January 2017 meeting at Marty's

The rain let up for our meeting at Marty's.  Mindy, Barbara, and Sandy could not join us this month.  We will meet next month at Bobbie's house.

We discussed our next challenge and it was changed from the black and white with a color option, to making a piece inspired by the word "Doors."  The piece can be no larger than 24 x 36 inches and we will have the pieces completed by our September meeting so that we can enter them as a group in the Alameda County Arts show.

Here's what we saw at this meeting.  Several people had been to a retreat at Bishop's Ranch recently and were very productive there.

Mary has completed her rooster from Ann Shaw's class.  The facing is pinned ready for completion.

She also worked on several other quilts at the retreat.  Playing with the quilting design was one goal for the quilt with the large gray squares below.  The quilting also enhances the back of the quilt nicely.

 The sashing on this one takes a quilt made with blocks of "created fabric" up to a new level.

Joan has been on a trip to New Zealand and Australia (I hope I got that right) recently and was knitting with some yarn she got on the trip.  It is made from the brushtail possum.  Very soft.

And she brought back a nice selection of fabrics from the trip.  Love the sheepdog in the middle of the sheep.

Joan also participated in the recent EBHQ workshop by Bobbie Berquist working with Tsukineko inks and Fabrico pens to color fabric.

And she continues on with her English Paper Piecing flowers.

Deanna also participated in the Bobbie Berquist workshop and brought her many class projects.

Another retreat attendee, her bear quilt is now quilted and almost ready to hang.

Arleen has created another magical quilt from a photo she saw in the Feb/March 2015 Quilter's Newsletter.

It has many partial seams and is a happy wonderful quilt.

And with fabrics for a community quilt, Arleen drafted her own hexagons to be the size needed to show off the fabric for this next quilt.

Betsy did not attend a retreat, and brought only one quilt to show.  Based on a quilt top that Lisa Doyen brought to Bay Quilts, Betsy used her Cherrywood Fabrics scrap bag and made a lap quilt for her to enjoy.  The sashing and backing are made with Marcus hand dyed muslin.

Bobbie showed an interesting piece that she called her scraps piece  Love the motion to this one.

And Marty has been struggling with the tension on her new Janome.  While identifying some spots that needed to be redone, she showed this great wallhanging that uses a variety of Asian fabrics.

August 2016 at Betsy's

This is the month before our latest challenge quilts are due and many were shown at the meeting.  We all contributed 2-3 magazine pages and at the April meeting each person picked a page to use as inspiration for the challenge quilt.  We could use the colors or shapes, or a word on the page, as inspiration for our quilt.  The perimeter has to be 80 inches.  That's the challenge.  Here are a few of the results with their magazine pages that were the inspiration.

Joan's Strata

Mary holding first try

Mary's Two Choices

Deanna has completed the background

Betsy's applique top is made

We have already seen Arleen's challenge piece (Arleen, you were missed at this meeting.)

But wait, there is more!!

Joan has finished Pele!  And it is spectacular.  And the best news is that she now knows why her Bernina machine has been misbehaving. 

Detail of Pele

Bobbie has been at work on her art quilt and has this panel of four ladies done.

Sandy has finished the baby quilt she was working on and tried doing machine binding using one of the decorative stitches on her machine.  Looks great.

Binding all by machine

Mindy showed one of the dresses made for the dance competition.

Mary had finished a quilt top that had started out as an exercise in an Angie Woolman color class.

 

Marty was playing with raw edge applique and showed this bright and lively quilt!

Betsy entered the Cherrywood Lion King challenge, but did not get accepted.  Here is her lion.

It's All About the Lion

The stitching on the back was interesting

And Betsy had made another scrap quilt, this one called Diamond Squares using a Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial and scraps from bindings and baby quilts.

January at Joan's

Our First Meeting of 2016

We met at Joan's house for our first meeting of 2016 and all but Marty were in attendance.  Sandy announced that since she will be taking two classes this term she won't be able to attend our meetings.  We agreed to stick to the Thursday schedule.  The meeting ended with a delicious apple cake with a lemon sauce.

Our next meeting will be at Mary's house on February 11.

Betsy worked on UFOs the past couple of months and here are three of the ones that are finished.

Big Blue was an exercise in half square triangles and a two color quilt.  It is double batted (wool and a cotton/poly) to make it a warmer quilt.  Queen-sized makes it a hefty quilt.

Another finished quilt is twin sized and was begun over 10 years ago.  It was taken apart and put back together a couple of times.  Finally, it is quilted and bound and has a soft, warm flannel back.  Snail Trail.

The last quilt is the second Sticks and Stones quilt made with the "opposite" blocks left over from the first one.  Finally found the perfect backing fabric.

Arleen has retired and was given a gift by her co-workers similar to ones she has given to so many in her time at the Post Office.  This photo quilt contains very sharp photos of Arleen and her coworkers and even shows several of her quilt gifts.

Arleen also created a wonderful quilt from some Ikat fabrics Joan had found and combined them with some Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The backing is a soft fabric.

Mary had just returned from a quilt retreat at Bishop's Ranch and had accomplished a lot.  Two baby quilts utilized the same pattern but different color ways and different sizes.

Mary also is working on an Art Quilt inspired by paintings by Kathy Barieau.  Love the lizard.

Bobbie also went to Bishop's Ranch and was very focused on making not one but two Avalon quilts.

Barbara had a question for the group on how to use blocks she had created in a Barbara Ramsey class.  She laid them out in a way that suggested a plain color fabric in between each block would work.

Deanna hopes to retire by the end of this year--we'll see.  In the meantime, she made a really soft flannel double sided blankent highlighted by giant pink rickrack on the edges.

And don't miss the owls on the yellow side.

Deanna also made a sea themed quilt using batiks from her stash for a color wheel type front and fish fabric for the back.

Looks like we are having a fun evening--and we were.

Joan spent time working on her large floral piece started as a group challenge with a different quilt group.  She has added great quilting with metallic thread and beading.

Here is a closeup of the embellishment.