July 2025

 The first of July we met at the purple house on Buena Avenue.  Marty was reminiscing about living in the same neighborhood in the house with the bulletproof windows.  Wow.  Deanna, Bobbie and Mindy missed all the great stories and were sorely missed.  The next meeting will be at Marty’s on Tuesday August 5.

Joan started us off with nothing to show but kept us company and was able to work on her knitting.

Sandy also did not have anything to show but was happy to get out of the 95 degree heat to the 65 degree Bay Area.  She is working on her garden and home renovations.

Alice

Alice showed 4 projects that she is working on.  The first is a door runner.  She found some old projects with fussy cuttings of Tula pink in elongated hexagons.  She had the checkerboard squares and completed the top in no time.  Now to finish it.

The second project is also a Tula pink fabric called fairy dust.  She found some cute dog fabric and had to put it together with the paper pieced center dog.  It is in memory of her dog who recently passed away.

The third project is also EPP using the 6 inch squares that she made during Covid.  She has many more of these so look forward to more medallion quilts.  They are so colorful.  I look forward to seeing what she comes up with these.

The fourth project is a drunkards path in black and white with a pop of orange.  She’s not sure if she wants to keep going with it or change the color choices.

Somehow we got on the topic of Jen Kingwell and she brought out the book and her project that she made from the book.  What a surprise.  So this is a bonus 5th.  Good thing she was at home to show off all these projects.

Arleen

I had 3 quilts to show.  The first is in progress.  The center is a block made from Alice that she didn’t want.  This is surrounded with butterflies from the pattern that Mary had and pinwheels.  The last row in the medallion is material from Marty.  What a collaboration.

The second is also a medallion quilt with the center block made from Alice.  This is surrounded by butterflies and the final row is a landscape fabric from drop in.  The colors from the landscape really highlighted the colors.

The third quilt is a 16 patch block made with Japanese fabric.  I was inspired by Deanna’s flower 16 patch.  This is freehand cut with a rotary cutter with no rulers.  Two fabrics were laid right side up, freehand cut into 16 pieces, sorted to a checkerboard design and then sewn in place.  It had to be done this way to make for uneven pieces some larger than others.  Once all the blocks were completed, additional blue strips were added to make the blocks the same size. Somehow I’m loving the wonkiness of no pins and no rulers, just cut and sew.

Marty

Marty has been busy. She started us off with an apron she made. 1 of 6 that she is making for presents.

The second project is batik blocks from drop in that she put together from a packet provided by children’s quilts.  It was finished in two days.  I love projects like this where it only takes a couple of days to make.  She pieced the back with blue fabric and is going to hand it in to children’s quilts.  

The third is her block of the month which is four half square triangles cut two inches from the center and rearranged.  The variety of blocks that you can make from this basic block is so rewarding.  Here are a few pictures.

She hinted at a quilt that she has finished, but couldn’t bring because it is going to Hello Stitch to be quilted.  Marty you really know how to hide a surprise.

Mary

Mary had two projects to show.  The first is her crumbs quilt made with a lot of crumbs that still seem to multiply.  She free motion quilted it.  We thought it was walking foot quilting, but she said it was easier to quilt it with a free motion foot.

The second is walking foot quilting on a children’s quilt.  Now this one seemed like free motion quilting.  Maybe I have it backwards.

What a colorful display of quilts for show and tell.  Alice had two bowls full of fruit and a fresh blueberry pie from Fat Apples.  It was just devoured in seconds.  We missed our friends who couldn’t make it and hope everyone stays safe and well until next meeting.

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.