This past Friday night was our little quilt group’s Quilt Night.  We hold it the first Friday night of just about every month, taking off some here and there.  Lisa (on the left) and I founded The Good Heart Quilters when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is will soon be 18.  Hard to think we’ve been going that long!  On the right is Charlotte, one of our newer members, and Lisa’s running/marathon buddy.  Why are they smiling?  I cleaned out my fabric stash this past month and brought all the leftovers for them to claim.

Speaking of pregnant ladies, Tiffiny, on the left, is waaaay pregnant and due this week.  (So far, no news.)  She is our bonafide Newest Member, but I’m guessing with a new baby, we won’t be seeing her for a while.  She’s helping Lisa hem and sew buttons on band uniforms (Lisa is a parent volunteer).  See?  We don’t always do quilts.  We want Tiffiny to come any time she wants to as she brought us all a yummy key lime pie.  Treats are always a good thing at Quilt Night.

And still speaking of pregnant ladies, Caitlin (on the left) is due in January.  Simone (on the right) and I rounded out the group and we are definitely NOT pregnant.  A small gathering, but fun.  And with great treats that everyone brought.

I kicked them all out 10 p.m. because the next day I had to leave at 7 a.m. to head to San Diego to the San Diego Quilt Show, where I was taking a Free Motion Quilting Class with Sue Rasmussen.  She was great.  The class started out with a comprehensive overview of needles and threads, but soon we launched into hands on FMQ.  I had taken a class with another instructor about twelve years ago and a lot of what I know now I’ve gleaned through books, internet and Instagram.  So I thought it was time to do something classroom-y again.

We learned about hand position, speed, foot control and the all important wild card of what to do when our brain kicks in with questions like “Should this be a feather?”  or “You really messed up there.”  She also taught us three methods for starting and stopping, and kept the class moving with good demos and good advice.  I’m now totally intimidated on submitting anything to a show as she clued us in to some things she looks for in a show quilt (she’s often a judge).  Thankfully she didn’t say “sparkles.”

I had an hour for lunch, see the show, and visit the vendors’ booths.  I raced through it, so didn’t have time to grab names or titles of quilts (sorry) but here’s a few photos that I grabbed as we zipped by.

This French landscape is Sue Rasmussen’s.  You can bet I looked closely at the quilting.  (It was perfect.)

She actually had three of these trees, all in different color ways and different fabrics.  It was fascinating to see how different they all were.

I loved this fun quilt, but it didn’t win the Modern Quilt category prize.  (Inconceivable!)

Great quilting, eh?

This one won first prize in the Modern Quilt category.  Hmmmm.  I see “improv piecing” which seems to be a criteria (or at least according to Road to California’s blurb when I took a look at it this morning).  That’s it?  Improv piecing as the only qualifier for Modern?  Oh, that and “significant negative space,” or something like that.  I hate these seemingly artificial qualifiers and divisions.  Like Leanne of She Can Quilt says, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Back to class for another few hours.  Here are some of Sue’s samples.  I really enjoyed her class and was glad I made the effort.

On the long drive home, there is this elegant bridge spanning the wide freeway.  When I see this, I know I’m halfway home. It was a good weekend, with good friends and experiences, but heading home is what I like to do most.