meeting day

Good meeting today with the Bama Belles Quilting Club.  I mentioned the other day that we had planned to do a bit of sewing for a mission field project so a good many of us had come prepared to sew.

As usual, there are few people out of town, some under the weather (one left early) or had home matters keeping them from attending but I think I counted 12 of us today.  We were happy that Brenda (on the left) could be with us.  A new job position has been a deterrent to coming since the first of the year. We have missed her!  That lovely sampler is Brenda's quilt, recently long arm quilted and all bound and labeled.

Donna was working on binding on her first ever quilt with a push to have it done for Show and Tell at the JOY group next week.  You cannot help but be excited for her!  Valera was pinning for the next step of project is she sewing on with a Christmas theme---the sections were foundation pieced and include a sharply angled piecing on the join.   Rosa had a trimming project to tend to---something I had agreed to machine quilt for her in a couple of months actually.

 This is Bridget's Gordian Knot quilt with the lovely pieced border.  I believe she said that this will be going to a family member open completion.  She was cutting out her next project, a series of small pillows of lavender to hang on a door knob.  She was using one of those panels with the saying on them.  While I am not sure where she found them, they were on the order of some I have seen screen printed at Block Party Studios and may have even been the one that I link to--prayer shawl fabric panel.

There were varied projects going on at the machines---

• Marilyn and Brenda were making string blocks with a lot of strips, with some of the fabrics others had brought for that purpose. We were using some thin fabric that had been donated to back those rather than worry about pulling paper after
• Pat pulled out a "Many Trips around the World" she had been working on previously to move it along.  
• Lois had found a G. E. Designs pattern called "Strip Stacks" and was making a totally scrappy version of this rather than using a jelly roll.  It reminded me of a cross between our old favorite  Snuggle Up and a Staggered Bricks but just more white space between the sections.  
• Ada chose Reversible Quilt as You Go pattern that she had found in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine July/August 1998.  Article/technique by  Margaret Gutowsky.  The pattern called for 4 1/2 inch cut squares but she was using 5 inches and the blocks were finishing at 6 1/2 inches.   You make big 4 patches and then fold them in some manner to actually make an hour glass block.  Batting is already added to it and then you turn it right side out.  Pretty slick really.  I had seen this before as my friend Joy had a workshop somewhere along the way but I think the technique was attributed to Elsie Vredenburg at that time.  Actually in looking for a link, I found a tutorial for this on Quilting Board!!  Marking on Pinterest so I don't misplace the link.  LOL
• Meanwhile Beverly was using some feminine colored 2 1/2 inchers to make a top like Bev had made recently.  I don't know the pattern source and just dubbed it "Flower Power"---in a post last month, 4th photo down .  If anyone knows more about it, please let me know!

And what was I doing?  Actually getting some sewing done, LOL.  The blocks for this were done and if I recall correctly, something the Belles and I had tried for an easy version of Attic Windows in the distant past.  I did not have enough of the cow pasture fabric so those 4 odd ball squares are little yellow flowers on the same green background.  I staggered them.  Finished joining the blocks into rows and finished up the top.  It is a little small but this will be going to Mexico and I don't have to quilt it, just make a top or two.

I came home with some string blocks and an idea of what to do with them as there are two sizes of blocks and some leftover heart blocks.  Lois and Beverly passed on some abandoned blocks that I will combine in some manner with some I already have here at home.

Actually I sort of traded with Lois, LOL.  When we first met years ago at the JOY group, Lois asked if Belles took donation blocks as she had a lot of machine embroidery blocks that we might be interested in.  Someone at JOY had told her we did pro bono stuff for kids, I guess.  I took a pile of them, made two quilts at that time but there were a few that did not quite fit together theme wise but you never know!  Then recently with another influx of donation material there were some really cute transportation things---too cute!  I asked her if she would look at them and see what she might have, and wanted to donate, that would go with some of the designs.  I can sew them if she doesn't want to but perhaps we could get those moved along in some manner.

About half the group made the run down to the new grocery store deli again---you can pick out just about anything you might for a quick lunch.  Like grab a small two serving size of chicken salad, walk over to the delil and get one roll to put it on, grab some fruit from the produce section and check out.  The soup was a good choice on a cold blustery day for a couple of the girls.  I had intended to bring my leftovers home but I either left it sitting out on the counter or it is still in the fridge.  I got sidetracked in our efforts to straighten up the tables, get our stuff packed up and out to the car, try to figure out who might be missing a rotary cutter, clean out the coffee pot etc.  I have to head into town tomorrow so will run by there to see what I did for sure.  Sometimes the mind is going  or becoming a one track kind, LOL.  By the time I dropped my friend off I didn't get home till almost 4 and had left the house at 8:30.

I started my pom pom project last night and thought that perhaps I would get back to it this evening.  By the time I got my meeting stuff put away and supper tended to, posting this etc I am out of the notion.  Tomorrow is another day for playing and I have any number to choices of where to start too.  Debating if I came home with more things than I took in spite of being able to empty out one project box---I think I did, LOL.

And sew it goes---------thx for stopping by.