Back in the saddle

Back to work for the Bama Belles with the first meeting for 07. It was good to see everyone after the break for the holiday season. Today was mostly pinning day and a lot of chatting. Judy was tying a flannel quilt she had made for her daughter. Lois was sewing--actually finishing up at top we later pinned. Pat volunteered do some cutting so I dug through the bins and asked her to cut some 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 inch strips, whatever she could get out of the small bits and pieces. I ended up taking my ostrich RR in the hopes of prepping some bias strips for an applique vine but didn't touch it--other duties intervened. Sarah was sewing bits of batting together so we get a bit more mileage out of the roll. Ginny and I were discussing what she might do for a commissioned quilt she has been asked to make for a school fund raiser. Whoever wants to bring their machine next meeting can help with some heartstring blocks if they wish. I came within a whisker of hauling my strip baskets this morning.

I got to test out our new hanging system. Judy's husband rigged up the rod for us and Judy got some clip on shower curtain type rings. We thought how bad can it be? The first (almost )1400 quilt pics have hands sticking out the top, wear tennis shoes, have one corner higher than the other, the wind blowing them OR only have part of the quilt. I may need to look into getting a tripod.

I came home with 8 completed quilts and 3 pinned. Just checked and I have 29 finished quilts here at home--the closet is already stuffed, LOL and the hamper has a big stack on top. Most are slated for the Boys Ranch and are leftover from last year's donation but the more feminine ones will go to the Presbyterian Children's Home in Talledega. I might have come back with a 4th pinned top added to the mix but Ginny has just gotten a Hinterberg frame set up for Christmas from her husband. Right now she will use it with her domestic machine and the Voyager part of the package, she said, will have to wait a bit. She wanted a quilt or two to practice on. I picked my toadie BQ since that is the one I was puzzling on how to quilt. Since I am not comfortable with my free motion abilities, by all means, go for it, Ginny with my thanks! Of course, everyone was looking at the pattern and wondering just how it was made and LOVED the fabric, Finn.

I have included a couple pics for you to see. The first is Ginny's Pioneer Braid above. She had a long strip started at one of the "bring your machine" meetings but since she was using the same color groups from her scrap bin, we thought maybe she should make a couple more for a complete top. Theramae pitched in to finish up the binding.


At right, some of these "boy" fabrics might look familiar to Cher and Finn. Those are baseballs, not big polka dots and racing flags---all sports/boy themed stuff. I cut out two tops with extra strips at the fall sew in for Theramae and Sarah. This one is done "Snuggle Up" style but Theramae had a 2nd top made with the leftovers. This one is backed with a blue print with larger footballs, etc. Had we cut it, the motifs might not have been recognizable


Aline came in with a couple tops as well. This was her butterfly challenge top. I had showed you some of the others that we had done HERE. (Beverly is seen walking in the background of the picture.)

It got really blustery today and barely made it into the low 40's today, one of those days that you probably could discuss wind chill factors. Needless to say, my golfer guy stayed home and bless him, did the laundry while I was away. We will be having some water damaged siding sections replaced on the south end of the house sometime next week so were happy that they had not dropped off the sections yet. The wind would have toppled them over really quick.

Other than that, I do have 12 heartstrings block under construction and was working on them yesterday---till I got to chatting online with Pam and Norma, LOL. I'll be back in quilting mode tomorrow so will set those aside for a few days. Maybe if I get a couple of these quilted there will be a binding volunteer when we got to the Bee on Friday. Hope spring eternal???