Sewing at the Beach

I spent last week at Nags Head, North Carolina with some friends at a quilting retreat. We had lots of fun sewing, eating, shopping, watching tv and relaxing.

One of Nancy's projects (above) is the Jamestown Sampler. It was a block of the month at our LQS several years back. Nancy is piecing it and it will be a raffle quilt for the Richmond Area Quilt Guild.

 Here's the view from our great room! We had a few days of bad storms (including some snow), but it did clear up in enough time for us to view the dolphins playing one afternoon. They are such beautiful animals!

This is the Kindred Spirits project for March. It's called "Split Decision" and is a tablerunner about 15 inches by 45 inches. I used mostly Jo Morton fabrics. I have machine quilted and bound it. 

I made a new walker bag for my mom who lives in Florida. This is a free pattern I downloaded from Etsy. She will be 96 in 3 weeks! And she is doing amazing well.

My friend Pam and I are making the Trifle Dish Row-by-Row quilt that is a free pattern at ModaBakeShop. This is row 1--Pam's on the bottom, mine are on the top. It's called Spinning Spools.

Carmen is working on the Vintage Farm Girl quilt(s). She's making 12 inch and 6 inch blocks. These are a few of the ones she made this week. I thought I took a photo of her adorable red flowered tractor--but I don't see it! Rats!

I'm also working on TheSplendidSampler by Pat Sloan and her friend Jane. But I'll save that for another post!

Till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary in cold Virginia

Kindred Spirit Quilt Club

There is a new quilting group at Stitch-by-Stitch Quilt Shop in Chesterfield Virginia, called "Kindred Spirits." And I am happy to be leading it, 

along with my good friend Pam. We had our first meeting Jan. 9, 

and we have a few projects we'd like to show you!

First up is the project for this month--"Chasing Friends." The little quilt measures 22 inches square, each block finishes to about 7.5 inches square. That's the "Friendship Star" block in the middle of the flying geese blocks. One of my sewing goals this year is to learn to machine quilt, and I am reading Leah Day's wonderful tutorials to help me out. I used her pattern called "Elongated Rainbows (quilting pattern #7) to quilt this little project. It was easy-peasy 

with my new Bernina stitch requlator!

Pam enlarged the Chasing Friends block and made 9 of them, setting them together to make a nice lap sized or throw quilt. Her black border fabric has 

stick people and sewing tools on it. So cute....Nice job, Pam!

We wanted to issue an additional challenge to our group that would take us through the year. When Pam and I got together to discuss it, we both had a 

Row-by-Row quilt on our minds! Pam found this fun quilt at the wonderful Moda Bake Shop website, and we are encouraging our Kindred Spirits friends 

to work on the first row this month. The quilt is called "Trifle Dish Quilt" 

and can be found at this link to the Moda bake shop site:

http://www.modabakeshop.com/2014/07/trifle-dish-quilt.html

The first row we are making is called "Cherry Spools and Lady /Fingers." Join us if you would like to, we'd love to see some of your work, too! Pam is making her quilt using fabrics from her scrap bag. I have a pile of luscious sherbet colored fabrics that I think I will be using for my row-by-row. This row measures 

11.5 inches tall and 64.5 inches wide.

We don't typically have a lot of show and tell for our first group meeting (our groups run from January to December), since we are all recovering from the Christmas season. But Anne Wright showed several projects she had made while enjoying a 3-week Christmas vacation--a casserole cover and a cute tote/purse.

Anne started our pinwheel quilt already. The pattern has instructions to make it in two sizes; Anne is making the larger size in reds and greens as she would like to have a Christmas quilt to display next Christmas! Anne also told us about another group she is in. They are participating in a friendship quilt project this year. Each participant puts some fabric and their pattern in a shoe box and swaps with another member. You have a month to complete the block, and then pass it on the next month. I have participated in a project like this several times in my quilt guild in St. Charles, Missouri, and now that I live in Virginia, they have become my favorite quilts. I look at each block and remember the person that made it for me! It's a wonderful treasured memory!

Anne also brought along her hexie project to show...isn't it amazing! Hexies are verrrrrry popular right now here in Virginia, are they as popular where you are?

Pam has been working on Bonnie Hunter's current mystery quilt, "Allietare." She brought her current progress to show us. The red fabrics have chickens on them, so of course, she had to make a coordinating chicken pincushion to go along with her quilt. You can see some wonderful Allietare mystery quilts on Bonnie Hunter's blog at the following link:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2016/01/mystery-monday-link-up-reveal.html

Such a cute little chicken face, what's not to love, right?

And don't forget...no whining! ;-)

I tried to upload a photo of the quilts from the Kindred Spirits group, but am not having any success. Sometimes I am technologically-challenged! (I hope there are some others out there who share my problem.) You can check the group 

out on the keepsake quilting website/catalog, see below:

http://www.keepsakequilting.com/kindred-spirits-quilt-club

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have time to gather some scraps 

and make some quilts!

Mary Hickory

Midlothian Virginia

01.15.2016

Three New Projects

I'm prepping and packing for an upcoming weekend sewing retreat. My 3 projects will be:

 

 

Merry Mayhem's Mystery Quilt #136, posted on January 1, 2014. I'm missing one more anvil block! Then I will move on to the setting squares. These are some of my favorite Jo Morton fabrics.

 

 

 

Our Little Women group is working through Lori Smith's Fat Quarter quilting. The January challenge is the Baskets 30s style quilt above. I'm thinking red and white fabrics?

 

 

I'm working on the Pinwheels in my Garden quilt for the March challenge. I'm using Lori's color scheme of pink and brown because my brain can't take anything more taxing than that right now!

 

And if I receive my package of Grants Park fabrics from Fat Quarter quilting, I hope to work on another project. I purchased 5 charm packs at my local quilt shop, but they did not have any yardage to go with it. It just seemed to spring-y and fresh! Love the soft blue and taupe combination.

 

 

http://www.fatquartershop.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=grant+park

 

Here's the link to the whole line!

 

Till next time, warm quilty hugs from Mary in Virginia