February 2026

 Februarys meeting was at Joan’s house.  I wasn’t able to be there because Larry and I caught the flu and were not able to get back from Hawaii in time.  We’re still stuck in paradise for another week.  Luckily Deanna took a lot of pictures and notes, so I’ll try to post something from those.  

Joan

Joan had two quilts to share.  The first is the unfinished quilt top from last meeting.  Looks like she has finished the quilting and it looks beautiful.  I love the blue colors.

The second quilt was made from the layer cakes and charm packs from Sandy. She has started in the middle and is free motion quilting it. The back shows the quilting better. Good job

Marty

Marty also made two quilts.  The first is a quilt top of a nice colorful four patch with two patches in a 9 patch. Made from Betsy’s fabric and Deanna’s pattern that uses a 20 fat quarter bundle and matching pink fabric. Unfortunately 4 of the fat quarters were so light, they fade away in the photo. clever use of simple blocks 

After participating in the monthly block challenge for 2 years the next step is to make a quilt top with the blocks.  The instruction for the blocks was to use black and white with a pop of color. A yard of black, white. And grey was used to piece the blocks together.

The third picture shows the backing fabric. Nice use of all the black and white fabric to tie it all together.

Deanna

Deanna’s first quilt was a partially sewn top given to her by Susan Dague at open quilting.  Deanna finished the top and quilted it.  The next two quilts have cute panels in the middle, Deanna added borders, did free motion quilting on the panels and walking foot quilting in the borders.  All 3 quilts will be donated to EBHQ Community Quilts

Deanna’s fourth quilt is from a Bento Box pattern, using leftover 5” squares cut from another quilt.  Surrounded by indigo rectangles. Most of the fabrics are Japanese.

Alice

Mary

Mary made 2 quilts.  The first one is a community quilt that I brought to show my quilting as we’ve been having lots of discussions about learning to free motion.

My second quilt is the back first and then the other photos are of the twin sized animal quilt I made for my friend’s grandson.  My granddaughter pointed out the majority of the backing fabric has a “Minecraft” feel.  Who knew?!

I brought the quilt back to the group so everyone could see the finished product.  Though I’d been thinking about having Hello Stitch quilt it for me, I went with the encouragement of our group in December and quilted it myself - lots of animals in the quilting.

 

I found the first quilt top hidden away in my quilt stash.  No idea I had it or when I made it but it must be mine as I recognize most of the fabrics, so I must have made it.

The final quilt I made from a photograph I took of the Alexander Calder sculpture “The Eagle”, which I took at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. It generated lots of discussion about whether I needed the artists permission to co”copy” his art.  I had tried to create all the background sky, shoreline, Pugent Sound water and walkway by piecing together scraps.  Gave up on that and went with small squares to give the feel I wanted.

Mindy

Our next meeting will be at Marty’s house March 2 at 130.

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.