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