Little Women in August

August Little Women meeting---already! How did that happen?
How about some fun photos of our most recent projects?!

 

Linda (above) forgot to bring her darling Crabapple Hill redwork snowman pillow to our "Christmas in July" meeting. We're so glad you brought it this month, Linda, it was definitely worth the wait! My snowman-lover daughter-in-law needs this pillow!

 

Tammy (above) was out of town last month, so she brought her "One Patch Doll Quilt" to show us this month. She used bright summer-colored fabrics to piece this top. Very fun, don't you think!

Fannie (above and below) was looking for a simple quick project to make one day. She chose the "Pink Patches Doll Quilt" above. She made her "Amish style" with a mistake...can you spot it? Clue: it's in the upper left corner.

 

This is Fannie's "T is for Temperance" quilt (above). One of the bonuses of working through Kathleen Tracy's "Civil War Sewing Circle" is the little history tidbits she includes throughout the book. "The Women's Christian Temperance Union was founded in 1874. This group had a profound impact upon women's rights. The official colors of the Women's 'Christian Temperance Union were blue and white and there was an abundance of quilts made in these colors toward the end of the 19th century." I really like your light floral border, Fannie!

 

Joy gets 10,000 points for her miniature masterpiece in-process. She also belongs to the English Paper Piecing Group at JoJos and is participating in their current challenge. Joy has decided to down-size her project, using 1/4" hexagon papers. So cool, Joy! I am in awe in it's tiny-ness (is that a word?)!

Some of us are participating in our Sampler Quilt challenge. That's Vickie, below, who is only missing the last block "Spools." That pink shirt is Pam filling in the space! Nice job, Vickie! I do love a good sampler quilt. They're such fun to make, because you can use up a lot of scraps and it doesn't get boring because there is not a lot of repetition.

The sampler below is Pam's. I think we all have pretty much decided we want to add borders to our samplers. Good job, Pam, I like it!

 

And this cute little project is a tactile baby "comforter." It's only about 12 inches square, but the main fabric is Minkie...which is so incredibly soft. The little ribbons and rick-racks going around the outside edge are for the baby to touch and play with. Golly, how come I haven't made one for my little grandson Kian! I've got to get on the ball here! By the way, Tammy, I love the manicure and the red polish is fabulous!

 

I hope you enjoyed our show and tell. We are trying to decide what we want to do with our group next year, but that's a discussion for another day.

 

I hope you enjoy your day, and find some time to play with some fabric!

Keep stitchin,

Mary

Sewing Circle

Our June Sewing Circle met Saturday and we had a few Star Quilts to show. We're working through Kathleen Tracy's book "Civil War Sewing Circle." Kathy's quilt does not have sashing, but there is one thing we all agree on...we don't like setting blocks with this many seams up against one another.

These two quilts below are the assignment to make this month and to show in July. They are the One Patch Scrap Quilt. It's a very easy project, and I hope a lot of the gals will make it. Pam made her from scraps and fussy cut the star in the center--what a cute idea! Mine is made from a charm patch I had leftover from another project. I changed the border because I didn't want to cut them up! They are from a line called "Java" and have little coffee beans and coffee types printed on them.

The photos below are some miscellaneous show and tell we had. We're also trying to finish up some UFOs this year.

Lori's putting her sampler blocks together as she makes them (below).

Fannie found a darling pattern that puts different 6 inch blocks on the side of this simple house. It turned out great, Fannie!

Pam's working on using some of her large collection of brown fabrics. They decided they wanted to be a quilt today!

This last photo is the 10-minute table runner. It's a fun, easy project several of us have made.

Till next time, keep stitchin!
Mary

What's on my Design Wall

I've had a very nice Memorial Day weekend, and I hope you have as well. Some of the tributes on tv have been hard to watch. It is good, however, to be reminded that our freedom comes at a cost. Tonight Diane Sawyer is doing a wonderful tribute to the Vietnam Era vets--which is what my husband is. So in honor of Memorial Day I thought you might enjoy seeing one of my "flags" which is on display all the time in our living room. It's a padded cover to one of my Longaberger baskets. I purchased this cover in Dresden, Ohio. And what a fun place that is!

A few more flags flying near our fireplace mantel. Even my Jim Shore angels are red, white and blue!

This little quilt is the "One Patch Doll Quilt" from Civil War Sewing Circle. I had a leftover charm pack from another project and decided to use it up. It's called "Java"  and is made by Moda fabrics. This is the first quilt that I've quilted with my new Bernina 820. It has a stitch regulator, and is it ever fun machine quilting with that little attachment! I really enjoyed working on it. I changed up the border as I wanted to use up my charm squares with minimum cutting and no waste.

These are the blocks currently on my design wall. They are for the "Union Stars Quilt" from Civil War Sewing Circle. The blocks finish at 12 inches. There are two colorways, the one above has a blue center and large red triangles. The alternate block, below, has a different blue center with large blue triangles. I made a few mistakes that had to be corrected. I made 2 sets of hourglass blocks and my math was way off and they wound up being way too small. So I had to remake those. And in another block, I sewed 3 hourglass blocks from one fabric and the 4th from a different red fabric. I didn't spot that until the block was completed, so I had to rip that part out.

Isn't that ziggy print in the center a hoot! I have no idea where it came from! Here's my design wall with the 12 blocks on it. I'm very pleased at how they  turned out. The next step, of course, is to make the sashing and cornerstones. And I'm pleased to say this is another quilt made only from my stash.

And I just now noticed the mistake in the block on the bottom row, middle. I guess that's a good enough reason to get those blocks up on a design wall. You notice things that you otherwise might not notice! Okay, so I guess I'm not quite ready for sashing and cornerstones...have to do a little frog stitching first (that's rip-it, rip-it).

That's it for today! I've been working on another "Leader and Ender" project that uses 2-1/2 inch strips of fabric from my stash. But that's for another day! Till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary

Sewing Circle aka Little Women

Our Little Women/Sewing Circle group met today and we had a good time, as usual. This little quilt was a fast and easy project to make. I love how everyone was so creative with their border treatment fabric. Pam (above) who is loyal to the colors of red/white/blue, used a border fabric with Texas blue bonnets.

That's Charlotte above, peeking out from behind her quilt. She's making hers in red/black/tan and is thinking about setting all the small quilts together in one large top--just like she did with last year's projects (below).

 

Charlotte said she almost didn't want to bring her quilt to show us, because she looks at it and sees the "mistakes" in it. We have to learn to not be so hard on ourselves! We all told her that she did a fabulous job on this project. Charlotte gets 10,000 bonus points for creativity, and 20,000 bonus points for finishing her project!

That's Celestia's quilt above, with another creative border choice. Love it, Celestia!

Another scrappy squares quilt finished, above, for Celestia. Such a fun and easy quilt to make.

These two projects are called the "10-minute table runner" and since Tammy had 20 minutes to spare, she made 2 of them ;-) A patriotic one and a Halloween one. She even added little white ghost buttons to the Halloween one. You can find the video on You-tube on how to make it.

And lastly, the fun easy quilt below, by Judi. She is working on reducing her stash, and this is a "no-buy quilt." Good job, Judi. Judi, Pam and Charlotte do their own machine quilting, so when they're done, they truly are done with them!

I almost forgot to show you my quilt! Here it is above. I do love a good blue and brown quilt...I hope you do, too. We are really enjoying the projects from Kathleen Tracy's book. She has a very nice blog, check it out at sentimentalquilter.blogspot.com . She frequently has give aways, and free quilt patterns from time to time. She does small quilts with a historical influence.

And lastly, I hope you all have an enjoyable Mother's Day tomorrow and can spend time in person or by phone with your mom. My precious mother is 93 and I cherish every minute I have with her. Hubby and I will have brunch with our 2 sons, 2 d-i-ls, and 3 grandchildren. What a fun day! And I have a vacation day scheduled for Monday, so I get to play in my sewing room too! I hope you have a good weekend as well! and till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary

March Sewing Circle

 I have been wanting to post the photos from our March Sewing Circle group. Our project was to make the churn dash quilt from Kathleen Tracy's book "Civil War Sewing Cirlce."

 Love, love, love a blue quilt!

 We had a few sampler quilt blocks, too. That's Linda above, with her square in a square block. You can see Pam's sampler quilt blocks on the design wall in the photo below.

Hi Ann! Oh my goodness, now that's what I call a mini! We have a new English Paper Piecing group that meets at the shop. Of course you can make your hexies in any size from 1/2" to 3" or so. How cute is that little one!

Thanks Pam, for leading the group that day. We were in Florida on a short vacation so I missed the chance to get together with everyone. I trust you all had a good time!

We're doubling up on our sampler blocks so that our top will be complete by September. Maybe we'll even have some quilt tops for our December show and tell. I really do enjoy making sampler quilts. Since you make only one of each block, you don't get bored! And it's a great way to use up some smaller pieces of fabric.

Hubby and I have been working hard on my sewing room today. We bought an Expedit shelving unit from Ikea in December and finally got it put together today. Once I get my sewing room organized I'll give you some before and after photos. It has really been fun trying to figure out what to put on display in the new shelving unit. My goodies are pretty much a mixture of books, magazines and fabrics. And since there was a Murder She Wrote marathon today, Jessica Fletcher kept us company while we worked.

Till next time, keep stitchin!
Mary