meeting day production

The quilt group met today as planned. We were still missing a few of our folks---one out of town, another in the hospital, another is moving to Georgia soon. Some have other home and family obligations. The 8 of us that were there had a couple machines set up as well as the pinning table. Aline had sent a couple tops with me so those got pinned after I prepped a back for one of them. Pat F. had a tractor quilt to pin for her baby grandson while Linda C. had a zigzag strippie top that I will quilt up and a personal project for a family member gift. Fun quilts that I will share with you in the future, I am sure. I came home with more stuff than I took--typical, LOL.

Pictured at left is Beverly's completed challenge quilt. I think that this is "Strip Twist"? Something like that anyway. She had used Kairle's strip quilt tutorial after I spotted it and sent the link to our private yahoo group. Always fun to see the girls try something I think that they may want to try. Thanks, Kairle for the inspiration and "how-to's"
To the right, is my output for the meeting. I was showing Nancy some of the fundamentals of paper piecing today. What a sweetie! She not only shared the fabrics for the blocks and background fabric for the quilt but even brought some sandwich makings for our lunch! Yummy turkey breast. The color is not right as these are more a hot pink. Nancy took over and added the frame on the simple block and tried out my little Janome Jem as she has the opportunity to buy one used from another group member. I did the other block called "Candy Box Heart" from Piece By Number.

I had printed a bunch of the heart patterns off from various sources, EQ and online, when I made the heart block row seen HERE . I just took the whole notebook I just reorganized with me as I had all the heart blocks were right on the top. Appropriate blocks since it is almost Valentine's Day, right? Nancy as a cat owner particularly liked the Kitty Love heart block also on Piece By Number. So do I, along with this one of a cat with a heart on its belly http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1667.asp Guess you know what I'll be doing tomorrow? We are making these blocks in memory of our Sarah; she did love her kitties so the inclusion of them in the quilt would be appropriate.

Another prefers to applique and will probably try "Emily's Heart" found HERE. Others liked the scrappy heart on the Delaware Quilts and others, our old standby, vertical heart block from the World Wide Quilting Page. Beverly was making a nine patch hearts-- Billie Lauder among others on that one. I will do a few more as I told the girls to make any sized heart block, any technique as long as it was a shade of pink for the heart and white/WOW backgrounds. With smaller blocks such as these we will need more than they finished up today by month's end. Another had some raggy hearts on hand---it will all work.

Before I left for the meeting, I was able to finish up the 2nd bargello strata and add it to the first one. I completed the 3rd strata and sub-cut it after I posted yesterday. I'll take an updated picture after I get the next section added. Definitely looking more like a quilt. Heart blocks first though. Bargello on the weekend again. Next week I think I better try to do a bit of quilting. Some of the girls came prepared to help with some binding and I didn't have any for them to work on! When you have willing helpers, it would be good to have something for them to work on! T-shirt quilt? Yeah, I know---fit that in there too. Never enough hours in the day, are there, when you are a creative person with more ideas than time. And, it looks like I am up later than usual as it is...........time to tell Pippi to move on over.