Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to everyone. A BIG thank you to all the troops, at home and overseas, who are risking their lives to keep us free. There is no picture this post. I have not done any sewing this week, so I have nothing to show but a messy sewing room. I have been busy buying fabric, washing fabric, and folding fabric though. I am a fabriholic, and I admit it openly! Is there a FAA group I can join? I need help! My husband and I took another trip up to Sonora to visit his dad in the hospital. His dad is doing much better, and that is very hopeful. On our way up to Sonora Saturday, we stopped at the Railroad Cafe for breakfast. Then we stopped at In Between Stitches where I signed up for a new BOM, actually two BOMs. They have a $5.00 quilt BOM starting next month. I have never participated in one of these $5 quilt programs before. I don't know if I can get there on time each month, but I will try. It will be challenging to see if I can actually get a quilt top for only $5.00. If I can get to the required meeting each month, I will not be required to pay for my block for that month as long as I bring the finished block from the month before, and I am on time to the class. We are required to stay for the entire class (less than an hour) in order to keep in good standing. What is not to like about going to a quilt store every month? By the way, I signed up for the PURPLE color group. Hope you all have a great week. Take care and..... Happy Quilting

Curved Piecing

It was a busy weekend. I am tired today, and it is only Monday! Saturday I did my Quilting 101 workshop for my quilt guild. Our focus for that meeting was curved piecing and hand piecing. I have two tops that I have pieced by hand, and one quilt that is basted and ready for quilting that I did by hand. I am working on a charm spool top. It is big enough right now to be a table runner, but I have lots more pieces cut out that I want to use. So I don't think it is finished quite yet. Sunday my hubby and I drove up to Sonora to visit with his dad and step mother. While we were there, we stopped at Bearly Quilting in Sonora. It is a fairly new quilting store (2-1/2 years old). I had not been in it before Sunday. It is a nice shop with lots of fabrics, kits, patterns, books, and fun stuff. There are many finished quilts hung on the walls and hung from the ceiling. While I was there, I wanted to grab some fabric and use one of the little sewing machines they had on display and sew up a storm right there in the shop. If you are ever in Sonora, be sure to stop at Bearly Quilting. I am sure you will find something to tickle your fancy. On the way home we stopped at our favorite Mexican food restaurant in Escalon, the Cancun Restaurant. We think they have changed owners, so everything is not as we remember it, but it was very good just the same. At the workshop on Saturday, I presented three different patterns of curved piecing. This first one is the mismatch of pieces that I literally threw up on my design wall. When they were spread apart on my design space at class, they looked much different. When I brought them home and attempted to put them together in some semblance of order, I found I needed a lot more light fabrics. So I am looking through my stash and pulling out lights and light mediums. This quilt will not be a fast one to put together. I haven't even started to sew any parts together yet. I want to get some idea of a design first, then I can play with my fabric. Maybe I should do a paper mock up including some coloring with colored pencils to start the designs flowing. I thought it would be a breeze to put this quilt together, but not so. More thought needs to be put into the design element, then the color placement before I can actually sew parts together.

This is a four block unit of a Drunkard's Path design that I took out of one of my Georgia Bonesteel's books. This is the more classic design, I think. These pieces were very easy to piece. Since I made them out of some of my favorite fabric, I think they turned out great. Although, I am not sure I would want to make a large quilt with only these two fabrics.

This is a class sample from a class taught by Peggy True for our guild back in 1999. We drafted our own pattern with her guidance and instruction. Then we cut some pieces and sewed some blocks together. This sample is nine blocks sewn together in "no particular order" other than to try out some of the designs we came up with in class. Peggy also had us do a paper mock up with little squares with her curved design. I found that I could actually sew curves without having pleats and tucks!

It is almost time for Dancing With The Stars. This is the last show of this season, and I must see whose dance will win the prize!

Take care, have a good week, and.....

Happy Quilting

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all. Hope you all had a great day. All the children came by today. We had breakfast with the younger son and his wife this morning with their grandpuppy. Just after they left the older son and his girlfriend came by. Then our daughter came to visit. We had dinner at the older son's house this evening, and visited with his two grandpuppies. He barbecued steaks and they were good, too. He is a good cook. The weather was beautiful today.

My picture is of the colorful hand towels my daughter gave me, and the cute little purple teapot that son and daughter-in-law gifted me today. The older son and girlfriend brought some beautiful red tipped yellow roses this morning. They are gorgeous! When they open up, they will be absolutely breathtaking. It was wonderful to see all the children today, and all the grandpuppies, too!

Yesterday I attended a guild quilt class. The teacher was Mary Mashuta. She taught one of the quilt patterns from her Confetti Quilts book. It is the pattern on the cover of the book. This is a two piece curved pattern. It is perfect timing because I am doing my next Quilting 101 workshop on curved piecing. She presented a different way to machine piece the curve without using any pins or clipping of fabrics. It is with a special machine sewing foot. It looked a bit difficult, but she said that after you do a couple, you begin to understand the relationship of the two curved pieces and they go together rather quickly.

There are no pictures of any blocks that I made in class. Yesterday we brought fabrics and cut pieces from the curved templates that Mary provided. It is so much easier to rotary cut from templates than to mark around templates and then cut them out with scissors on the drawn lines. She said no sewing machines were needed on her supply list. I could not understand why we did not need machines to sew quilt blocks. After hearing her presentation, I understood. She cuts all her pieces out and places them on her design wall. When she has a design she likes, she then sews the pieces together to make the quilt top. She also does her own machine quilting.

She told us to bring striped fabrics. After searching through my stacks of fabrics, I found a few stripes, but not too many. I have very few light stripes, mostly darker ones. But I took what I had. I bought some stripes on Friday to add to my stripe collection. Then is when I found that I had many more dark colors than light colors. I tend not to buy light colors. When I need contrast in a particular quilt pattern, I usually need to go buy the lights. I try to buy some when I am buying other colors, but I do not often find lights that I really like.

We cut the two pattern pieces after lunch. I don't think anyone had enough pieces cut yesterday to actually make a quilt top. A few ladies had quite a few pieces cut. A pattern was actually appearing on their design areas before they left.

Mary had us do a paper mock up of some designs before we started cutting. This is the same technique Margaret Miller does in her classes. I believe it helps to do the paper mock up to discover designs that we like. If all we do is follow the teacher's (or other quilter's) published designs, we would not come up with our own designs which is often times different than the teacher's samples. For me, this is a great exercise. It forces me to use my own design sense to come up with my own unique designs. It is so easy to copy the teacher's designs. But using paper mock ups is a fast and easy way to accomplish this exercise.

When I get enough pieces cut and placed on my design wall, I will try to remember to get a picture to post. I have a few pieces cut from yesterday, but not enough to make a pleasing design. I have way too many darks, and not enough lights. Without the lights, the pattern that I want to make will not show. It will be lost in all my beautiful dark colors.

Hope you all have a wonderful week. Until then.....

Happy Quilting

Two Quilts Shows and More!

Last weekend was the Amador Valley Quilt Show in Pleasanton. It is always a great show. Before the show, my hubby and I met with a sister blogger (Julie) and her husband for breakfast at our favorite cafe, The Railroad Cafe, in Pleasanton. After a great breakfast, we drove over to the fairgrounds for the quilt show. It was delightful to meet Julie and her husband in person. She gifted me with a book, People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, and also a wonderful Ohio Star style quilt block (one from Quilt Pixie's Friday Block Party). I really like this block. If you look closely, you can see two smaller Ohio Star blocks within the larger Ohio Star block. I am sure there are other things in there that I have not found yet! It is like a puzzle, the longer I look at it, the more I see!

The quilt show was super. There were lots of beautiful quilts, all different styles and sizes. There were lots of vendors, also. Some of these vendors I have not seen before at a quilt show. What is also good is the space. The room is large, and the quilts were far enough apart that you could walk up and down the aisles and actually see the quilts, even if a group had stopped to talk or view the quilts.

I must tell you about this one vendor. They were selling shoes, purses, wallets, and other little things. But the shoes! These shoes were made from hand stitched molas. I have seen molas in quilts, and garments, but never shoes. There were boots, sandals, tie shoes, slip ons, flats, and other styles. I was blown away when I saw this booth. A pair of shoes did not match in the pattern of each shoe, but they were made with the same color fabrics and the patterns were similar, but were not mirror images. For me, this was the most interesting booth at the show.

Yesterday my hubby and I went to another quilt show. It is held at the historical Clocktower in Benicia. This is an old building on what was once military property. The admiral's house (a large, beautiful house) is just across the lawn area from the clocktower. My hubby helped paint the admiral's house years ago. He was on the paint crew that was working at the site.

This is a small quilt show. It is held in the upstairs area in the clocktower building. There is always a featured quilter whose quilts are outstanding, and this year was no exception. There were 10 or 12 vendors, and a Country Store sponsored by the guild. I purchased a quart jar filled with 80 five inch squares in varied shades of purple!

Speaking of fabric purchases, I also have bought yards of fabric from the quilt store that is closing. The picture above is a stack of cut pieces from my visit yesterday, and also from my visit the previous weekend. The owner keeps cutting the prices, and I have not even tried to resist purchasing some fabric or books every time I am there! I purchased two books yesterday. One is a book on design. I am so intrigued with this book. I cannot wait to read it. But it is back to work tomorrow.

Have a great week. Stay warm, healthy and happy. Until next time.....

Happy Quilting