The last Friday of every month - for the last 11 years - our quilt group, The Sew Whats, has met in one of our member's homes. This month it was my turn to hostess - always a fun time. Our group has been going around in circles lately - what started with a quilt by Mari has turned into an obsession with the rest of us. I think we all have at least one circle quilt, if not two and a group project, with circles, is now in it's third month with 3 more to go!
This is Dawn's circle quilt - sort of old-fashioned looking, sort of tropical - and very cute! Dawn is our only color-blind member....but that doesn't stop her from making wonderful quilts - and she is the first to say she always gets help picking out colors.
This Christmas quilt belongs to Claudia - but it would look so nice in my home! She just has the binding left to do....in the centers of the blocks she has sewn yo-yo's - and attached them in a rather unique way - which she is going to put in a pattern and make millions on! The yo-yo's really added a lot to this quilt. What you can't see is the beautiful job Claudia did quilting this - she has a long-arm and she's quite the master with it! Claudia also gave us a demonstration on making yo-yo's and a new was to use freezer paper when paper-piecing. Thanks Claudia!
If I could remember what Claudia told us on how to sew on yo-yo's I would tell all of you....but I can't, so I guess we'll all have to wait for her pattern to come out!
This Christmas quilt belongs to Barbara - isn't the border fabric darling?!!! We all just loved it! Barbara is the most perfect sewer/quilter I know - my apologies to the rest of you - but you all know it's true! She never makes a mistake and if she ever were to make one, she would fix it immediately....no hack jobs for her! So opposite from me!
All of these quilts look better in person - this one belongs to Denise - her harvest/Halloween quilt that almost has an Asian look to it - another one we just loved.
Denise is our master paper-piecer - she is as exact as Barbara when it comes to paper piecing - something that you either love or hate...I fall into the later category as you have to be exact to do it....hell will be frozen over before that happens!
I'm the maker of 30 foot quilts....that means my quilts look good from thirty feet away....just don't look up close and personal! But the members in my quilt group all make "Inchers"...quilts that look good up close - you can examine them, only a few inches away, and see nothing but perfection!
Maybe in my next life I'll be an Incher!
This is another Barbara Quilt...she taught this class and came up with the design - and of course, it's perfectly sewn. We all want to make one of these, too! In our group, copying someone's quilt is the "sincerest form of flattery"....at least that's what we tell each other!
We did something a little different after our meeting on Friday - we went on a little field trip to a new quilt shop. Barbara couldn't come with us - we quizzed her about it and she said she had to clean her house - we jumped all over her for that because how could she miss a field trip for THAT reason?!? Then she came clean - she was going home to finish a quilt for someone in the class that she taught - so typical of Barbara - if she's not serving someone else she's serving someone else...and yes, I meant to say that.
This is another of Barbara's quilts. Several of us in our group made these quilts a few years back - and Barbara brought hers to remind us of just how many scraps of fabric this quilt takes - like thousands!
Barbara is helping someone - again - who wants to make this quilt and asked us all to bring her some scraps. Just look at all those points - and they all match up...You've heard of the phrase, "...long may she wave..." speaking in flag terms...well, my flag quilt was waving before it was even finished - something about all those triangles being stretched and uneven...story of my life!
This final quilt belongs to Dawn - or rather, her son Billy. She made it for him for his high school graduation. Billy picked out the fabric - which you probably can't see very well - but it's skulls and camouflage fabric...Dawn calls it the Rock and Roll quilt because she can't bring herself to call it the skull quilt! We all loved it - and if my son saw it he would be begging for one - but he's not getting one! He's been usurped by my future grandson!
We had a great lunch - if I do say so myself - and I'll happily post those recipes just as soon as I can. Our field trip to Ballard was so fun - we went to the Quilting Loft and I'm sure they were able to pay their rent by what we spent....I am proud to say that I was NOT the big winner/spender....although I tried!