Holiday Quilt Night for the Good Heart Quilters

December 3, 2012December 3, 2012 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

I’m sure I’ve told you, but our little quilt group–named The Good Heart Quilters–began when Lisa, majorly pregnant with her second daughter, enlisted my help (as well as few others) to get us all together to sew. Our first quilt night was December of that year, and just about every month after that we loaded up our sewing machines, rulers, mats and rotary cutters on the first Friday and sewed until the caffeine from our stash of Coke and root beer wore off and we headed home, usually in the wee hours of the morning.

Fast foward sixteen years. Lisa is in the middle in the brown vest and still looks as young as she did that night (and by the way, she had her baby the next day). We have some new Good Heart Quilters, but it’s fun to have this gang hang together as long as we have. In the middle next to Lisa is Cindy of Live a Colorful Life, who joined us for the party (and stayed with me for the weekend). And now, everyone was cleared out by 10:30 p.m.

Leisa and I hosted this gig, and she arrived early to give my tired Christmas wreath a makeover. Thanks, Leisa, it looks terrific (I didn’t get wreath-making DNA).

We set up two long tables, plus had the one in the kitchen, ready to go. I hate juggling too many utensils, so Cindy and I set them out. Cindy had arrived the day before, and that morning we had done a little shop-hop, but were back in time to set up the party. I’d cooked up a slew of my mother’s chili on Thursday (because chili always tastes better the next day), Leisa brought rolls and sodas, and everyone brought the toppings.

Leisa found these sweet pincushions for everyone, and together we sewed a bunch of zippered pouches to give out as gifts (below).

Bethany brought two kinds of cupcakes: chocolate and white.

And she brought one of her first sewing projects to show us: a cute Christmasy pillowcase.

The chili and all the fixins. Karen brought us some vegan chili, as we have a couple of women who are watching what they eat. I like that our group changes and flexes to our needs.

Quilters in the kitchen. . .

. . . and the dining room.

After dinner and visiting, we got to work. Lisa brought a yo-yo project and everyone helped.

Bridget curled up in a red chair to sew on her red/white quilt.

Simone’s working on her apple core quilt. Someone commented that she seemd to have dressed to match what she was working on, but she denied any overt connection.

Kelly, who came just for a little holiday cheer and destressing, quickly joined us in visiting.

Tauni has finished two quilts–the one above, and the one below.

Tauni and Sara.

JoDy is getting the binding on a zoo-themed quilt.

Jean helped Lisa with the yo-yo project and in the background, Carol listens intently.

Cindy and Laurel talk shop: Farmer’s Wife blocks. Seeing those blocks all together was really stunning. It’s hard to appreciate them only on the blog. I got a closer look the next day, when Cindy and I decided we’d had enough running around and hunkered down to sew.

This is the string of them, coming off the machine. She was bordering them, but I kept finding ones that I loved.

Like this one. Almost thou dost persuade me to make my own set, Cindy. Almost. But I think I’ll just admire yours.

I got busy on the shams to go with the Christmas Star Quilt that I’d made a couple of years ago. I did want to get these done last year, but we went to Ohio for Christmas, and then there was that cancer surgery thing I had to go through (I’m fine) but it sure disrupts a life. So, better late than never. I’m guest-hosting at Lee’s Freshly Pieced Blog on Wednesday, so check back then for the finished reveal on the shams.

Sunday morning, the weekend with Cindy came to an end, when I drove her down to the train station to catch her ride home. We were early, so sat and talked quilting stuff: blogs, creativity, challenges, feelings of inadequacy, and the impact of online distraction. From our conversation, I have enough ideas for many more posts. I appreciate my quilting friends–both those that I have had for many months and years–as well as those I meet online.

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P.S. Those of you who read my blog through your readers, click through to see the new Christmas banner at the top of my blog. Some of these photos were taken when we lived in Virginia and are trees found around Washington DC during the holidays.

Autumn Quilt

November 19, 2012 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Autumn Quilt is just smoothed up on the wall (crookedly), but I’m happy to be at this place with this quilt. I started collecting fabrics for it about 8 or 9 years ago, gathering up reds and golds and earthy greens, browns and blacks with pattern. I was mimicking a quilt design from a friend of mine who had made a similar quilt and I loved the way it glowed.

I used the basic Square-in-a-Square pattern, adjusting it so that these are nine-inch blocks. I put the inner striped border on it and hung it in the closet last fall. And it stayed there while I ruminated on and pondered the border. My family has the Ruminating Gene in spades.

I showed some of the process in my last post, so I know this is a repeated tale. Sorry. But what was different was that I cut down the one-inch striped border to a half-inch sort of piping-effect border. I’m happy with it.

But when I put it all together, it was like there were doorways or gates on each side, letting the border go flabby. While I may have to deal with flabby everything else, I’m not at all about to settle for flabby borders. I unpicked and re-stitched to what is shown above. I like it a lot better, and many thanks to my husband for helping me talk through that little knot of a problem.

I had one backing all picked out–a vintage piece of fabric, bought at a yard sale next to my sister-in-law’s house in Utah. It just didn’t sing. But this eight-year-old piece from Alexander Henry did.

I added two other fabrics with a orangey-blue tonality, and we were good to go. So today, it did–off to the quilter’s.

I did other errands today made me glad to have a holiday that causes me to think about what I’m thankful for. I ran into Joan in the grocery store — an 80-year-old friend — and she was buying a disposable roaster and colorful napkins. The whole family, with grandchildren, boyfriends and everyone is at her house again, as they are every year. Everyone helps but she confided she has a hard time getting the gravy made because “They want me out in the backyard playing croquet with them!” And then as we were leaving, she gestured with her arm to the immaculate grocery store, perfection this morning at 8 a.m. before the hordes of Thanksgiving shoppers arrived, and said “When I look at this abundance, I feel like I need to give thanks to God all over again.” I’ll be taking a wee break from blogging while I cook and peel and crimp and serve and oh yeah, clean up (as well as do a bit of grading and maybe even shopping) so I’m posting this holiday wish a bit early.

Like my friend Joan, this Thursday, I’ll be giving thanks to God for friends I’ve found in writing this blog and in participating in the quilting world. You really do enrich my life with fabric chats, a little fun gossip now and again, and a sense that I belong to a vibrant community full of talent and enough quirkiness to make it interesting.

I’ll be giving thanks to God for his goodness in my life, for the gift of our children and grandchildren and in-laws and out-laws (hey, we all have a few). I’m grateful to my mother and father for giving me atta’boys when I need it, and correcting my grammar and spelling when called for. I’m happy to have sisters and brothers, and to have grown up in a family so large that we had to learn to share, yet small enough that when one of us is down, the others all know and want to help.

I have many ways to count the blessings in my life and will be doing just that on Thursday, feeling the Lord’s kindness rain down. And I wish this all for you.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Quilt Bee · Quilts

Undead Bee

November 16, 2012 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

I had just about given up hope — no, I HAD given up hope of our Far Flung Bee block exchange ever finishing its run, so I put up a note on Flickr. So I was pretty excited today to get a wee package in the mailbox, all the way from New Zealand.

Inside were there incredibly cute Bee Blocks from Deb. Ah, Deb, they are wonderful! I like the accent of the dark text block in the center of the tulip–a variation I hadn’t seen before. I think that’s the beauty of Bee Blocks. Each quilter brings her own vision and stash to the creation of a block, and that’s why I was pretty dejected when I wrote on our Flickr group that I thought the our bee had joined the dead.

I think some of our members have struggled with deadlines because of busy family lives, which can also include full-time employment, a full load of classes at school and other life-absorbing experiences. But have you been in a bee that sort of petered-out? How did you feel about it? Do you stay away from Bees? Join them whenever you can? Love the interaction? Bemoan that you’re not getting your “own stuff done” because of all the bee blocks you agreed to crank out?

So, Bee Block Exchanges. Love ’em? Hate ’em? And why?

Quilts · WIP

Autumn Quilt Borders

November 14, 2012 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

For this WIP Wednesday, kindly hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced fabrics (click to head back there and see what others are doing), I chose to resurrect an ancient Work In Progress: my autumn quilt.

I had updated my computer software to work with my printer, and while you think that’s a strange way to begin a post about borders, I depend on it a lot (I use Quilt-Pro) to help me work out templates and dimensions. So I had kind of mocked up this one, but didn’t want to go to all the trouble to do square-in-a-square on the borders.

So this was the next version. While it seems silly to spend time at a computer when you’re working on a quilt, I did it for two reason: my annual Horrid Sickness had descended (complete with a 2-hour Urgent Care visit) and I felt like sludge most of the week, but more importantly, I was running on low in the autumn fabrics that I’d used to make this quilt, and I wanted to use what I had instead of buying more. I’d been collecting these for about a decade, so the colors weren’t going to be easy to find, even if I did want to buy more.

Then I got a tiny nudge in my brain to use the golds in the outside Flying Geese block. Anything I do in the program will be more pronounced, as I’m working with solids, but I did like this version.

Here’s the quilt.

So here are all the new Flying Geese pieces laid out around the quilt. I had stopped with that small stripy border and was ready to yank it off if I didn’t like it, but. . . I like it. Trust me on this. I simply did two Half-Square-Triangles (HST) for the corners and now have to figure out how it will all work.

I laid out all the giant EPP hexagons on my guest bedroom bed to see how they all looked together. I love them, but have lots more figuring out to do. That will have to wait until after Christmas, I think!

And here’s your funny for the day: