July 2024

 Although the day was supposed to be hot, there was a cool breeze that made Deanna’s house feel cool.  Everyone was glad to be out of the hot sun.  Sandy and Mindy were not able to make it today and they were missed.  We all discussed our schedules in the hope that we could come to a time for all of us to meet without babysitting and other commitments.  We settled on the first Monday of the month with August 5th being the first Monday at Joan’s house at 130.

Mary

Mary started us off with her Bishops Ranch quilt. Very well done Mary.  Hello Stitch did the quilting and they did a really good job.  They are located in the Ace Makers Space and the price was reasonable.

Bobbie

Bobbie took a Jean Smith class on English Paper Piecing and decided it is not for her.  She passed on her project to Alice with extra papers and EPP projects.

She has completed 3 blocks of her son’s circuit board quilt.  She ordered some fabric from Spoonflower for the sashing and border and has decided on the thread to complete the quilt.  The details in the circuit board are very precise and well done.

Alice

Alice has started on another foundation paper piecing project.  She received a Christmas gift of an expensive book from Jen Kingwell.  She decided to do the Wensleydale block and started pulling fabric from her stash.  The center fabric is a nice orange.  With 11 blocks made, she is well on her way to completing it.

Joan

Joan has started a paper piecing project called the chrysanthemum pattern.  The flower has 16 leaves and a circle for the center.  These will be appliquéd onto a base fabric.  This is a good hand project to take with you while traveling.  

Joan also agreed to take on two of Betsy’s EPP unfinished projects.  Thank you Joan

Deanna

Deanna has finished another baby quilt using her 1930s fabric from her Moms stash.  The pattern is called Cake Mix from Moda. The block used 10 inch fabrics.  The binding has a blanket stitch which is machine stitched.

Her second quilt is an UFO from a class who she couldn’t remember the teachers name.  I think it is called Flight of Imagination from Karen Matsumoto, but I could be mistaken.  Gay Parker had a quilt in this pattern that Marty remembers.  Deanna was able to choose the border, binding and quilting to finally finish this into a beautiful quilt.  Well done.

Marty

Marty made a Chinese coins pattern to make a baby quilt.  She used her walking foot to quilt the straight lines and free motion squiggles.

The second quilt is made with a jelly roll of Van Gogh fabric from Betsy.  The border fabric is from the free pile of fabric from the Tuesday drop in.

Marty has made another cardigan from a pullover sweatshirt.  She cut the front in half and used a walking foot to insert matching fabric on the edges.  The lavender fabric complemented Marty.

Arleen

I finished quilting the top of leftover Kaffe fasset stripes and Jane sassaman yarn dyed fabric.  It feels good to finally finish this.

Thank you Deanna for the Blueberry Crumble cake with Vanilla ice cream.  It was delicious and looked so pretty on your pretty tablecloth.  We are all hoping Sandy and Mindy will be able to make the next meeting.  It is a highlight of my month to meet with good friends and share in our comraderie.

June 2024

 We met at Bobbie’s house on a cool and breezy day.  Some of us were having a hard time getting in the building but fortunately Bobbie came downstairs and we were able to get in. We’re still not used to the new apartment.  Mindy and Joan were not able to meet today but hopefully we’ll see them next meeting.

Sandy

Sandy started us off and although she didn’t bring anything we were able to catch up.  She was glad to be in the Bay Area after the heat wave of 107 at her house.  With the heat she doesn’t have the energy to start any projects let alone go outside.   Hopefully with cooler weather and a new exercise program she’ll get the energy to work on her dyeing projects.  

Mary

Mary had three quilts to show. The first is a donation quilt that she used to practice her free motion quilting.  She showed us how she quilted it.  The second is a crumb quilt.  She sewed small scraps together into strips and then added the crumbs to to the blue fabric.  The third quilt is a small old project that she practiced her free motion skills on.

Bobbi

Bobbie is going to enter her pods quilt into Quilt National at the Dairy Barn.   She has been busy and shared 4 different projects.  The first uses up small scraps of fabrics.  She puts the fabrics on a base fabric with wonder under and covered with tulle.  This was free motion quilted.  The second is a selection of squares of interesting fabrics surrounding by her collection of stripes.  The third is an EPP project that she is taking with Jean Smith.  The fourth is going to be a triptych of circuit boards.

Alice

Alice is working on her EPP project.  Instead of the white stars she has decided on a pinkish fabric.  She is not sure how far she’ll get with this project because it’s not as fun as she remembered.

Deanna

Deanna had a lot of catching up to do and brought 4 projects along an elephant pattern for Alice and a FPP project for Mindy. The first came from fabrics she picked up at drop in.  The pretty fabric was cut into squares, surrounded by a red border and simply quilted. The second donation quilt is drop in fabric of manatees and fish with lettuce and water fabric.  Nice and colorful.  The third is 30’s fabric from her Moms stash.  At first she was going to do something similar to Marty’s strip pieced quilt but decided to make something easier.  The last quilt comes from a layer cake of Andover fabric.  Beautiful fabric.   This quilt will be for her great niece and was quilted by Melissa Quilter.

Marty

Marty started off with an old project. Japanese Puzzle.  She likes to figure out how to draft this pattern,  but after trying the pattern with leftover fabrics decided not to continue.  The second project is Flight of Imagination.  She is still thinking about this one.  The third is a pattern she drafted from her trip to Nebraska.  Using 4 fat quarters, she made the block with the pretty fabric.  The fourth project is Route 66 donation fabric from drop in.  With 4 patch squares, the quilt came together.  The last project is the quilting of the strip fpp quilt. 

Arleen

I had 2 projects to show.  The first is the grid quilt using shirting and blue hand dyes.  I added the colorful fish and quilted them with glitter thread to give them a silvery scales effect.  The second is an old project. Using all of my Kaffe Fassett scraps, I put them on a green background.  I found a quilting motif called Magnolia from an Instagram user ipatchandquilt.  Hopefully I can finish the quilting.

Everyone had so much to share.  With the bright sunlight and good weather it seems we are all busy working on so many different projects.  Hopefully the weather will get better for Sandy to prosper in her dyeing projects.  I can’t wait to see what she does. 

Bobbi made a ladyfinger strawberries with cream cake. I should have taken a picture.  It was so good.  We will meet next month at Alice’s house.  Stay cool and keep creating.

May 2024

 Today we met at Mary’s house on a nice sunny day.  Unfortunately Deanna, Joan and Mindy were not able to make it.  It was a small group, but hopefully as summer comes, we will all be able to get together.   The next meeting will be at Bobbie’s house on Wednesday June 12 at 130.  We were anxious to hear about Marty and Sandy’s trip to the International Quilt Museum so Sandy started us off.

Sandy

Sandy showed the pictures she took of the trip to the Quilt Museum. It was a whole day of traveling to get to Nebraska, then two days of sightseeing around Lincoln and Omaha.  There were 5 exhibits of quilts.  The one she wanted to see was the Victoria Finley Wolfe of which she bought a beautiful book of Victorias work. I took a screenshot of the Museums page to show part of her work. The other exhibits were Sue Spargo, 1930s feedsack, Katie Pasquini Masopquist and words that start with “RE”.

Arleen

Arleen finished the quilting on the two quilts that she showed at last month’s meeting.  

The first used edge to edge quilting following the grid lines using Superior Rainbow 40 wt and Glitter thread.  Although it has a nice sparkle because of the trilogy polyester, it is very subtle.  I’m thinking of adding fish to add more interest to the grid design.  Everyone agreed and added suggestions on placement of the fish, size and how many.  Thanks for the input.

The second quilt was made with scraps from Japanese fabrics in another Sarah Nishiura grid pattern.  Alice said I need to get a good name and suggested Through a lens.  I want to submit this to PIQF since they have decided to have the quilt show on different days and hours. 

Mary

Mary had two quilts to show.  The first is a quilt top that Betsy made.  She quilted it with free motion quilting using circles which was very challenging.  I think it came out really nice.  The second quilt that she finished is her crayon quilt.  She ended up putting the crayons together, shortening the length and using up the rainbow fabric for the back and binding.  Even with all the scraps she used it doesn’t look like a dent was made in her fabric stash.  I’m not sure if it was Mary or Alice who said they were going to try not to buy anymore fabric.

Alice

Alice brought a bag full of unfinished foundation paper piecing blocks.  It started during the pandemic when she had a time and found the cute birds and flowers of FPP on Etsy.  They were so cheap and cute.  She intends to make something useful like a double size for her bed.  This is a real challenge since she is more comfortable making wall sized quilts.  She also showed her English Paper piecing project which she has been hand piecing during episodes of Shogun.  We convinced her to make more white stars to offset the main blocks.  She is enjoying the process and will make more.  I think she has got the EPP bug.

Bobbie

Bobbie has finished her PODs triptych quilt.  It is beautiful.  Joan helped her to pick out the border fabric which was very effective.  She said the quilting on the border took her no time at all which we were all astounded because it looked so good.

Her next project will be to make a quilt for Larry which will include 12 inch squares that look like computer boards, since he is in the tech field.

In the future she is thinking of going to Quiltcon 2025 which will be held in January at Phoenix Arizona.  Think about it???

Marty

Last month Sandy gave Marty her 1 block wonder project that she couldn’t finish.  Marty finished it!  Deanna came by and they both worked on the design using her design board.  There was only 1 block which she had to cut out a hexagon but if she didn’t show it to us we wouldn’t have known.  Amazing that she was able to finish it so quickly.  The turquoise border was a good choice to make it stand out.  I liked the backing she used which included the selvage from the original fabric with the saying “Life is Art, Live it in Color”.  What a great title. She decided to gift the quilt to Sandy who was shocked and surprised.  Good job Marty!

We missed our friends who were not able to make it this month.  It was good to catch up with Alice who had pictures of her new grand baby.  I’ve  enclosed a screenshot of the new dates and times for PIQF.  We still have time so hopefully those who want to go can plan to carpool next month.  Mary made her cherry squares which were so yummy.  Thank you Mary for baking.