8 of us "regulars" were there but so were 3 of our gals who cannot come very often. We were happy that Pat's schedule allowed her to be with us as well as Linda C who was back down visiting from Tennessee. Nancy has a conflict in the schedule since her church's quilting day is the same as ours but they meet at the church catty corner to where Belles meet so she pops over occasionally. That is what Shawnee did later in the day.
Bev who is recuperating from major surgery did not want to be left out of the fun and had her husband drop her off for a bit. She brought her yo-yo bag of tricks to show us how to do it especially with some of the fun shapes. In the "pass it around to try it" mode, I was almost happy to see that someone else had made a few stitches sewing it to the disc, like had! LOL. Betsy and Gary also swung by----I think Betsy must have insisted they do so on their way back from the BHM hospital and an overnight stay after a procedure she had had on Monday! These two are dedicated!
We also had two other guests---Judy and Gladys. Judy is Teresa's sister and she brought her friend Gladys with her. Turns out Gladys knew Lois from square dancing! I hope they will come back when they can!
Between Lois, Beverly and I---and I think someone else had a bag to share---we had boxes, bins and bags of the aforementioned strips and squares. There were books and printouts to share for ideas of how to use them. I had not picked a sew-in block as I often do and asked the Belles to crank as many as they cared to make. There's the supplies--come up with an idea.
I wish I had gotten more pictures but I was busy sewing! Lois, Pat and Brenda got right into Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips. Marilyn had a 4 patch quilt already started but was looking for sashing supplies among the strips. Beverly and Judy were making string blocks on telephone book pages. Later Judy had switched to big 4 patches though. Jane was working on at strippie heart and I need to ask her the designer as it is really, really cute! I was doing the Granny Squares from the Blue Elephant blog but strip piecing parts of it. (8 sections of the white and adjacent print can be strip pieced but you still need some single cuts for the nine patch in the dead center and 4 background squares). Below the total of my day's output.
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I didn't leave Teresa out! Earlier in the week she had told me about some leftover Toy Fabric that she wanted to make a pro bono quilt with. Her cut squares were 8 inches presently so what size should she cut it down to? I said 5 inch and had suggested a Jewel Box or Buckeye Beauty quilt. She could try the two for one method for both the 4 patches and half square triangles needed to accomplish that plus still have fabric leftover from the bulk of the cut down for another 2 1/2 inch strip. I demo'd that to Teresa, Judy and Gladys. Then later when Judy had giant 4 patches from the nickel squares Teresa suggested Disappearing 4 patches so I showed them how to do that! I like it a bit better with 6 1/2 inch squares so that little cut part in the middle is not so tiny and suggested that. I love making Puss in the Corner blocks (uneven nine patches) from the 5 inch ones and walked them through the process since I had a print out of the Billie Lauder quick trick method in my nickel container.
I hope this gave the Belles some new ideas of how to work with scraps. The pattern ideas are endless, in my estimation. Scraps are like gold when you can discover the quilts hiding your scrap bag We have a ton of cut 2 1/2 inch squares left so that might need to be the focus for our next sewing date. Beverly had a picture in one of her jelly roll books of a clever idea that would use some cut squares and of course, there are always the blocks that incorporate 16 patches too.
I know I came home with considerably less in my strip container than I had and did not drag home more than I took with me IF you discount the cute fish yardage from Jane---and that's good! The little wire basket I stuff odds and ends in is filling up and will need attention one of these days at this rate.
Good food, good fellowship and sharing, good learning experiences---does it get any better than that? Girlfriend days are the best! Yeah, I probably get more done if I sew at home but trust me, the company is better at a quilt meeting. I appreciate the girls help getting the room back to its original configuration too. We were the only thing on the church calendar when I booked it for an extended meeting but a church event had re-scheduled so we started packing it all in around 4. I think I got home about 4:30 anyway.
Again, I wish I had taken more pictures. Linda C had been working with wool quite a bit and had a lot of penny rugs and such done. Brenda and I were discussing the blocks you see below two weeks ago---and look how neat her Santa's came out! She still needs to blanket stitch them down and add the eyes and such but the blocks were all prepped. I showed my March Button Up, Bloom since Linda C passed on her pattern when she was done with it and my new purse/backpack.
Shawnee also attends the quilt group at the catty corner church but she came by to drop off this quilt she had tied. It was one that Linda C had made and left for us when she moved to TN. I love how the 4 patches chain on this one. Simple squares, 4 patches and hour glass blocks---simple yet very effective. Shawnee got some batting to go with three more tops of Linda's tops but no pinning, only sewing at this day. We'll help her with that at a future meeting. Note to self: call and order the batting roll since we are almost out. Lois and I both have tops to pin and that is even before we have finished tops that will generate from the sew-in! Of course, I need to quilt a bunch too as a lot of our pins are tied up in the tops on my dresser.
On a more personal note:
I spent most of last weekend cutting for the FAB challenge sewing on Saturday plus tons of muslin for the sew-in. I did manage to get the binding at least machine applied to 76 bowties but that is as far as it got with baking more cookies for sew-in, home duties and packing up the car. Today I plan to make a few more granny square blocks and move that along a little further. Cher said it was okay to get a jump start sewing on the challenge project. I think Norma and I will sew together on Friday since she has the day off. Mine is a large quilt so I could use a little head start, LOL.
And sew it goes---------
What a FUN meeting, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't wait until the next one now. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
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