December 2025

 We met at Mindy’s house for our Holiday December meeting.  Her house was filled with holiday decorations and the smell of apple cider and baking.  Unfortunately Deanna and Alice were not able to make it, but everyone else showed up for the holiday cheer.  Since January will be the same date as the Bishop Ranch get together, it was decided to cancel our Quilt Therapy meeting for January.  February will be at Joan’s house on February 3 at 1:30.

Sandy

Sandy was the first to go and she shared her projects from the Carol Soderlund workshop.  The first sample used the fabric that Deanna had given her which was half silk and half cotton.  It was silk screened with a paper mask using procion dye. Beautiful.

The next four samples were also silk screened with thickened dyes on soda ashed cotton fabric. I think she said she learned the technique from Kerr Grabowski and was hoping to learn “new” techniques.

The last sample is an unfinished top from from a class she took in Walnut Creek. It also includes some discharged fabric.

Marty

Marty had two projects to share.  The first is a quilt that has been hanging on her wall.  It is a favorite of hers and she realized that one of the black fabrics that she used had faded to a brown and threw off the whole black and white theme.  She decided to remove the 8 pieces and replace them with a true black and white.  It took a lot of unpicking and requilting,  but it was worth it.

The second quilt is her bird quilt.  Finished. Yeah.  She quilted it using a straight line walking foot. Nice job.

Joan

Joan showed the unfinished quilt top that Betsy started.  She appliquéd it onto a baby blue border fabric and then added another border.  Nicely done.  She didn’t say how she plans to quilt it.

Her second quilt is being quilted by Melissa Quilter.

Mindy

Mindy has been busy traveling, decorating and babysitting.  Busy

Arleen

I had three projects to show.  The first is a bed sized quilt made from 16 blocks of 12 inches left at the free table with a note asking someone to Please finish this.  I used a pretty owl fabric from Betsy’s stash and used it to border the blocks and make the border.

The second quilt used the 17th block as the center and the owl fabric as tiny borders.  I used some Michael James fabric that have been in my stash for a long time to circle the center.  It was going to be the back of the first project, but because it looks so good, I’m going to make this another quilt.

The third project is the Cherish quilt pattern that I bought from Tales of cloth.  I finished quilting it using both the walking foot and free motion quilting in the center hexagons.  So pretty.  I’m planning to give this to my friends who just moved to a new house.

Mary

Mary had 3 projects to share.  The first is a twin sized quilt that she is going to give to her friends grandson.  She is thinking of either having Hello Stitch quilt it or quilt it herself using some animal templates in the blank areas.  She designed it herself.  If the size of block didn’t fit, she would add a border.

The second and third quilts are her vanity square projects.  She quilted it herself with free motion quilting and is very happy to have used up all of her vanity square blocks.

I got to see one of Mary’s Shutterfly books that are a record of her quilts.  Impressive. Can you believe that she has made enough quilts to fill 5 books.  Wow.

We ended the festivities with a pot luck and a white elephant gift exchange.  Everyone was happy with the small gifts they received and our arms were full of fabrics and quilts.  Thank you all for a wonderful meeting and Happy Holidays.

November 2025

 We met at Deanna’s house on a warm autumn day.  Deanna’s husband was working hard on the two tons of gravel for the pavement and the garden. I took my jacket off because it was so warm.  The others were a little late because of the roadwork being done close to the house, so we watched him working hard until they arrived.  Unfortunately Sandy and Mindy were not able to make the meeting.  The next meeting will be at Mindy’s house on December 2 at 11:00.

Deanna

Deanna started us off with her two projects.  The first was her One Block Wonder that she is going to give to her sister in law.  She used 7 panels of an underwater scene of fish.  The instructions were not very well written, so she had to adjust it to complete the 56x72 inch quilt.  She quilted it with a water motif.

The second quilt was made with a Bernstein Bear panel.  She has been collecting dot fabrics for years and was finally able to use it.  She matched the dot fabrics with the clothing in the bear and it highlighted the whole scene.

Joan

Joan is waiting for her long arm quilter Melissa to make time for her hexagon quilt.  She made the back from the leftover hexagons.

Alice

Alice used her swallow fpp blocks to make a new quilt.  She talked about the zoom meeting with Maria Shell and how that inspired her to use her techniques to make the quilt.  She made 1 inch squares, a row of houses and other elements that Maria Shell, Gwen Marsten and Tara Faughnan taught.  She is looking for sources of solid color fabrics.  Maria uses this brand Dippy Dyes from Lisa Reber.

https://www.dippydyes.com/product-category/hand-dyed-fabrics/

Mary

Mary had three quilts to share.  The first is a donation quilt that she made from the quilt.  It came out so nice with all the green fabrics.

The second quilt is made with safari animals.  She said it was hard to find the animals, so she decided to make quilted animals in the plain squares.  To make the lion, elephant, hippo, etc, she used copyrighted free pictures from the internet. Traced the animals on tracing paper. Used a free motion foot to quilt with the tracing paper on the quilt. It came out so nice.

The third quilt is a vanity fair quilt block she used the leftover blocks to make the back.  The back looks just as good as the front.  It’s amazing how long forgotten blocks still look good.

Arleen

I had three projects to show.  The first is the block of the month from EBHQ. I got the directions from the website and used my scrap fabrics to make this colorful quilt

The second is a herringbone quilt using Virginia Finley Wolfs pattern.  Unfortunately, I turned in the book too early and forgot how to piece the strips together.  I had to rip out a lot, but in the end it came out nice.

The third project is an EPP project that I am making as a piecing project instead.  I paid the $14 to download the instructions from Tales of Cloth for the Cherish quilt.  Making this quilt is giving me more respect for the time it takes to choose the fabrics, cut all the small pieces and slowly piece it.  Imagine doing it by hand.

Marty

Marty had nothing to share about quilting, but shared her adventures in Norway.  She brought some cotton thread that she got from open quilting and wondered if it was okay to quilt with.  We believe that it is not polyester.  It is not that strong, but it should be okay to use.  It was good that we had a discussion on threads and needles. It’s good to hear what type of thread everyone is using.  Mostly Aurifil, Masterpiece, King Tut and Bottom Line.

Deanna made a Fresh Pear Cake which was made with fresh pears.  Perfect for the autumn day and so good with a dollop of ice cream.  Thank you to Deanna for hosting.

October 2025

 It was a beautiful day at Mary’s house.  Mary kept the door open so a cool breeze could flow through the room making it comfortable.  No Marty and Sandy, but everyone else showed up.  It is getting harder to find parking around Mary’s house, but we managed. Joan parked at the Safeway parking lot.  Deanna will host the November meeting on Nov 4 at 1:30, and Mindy will host the December meeting on Dec 2 at 11:00.

Joan

Joan went first and showed us her completed hexagon quilt.  It is an EPP project that was appliquéd on the backing fabric.  The border was finished in Italy while on their 2 week vacation.  Someone mentioned there is a beautiful hexagon quilt in the window of Julie Silbers hopkin street shop.

Mary

Mary had three quilts to share.  All three are baby quilts destined to neighbors and old friends.  The first is an I spy quilt.  The centers of the blocks are very cute.  I guess you really have to be on the lookout for cute fabrics to make the centers.  

The second quilt is the bird block that Deanna and Marty have also made.  She finished quilting it and it is ready to go.  

The third is her owl quilt which she got from Etsy.  If you go to the EBHQ website, look for the 2025 show and tell.  Mary has a beautiful smile in that picture.  Of course Obie took the pictures.  Marty’s smile is just as big and you can tell how proud she is of her two beautiful quilts.

Arleen

I had three quilts to share.  The first is a panel that Deanna and Marty passed on to me.  I call it Sisters.  I used Betsy’s unfinished EPP hexagon project to put on either side of the panel.  I had to cut and add some pieces on the edges and corners, but it came out so nice.  Thank you Marty, Deanna and Betsy for making this possible.

The second and third quilts are made from the Victoria Finley book that I borrowed from the EBHQ library.  I made Herringbone and Cascade.  Cascade was hard, but it used up a lot of scraps.  Since I cut up more scraps than I needed, I might be making more of these.  Unfortunately, they are 90 inches.  I’m not sure whether to cut them shorter or just try and quilt it. 

Mindy

Mindy has a new grandson named Manu or Beans.  She has started a Christmas stocking for Beans and another baby in her family.

She found some beautiful linen fabric to surround the small hand pieces that Bobbie made.  It looks so good, now she has to figure out how to quilt it.

Deanna

Deanna has been busy.  She has 3 projects to share.  The first uses the donated blocks from Texas.  She sorted out the blocks that go well with turquoise and made a beautiful turquoise quilt.  The pretty border fabric came from the free table.

She called the second quilt a pink scrap quilt.  I don’t think they were scraps, because she used all 10 “ squares of pretty Kaffe Fassett fabrics paired with the pink.  She used a website called Quilters Paradise to help her with the calculations of putting the blocks on point and making the surrounding pink fillers.

The third is a bright and cheery Japanese fabric quilt.  I think she said she got the pattern from a YouTube channel called the Fabric patch from Washington.  It’s called a two fer quilt.  She cut 120 5” blocks and 120 3” blocks and sewed the black squares on one corner. The snipped off scraps are sewed together to make the two fer.

Alice

Alice brought her FPP flowers and birds quilt to show her hand quilting.  She is not confident in her sewing skills with the new machine.  She has made up 20 quilt sandwiches to use as practice pieces.  Good idea.  Practice makes Perfect. It has a stitch regulator which she still has to master.

Mary made a yummy granola and cherry dessert. So good it was wiped out.  We talked about the Cara Gulati exhibit at Bay quilts, the Alameda County reception tomorrow, the Japanese fabrics at New Pieces, the Hopkins street quilt shop, the Tuesday open quilting…. Isn’t it wonderful there are so many opportunities to share the wonders of quilting.  It just amazes me how fortunate we are.