November 2026

 Deanna

The November meeting was held at Deanna's home during a light rain. In attendance were Marty, Mary, Mindy, Joan and Deanna. On Google Meet were Sandy and Alice, although we found it a bit challenging to position Deanna's laptop so everyone could see and be seen, and also so that everyone could be heard. Perhaps it would have helped if the Meet had been cast onto the TV, although Deanna hadn't figured out how to do that. Deanna served vanilla ice cream with a chocolate torte that was supposed to be brownies but she didn't have a square 9" pan for the recipe she was making for the first time, so she made it in a 9" round springform pan.

Deanna's quilt top was made using Mary Ellen Hopkin's old pattern called Hidden Wells. There is a new version that you can find on the internet that is also called Hidden Wells, but it uses jelly rolls, has less fabric and is constructed differently, so it doesn't result in the "wells."

Deanna has also been working on a project requested by her son's mother-in-law: disassembling six Rajasthani Shaneel Razai (a type of Indian quilts) that she bought from India more than 30 years ago. The Shaneel fabric is made from cotton and feels like velvet. Each razai had a thin cotton backing and cotton wadding that had been tacked together. Over the years the razai had been torn in places and most of the wadding had disappeared. It is a laborious project to remove the backing, clean them up and reassemble them into three razai with Shaneel on both the front and back, and quilt them. Deanna hopes that this buys her some goodwill from the mother-in-law. Attached is a photo of the first razai Deanna put back together, before it was quilted, but it was delivered it to the mother-in-law at the grandkids' Halloween party.

The third quilt was just some cute yardage Deanna picked up at Open Quilting and put together with a yellow backing with red ladybugs and free motion quilted around the motifs. It was donated to Community Quilts.

Marty

Marty showed two quilts. The first is a Japanese Puzzle pattern that was very tricky to put together and on top of that she kept running out of fabric since she was using 'found fabric' and it took a lot more fabric than expected to cut the shapes. Hence, some unusual color choices. All the quilting is in-the-ditch.

The second quilt is for EBHQ's children's quilt project. The front and back are shown.

Mary

You’ve seen both of these quilts before but now both are quilted; one is bound and the other is faced. The blue and yellow one has butterflies and flowers quilted in it. It will go to my 8-year-old grandson’s school in the winter for their silent auction.

I decided to quilt the second one with straight lines down the middle of each ray: yellow down the yellow & orange sections, teal down those sections. I liked Sandy’s idea last month of facing it so that’s what I did.

Next month we will meet at Joan’s at our usual time. Then we will skip January since so many of us will be at the Bishop’s Ranch at our annual quilt retreat. 

Arleen

I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, but wanted to share what I am working on.

The first is another Bits quilt using up small pieces of scraps sewn onto 2.5 strips.

The second is a hawaiian fabric quilt using Sarah Nishiura pattern. Still working on the quilting. 

The local fabric store Kaimuki dry good is going out of business and had a 25% discount on their sewing machines. I started looking at the Jukis and baby locks, but ultimately decided to keep using my mom's 45 year old Bernina 830. 

 

Joan

My vision is slowly returning. Two months ago I was declared legally blind. Attached are three pictures from Deanna. The first one is a children's quilt. I was able to do this with help from Deanna and Rich, since I am still having trouble cutting accurately. My polka dot collection still exists, although it is considerably reduced. I even quilted it myself. The other two pictures are a large queen-sized bedspread. It was quilted by Hello Stitch. I'm calling it Blue Notes, since that's the quilting stitch I chose. Susan had used it and since some of the trapezoids are opera patterns I felt that it was appropriate. Still reducing my stash, but that will never really happen.  

Thank you for sharing your photos and stories. I love to hear from you. You are all so creative. 

The next meeting will be at Joan's house on December 1 at 130. 

October 2026

Marty

Marty showed 5 quilts this month. The larger one (blue, maroon and grey) is made from Betsy's stash and is Tween size. The rest are all from her stash; she used EBHQ's patterns for children's quilts that are on their website. All will go to EBHQ for distribution. Just for fun she tried to count the quilts that she has made, start to finish, for EBHQ this year and it totaled 32. She has some more in the pipeline for next month's QT meeting.

Susan

This is my Wensleydale foundation paper pieced quilt. Looking for a border and then it is off the to quilter.  

Mary

The first piece I showed was a tiny thing that I found hiding in my stash. Found backing fabric and quilted it in the interest of continuing to finish the oldest UFOs that appear in my closet. It looks like it probably started in a circles class but it’s so old that I really have no idea! And what do you do with 30” X 30”?

The next top is one that I started from being inspired by the piece shown in the newspaper scrap. I quickly veered off of that and ended up not even trying to represent the whole thing. We’ll see where it goes with quilting added.

The radiating piece required a special ruler (15 degree angle) and was a great way to use up scraps. I asked for advice about proceeding from here and it seems that folks thought I should not add a border and Sandy thought I should face it instead of binding it. I guess we’ll see next time

The final quilt, front and back, was inspired by one I saw on line. It will go to my youngest grandson’s elementary school auction in Oakland in the winter.

Deanna 

My first quilt was made from half-square triangles using scraps of 1930s reproduction fabrics. I have enough scraps left to make another quilt!

The second quilt was a disappearing hourglass design made with batik 5" charm squares and solid white 5" squares. These were sewn into half square triangles, then into hourglass units, which were then cut into 9 pieces and rearranged. I got the pattern from Brita Nelson, the Questioning Quilter, on YouTube. She has lots of patterns for disappearing blocks.

The next two photos show the front and back of a quilt made from French or French-inspired fabrics, which I free-motion quilted.

Joan and Marty

I thought you'd might enjoy pictures from the Show N tell.

Arleen 

I was able to attend via zoom with the help of Susan. I've been working on using scraps that I purchased locally in Hawaii. The fabrics are so cute and great for children's quilts. The first is a string pieced and the others are pieced together. 

Sandy and Alice also joined with zoom but did not send in any photos.  Andrea joined the group and made some bags. Hopefully when they see this blog, they'll send photos and texts and I'll include it.  I think Deanna said the next meeting is at her house, so see you then.

September 2026

September's meeting was held at Mindy's house and October will be held at Susan’s.  Deanna, Alice and Arleen were not able to attend this month. 

Marty

Marty reported that she had a busy quilting month since the last meeting. A large quilt was dropped off at Hello Stitch with the hope that it will be back in time for the EBHQ Show and Tell on September 16. Another set of pre-cuts and coordinated fabric from Betsy's stash were pieced together for a tween quilt and the back is also made and it will be basted together at the next Open Quilting day next Tuesday. Big stitch quilting is being attempted on the blue hexagon quilt (previously shown) which is a new challenge. And, finally, two baby quilts were created for the DDCQP.

Sandy

I started this improv piece in a week-long workshop I took last April/May with Jennifer Candon. The workshop was titled "The Three C's -- Color, Contrast & Composition in Improvisational Quilting." I completed the layout at the workshop and barely started sewing the sections together. It took a lot of puzzling, as well as ripping out! A very fun, though sometimes frustrating experience. My smile shows how happy I am to finally get the top sewn together. Now on to the finishing steps!

Mary

I continue with my plan to never make the same baby quilt twice after making too many 9-Patch Pizzazz quilts for babies! So here is my A-B-C 1-2-3 quilt. No baby identified yet but my daughter’s friends keep having babies as do my neighbors so sometimes it’s good to get a little ahead!

Arleen 

I've been busy joining the Hawaii Quilt Guild and the Hawaii Stitchery Fiber Guild. I made 2 baby quilts and have almost finished an improv quilt.  They all come from bags of fabric scraps that I have been given or purchased.  I plan on making community quilts called Kihei Pili quilts in the future. They are so different from what I'm used to. No batting,  very little quilting and very simple with 3 inch bindings. Oh my.

Susan

My cat playing clarinet quilt is a gift for a friend who watched my cats while I was in Hawaii. The cat fabric was purchased in Hawaii. Applique and straight line quilted by me.  

Next month is at my house in Pinole and I have figured out how to stream the meeting so out of towners can join via Google meet. Anyone who wants to test how to do it before the meeting can call me 510-375-1892 and we can practice together. 

August 2026

 Our meeting was at Alice's home and she served us a delicious array of fruit, cupcakes and honey-almond cashews. Sandy, Mindy and Susan couldn't make it to the meeting.

Deanna

My first quilt below was made from an ombre jelly roll that was Betsy's. Since I backed it with the turtle fabric I quilted it with a kelp design that I designed after looking at photos of kelp and kelp drawings on the internet. The second quilt used free fabric that I picked up at two different Open Quilting sessions. I outline-quilted the large animals, and quilted the rest in free-motion vines and leaves. The third quilt was made from a batik layer cake sewn into hourglass blocks. All of the quilts will go to the EBHQ Community Quilts.  

Marty

Marty shared her improv quilt that was inspired by watching Karen Lee sit at her sewing machine at Open Quilting piecing together scrap after scrap in what appeared to be random order. This is the result of scraps from her bin of blue fabrics and she notes that it took much longer to create than a planned quilt. The big, dramatic blue and white quilt is made from two layer cake precut packs that from Betsy Livak's stash. The floral quilt has green and white corner stones. The small quilts will go to the community quilts project. The big one still has to be finished.

 

Mary

A friend whose 2 grandkids have baby quilts Mary made asked if she would make a t-shirt quilt for her son’s 40th birthday. Turns out his birthday was a week after the ask! Mary told her the quilt might be ready for him for Christmas! Still trying to figure out how to quilt. Probably fairly simple wavy lines mostly with the occasional UC Irvine anteater and maybe a saxophone thrown in since these are all related to his time there in the band. 

Mary finished the doggy quilt for Debra’s friend’s baby. Mary’s granddaughter likes the back better!

Susan

I am enjoying my time on Oahu and even went fabric shopping here...I am just finishing my Wensleydale quilt top. Here is my photo.

Arleen

I used the yukata scrap bags to make this quilt called 100 yukatas. Not quite 100 yukatas as there are some duplicates.  Linda from Over the Blue Horizon unpicked the fabric from recycled kimono and then sold me the scrap bags of smaller sections.  Lots of seam ripping. The block is made of 6.5x8.5 center with 1.5x8.5 strips sewn on either side of the 6.5 to make a 8.5 inch block. 

I am also making baby quilts for donation.

Alice

The first is a Wensleydale quilt top I showed as a comparison to Susan’s version last month. It’s from the Jen Kingwell book “Quilt Recipes”. My version is foundation paper pieced.

The second is an English Paper Piecing project I revived from my “unfinished project pile”. I had previously given up after the blue row. I added the purple, teal and green rows for this meeting. A lot of little tiny stitches!

Joan

In commemoration of Joann's Napkin Quilt Marty gave Joan this napkin printed with a plate and utensils.