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.

September 2025

 Today we met at Joan’s house.  The weather was perfect and the company was so nice.  Unfortunately we only had 4 members but that didn’t stop us from catching up with each others lives. 

Joan

Joan started us off and even though she didn’t have any new projects to share, she showed us her EPP projects that she has made.  We got on the subject after she agreed to help complete one of Betsy’s EPP quilt tops.  Here are two of the quilts she showed.

Arleen

I had two of Betsy’s quilt tops that I was able to finish.  I used Bobbie’s 12 wt thread to quilt the tops.  It was hard to thread the sewing machine needle, so I had to take it out of the machine, thread the needle and then put it back in the machine.  I had to fiddle with the tension, but was able to use the walking foot and free motion foot.  Success.  

I also finished the maple leaf quilt top.  I used the walking foot to follow the flow of the light fabrics. In the darker fabrics, I used the free motion foot to go around the circles.  The circles were made with small plates as templates and chalked.

Marty

Marty made two baby quilts.  She really makes use of the free table fabric to pull together just the right fabrics to make adorable quilts.  Simple designs and pretty fabric made the work easy.  It just took a few days and they were done.

Alice

Alice quilted the baby quilt that she is giving to her neighbor.  She used her new Janome Continental M8 from the Sewing Machine shop.  She likes the even feed foot and the 16 inch throat.  She made some serpentine lines and is getting the hang of “the best quilting machine in the world” as the salesman Dan said. 

Thank you Joan for hosting today.  Also thank you for the delicious home made Banana Bread and cherries.  We talked about cars and trips and medicines that help with weight loss.  Hmmm I know that I learned a lot not just about quilting but about how to live your life to the fullest.  Don’t forget, next month will be at Mary’s house where hopefully everyone can make it.

August 2025

 August is a beautiful time of year in the Bay Area, not too hot or too cold.  We met at the top of the hill at Marty’s house with the sweeping view of the bay.  It’s been a while since everyone was able to come together at the same time and place to share our adventures.  Our September meeting will be at Joan’s house on Sept 2 at 130.  October will be Mary’s house on Oct 7 at 130.  November will be at Deanna’s house on Nov 4 at 130

Marty

Marty started us off with a new apron.  She is going to make 5 to give out for Xmas gifts.  She had two quilts to show.  The first is a Hawaiian fabric quilt.  She received 8 inch fabrics from a family member who said You don’t have to make me anything.  Marty loves a challenge and she made this beautiful quilt which will be given as a Xmas gift.

The second quilt was inspired by Big Red a quilt she saws at the SF quilt guild show.  She drafted the pattern and used a blue grunge fabric as the background and Japanese fabric scraps as the pattern.

Deanna

Deanna had 4 quilts to show.  We haven’t seen her in a while, so her bag was full of beautiful quilts and all different.

The first came from the donated fabrics basket, which she decided to put together into a nice sized quilt.  She found a nice back with butterflies, quilted and bound it.  It is bound for the DDCQP.

The second quilt has a beautiful egret or crane backing. The top is made from Craftsy  Anthology Shibori fabric.  She thought they were 2.5 inch strips and started cutting the background fabric 2.5, but it was actually 2 3/8, so she ended up recutting all the background fabric.  Also bound for DDCQP.

The third quilt uses French fabric.  The backing is French Provençal fabric which at one time she was collecting.  She decided to make half square triangles even though they weren’t aligned quite right.  If she didn’t point it out to us, we wouldn’t have seen it.  Bound for DDCQP.

The fourth quilt is a 1 block wonder which she has made at least 7.  This pattern came from Jackie OBrian who has a lot of panels.  She bought 7 panels and had to get one replaced because of a brown streak across it.  Up close it looks wonderful.  I think this is a keeper.

Arleen

I had two projects to show.  The first is a quilt that I made in 2014. It is Woven 42 made of 42 different Kaffe Fassett shot cottons cut into 2.5 strips and woven.  I gave this to my brother in law Jimmie 11 years ago and after so much time, I saw it last month and knew I had to fix it.  The quilting threads had come apart.  I think it was because it was quilted on the diagonal and using it had stretched it.  I took it apart and quilted it in the ditch.  Hopefully it will last another decade.

The second quilt is a top.  It uses Sarah Nishiura s pattern in yarn dyed neutrals.  I decided to add maple leaves to give it more color. 

Mary

Mary had three projects.  The first is an I Spy quilt.  She had 2.5 inch squares of cute things and surrounded them with colorful borders.  She is either going to use the background fabric as sashing or more blocks.

The second project is the Birds block that she got from Deanna and Marty.  This block can be found on the Missouri Star website and Blocklotto.com

The third project is rethinking the Dresden plate.  This is from Candace Grisham an EBHQ workshop who showed her how to make the Dresden plate pattern.  Mary said to quilt the background first then add the plates on.  The. Enters are raw edge.  Sew it on and then zigzag stitch around.

Alice

Alice had an orphan block that didn’t come out quite right.  It did not have instructions and when she made it she realized it wasn’t quite right. Definitely needed the instructions.

The next quilt she is working on uses more of her fpp blocks.  She read the Maria Shell book and decided to use her techniques to make the surrounding borders. It’s coming out really nice. This is the Etsy site she uses.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PieceByNumberQuilts2?ref=shop-header-name&listing_id=1851784560&from_page=listing

Mindy

Mindy picked up Bobbie’s quilt from Hello Stitch and it was beautiful.  They do computerized quilting and the pattern matched the fabric. Very nice.  She showed a scarf that she is making with some pretty yarn.

Joan and Sandy had nothing to show.  Sandy said she is starting to sew again and is almost ready to show something.

It’s so nice to gather and talk.  I really look forward to our meetings and I know everyone looks forward to it also. As Mary was saying, taking workshops over zoom is one thing but in person meetings have so much more to offer.  I learn so much about other things besides quilting if I sit back and listen.  Marty made a delicious lemon Bundt cake with sliced strawberries.  Thank you Marty for hosting today.