank you everyone for a lovely meeting.

October 2023

 We met at Mary’s house today on a bright sunny day.  Joan and Bobbie were not able to make it, but everyone else came.  Arleen distributed the photo books to everyone and gave Joan’s and Bobbie’s to Mindy to give to them.  I made a book of Betsy’s quilts and Mary is going to check with her son to see if he wants it.  Deanna and I decided to get extra copies of books so if anyone else wants more copies of their books or anyone else’s please let me know.  The cost is $15 with the Costco discount but the covers are soft not hard.

Mindy

Mindy started us off with two stockings that she is making for Christmas.  She also showed a raw edge wool felt appliqué project that is looking very nice.  The last piece is the Round Robin quilt that she put the two borders on.  The top will be given to the owner this Saturday.

Marty

Marty showed us her gifts to Korean and Japanese hosts for omiage or friendship gifts. They were hand engraved silicon spoons and coasters.  Then she modeled a jacket made from an oversized sweatshirt that she copied from a 2002 pattern she saw in a gift shop. Very clever. The last is a children’s quilt which she just finished.  Carolyn was saying they are short of children’s quilts, so it will be well received.

Deanna

Deanna showed two quilts that she made from Tilda fabric.  She said you can go to Tildasworld.com to get the fabric which has a nice hand and look to it.  She cut them 7 inches, paired with a solid and sewed them on the diagonal to make half square triangles.

Arleen 

Arleen shared two quilts both from leftover of the Marcia Derse fabric. She was inspired by the round robin quilts that Mindy has been showing.

Mary

Mary showed her small black and white and one color quilt which can be used as a table topper.  Sorry I didn’t get the photo. She also added two strips on either side of the blue and orange quilt.  The koala quilt is the last in a series of children’s quilts with giraffes, llamas etc with 9 patch and 4 patch’s. Very cute and I’m sure the kids will love it.  She finished the quilting on the Blue and White quilt using paper templates made from plates. Very cleverly done.

Alice

Alice started off with the elephant quilt.  She was inspired to make diamond borders from Arleen’s quilt and drafted the diamonds on her own.  The purple and green colors look wonderful. 6 puppies are her next project.  I’m not sure if she said they were Tula Pinks fairy something fabric.  I love the colors and fabric choices.

Sandy 

Sandy saw this picture in a magazine and loved the design. She made the template of freezer paper. She is hoping to make it about four feet, but it is currently 32 inches, so she may be adding more to it, or not.

We discussed a challenge project and decided on something everyone has.  Look through all your unfinished projects and try to find one of the oldest and finish it.  That’s it.  Due date is May of next year.

Alice has agreed to host the November 8 meeting.  Her address is 1630 Buena in Berkeley.  We finished with a homemade carrot cake with tea.  Delicious and not too sweet.  Thank you everyone for a lovely meeting.  

September 2023

 We met today at Joan’s house on a beautiful sunny day.  Unfortunately Deanna, Sandy and Mindy were not able to make it and were sorely missed.  But we had a surprise visit from an old friend, Ellen Wong.  We were able to catch up with what she has been up to and hopefully she’ll be able to join us more often.  The next meeting will be held at Mary’s house on October 11 at 130.

Challenge Quilt

Marty asked us to bring our challenge card quilts.  With the addition of Deanna’s, that will make 4 quilts

Mary

Mary showed us two quilts. The first was the pattern from Bobbie.  She found more of the feature fabric and was able to add a border and have it quilted by Hello Stitch.  The second quilt top is a vanity square pattern that is going to Debra.

Ellen

Ellen has not been quilting for the past three years, but she is sewing and showed her pants, shirt and a jacket that she sewed. The shirt and pants are a soft linen fabrics.  I’m not sure if she got it at Stone Mountain Daughter or Fabrics Store on College Ave near Ashby.  The reversible jacket is Blue Tiger fabric from Stone Mountain and is a chambray.  She decided to add more topstitching to enhance the design.

Alice didn’t have anything to show, but she did redo her owl quilt in the requested pastel colors.  From the picture she passed around it was bright blue pastels that’s been sent and enjoyed.

Marty

Marty showed us 3 quilts. The first is a table topper from scraps she picked up at drop in.  Even the reverse looks good.  The second is the 10 inch blocks made with 1.5 inch scraps from drop in put on point with a black middle. We were able to see fabrics in the scraps that we’ve used over the years.  The last quilt was her random blocks also on point using black and white fabric for the accents and backing.  I have to start going to drop in.

Joan has been keeping busy taking care of her eyes, going to the opera and seeing the Kahinde Wiley exhibit at the De Young.  She showed us the book she got and the paintings reminded us of Bisa Butlers quilts.

Bobbie has been working on her pods and also has been busy planning trips and going to museums.

Arleen

I showed 2 quilts.  On the first, I added a tumbling block border to the square small quilt.  I was inspired by Mindy’s round robin quilts.  Joan said it was one of my best quilts.  Wow.  The second is another Asanoha pattern quilt using Giucy Guice and and Bio Geo 2 fabric.  Instead of 2.5 strips, I used 3.5 inch strips which made the stars bigger and much easier and faster to piece.

We ended with a lovely lemon tart with fresh fruit.  Hopefully we’ll all be able to get together next month.  Even if you have nothing to show, it’s always good to catch up and find out how everyone is doing.