April 5, 2016

I know I haven't updated the blog recently, please forgive me. Time just flies by. Here's what's been happening lately..

At the last workshop we started working on walker caddies for the residents of our local nursing home. These will come in handy to carry books, glasses, water bottles, kleenex or whatever fits in the pockets. These are easy to construct and we will continue making these at the next workshop on April 30th. If you aren't a member but want to join us in this project you are more than welcome too. We do need low loft batting such as warm and natural or other similar cotton batting. The polyester batting that is "fluffy" is too "fluffy".

Members have been gearing up for our quilt show coming up this Saturday, April 9th at the New London Alliance Church from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Admission is free and the youth of the church will have their coffee house open offering coffee house type beverages and pastries.

At our last meeting Rachenea demonstrated different types of machine applique.

Raffle tickets were passed out to member for our quilt raffle to be drawn after Hometown Holidays on December 3rd. If you would like a ticket contact any member or they may be purchased at the Gas Depot in New London. Here is a picture of the raffle quilt. It measures 69" x 80".

We had a few show and tells lately too.

 The above quilt is Rachenea's 10 minute block challenge. The back is just as interesting, that picture is below.

The scrappy quilt above is by Chris Porter. It is the same scrappy string block that thet raffle quilt is constructed of except the border is a green fabric.

Hope to see some of you at the show this weekend.

February 27, 2016

Hey all! Sorry I haven't updated the blog lately, but we had a very small meeting on the 11th. We've had 2 workshops since the last update and here's what we've been doing.

At the last meeting Marcia brought in her DVD on The Cotton Theory of quilt as you go. It was really different than what you would think and we'll have to give it a go in one of our workshops. Maybe it will be our challenge for next year.

Our last couple of workshops we've been working on our string quilt for the raffle. We finally have all the blocks together and now it just needs the borders put on and then just quilt and bind and it will be ready to raffle. We plan on selling tickets until Hometown Holidays in December when we will have the drawing.

Our next meeting on March 10th Rachenea will be demonstrating machine applique. We'll leave it up to everyone if they want to bring their machines to try out the different techniques or just watch how it's done. We have fabric available you can use. We will discuss what we will be working on for our next workshop in March. We think it will be walker bags. If anyone has a pattern for these let me (Chris Porter) know.

March 16th is Cure for Cabin Fever at the Hileman Building at NL Recreation Park. It will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and I will need a couple of volunteers to sit at the table with me. We will be selling items we had leftover from Hometown Holidays and anything else anyone wants to donate. Set up time is from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

For our workshop in March we need to move the date back to March 19th as Easter is the next weekend. We will probably start on the walker bags at this workshop.

April 9th is our Quilt show at the New London Alliance Church. Set up will be sometime on the Friday before, time to be announced. The show will run from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The youth of the church will be providing a coffee house during this time. Show forms are to be in to me by the March 10th meeting if you haven't already turned them in. This is open for the public to display their quilts also, so if you know anyone in the community who quilts, ask them if they would like to show them off.

We had some show and tell at the last couple workshops.

This table runner and table topper were done by Marcia from a pattern in EQ7.

 A nifty table topper from Karen Ruggles.

This is a Quilt of Valor done by Karen Ruggles

Karen used the Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial to make this Binding Tool Star Quilt pattern. Love the blues, greens and purples.

The 3 quilts above were also made by Karen to be donated to Teen Challenge.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland redwork by Marcella Workman.

Small hand embroidered table topper by Rachenea Eagle.

This above is a what they call a compression quilt, each square is filled with heat safe beads to make it feel weighted. They are used by people who have special needs such as autism. It was made by Rachenea also.

Rachenea is explaining the use of the compression blanket.

This is Martha Hecock's snowman rag quilt. All ready for those snow days we haven't really had to experience yet this year!

 This baby doll was Rachenea's (who is holding her) when she was a little girl. Her dress and bonnet are made out of Rachenea's husband handkerchiefs. She explained she is missing all her fingers and toes because she used to chew on them. We can all relate to that!

The above quilt was made by Gloria Biddinger using her sister's old curtains and is going to another sister when it's finished.

 

The unfinished quilt above is going to Gloria's grand nephew for graduation. The wildcat was cut from a single piece of fabric and appliqued.

These next quilts were from our January workshop. I apologize because some I have forgotten who did them.

This quilt is one from Marlene Stevens which will be donated to Teen Challenge.

Stick and Stones from Missouri Star Quilt Company was done by Chris Porter.

The middle panel has the name of this quilt. Over the River and Through the Woods by Chris Porter.

I'm taking a guess on this one. I think it was done by Chris Kaufman out of her storybook fabrics.

 I think this was also Chris Kaufman out of scraps from her stash.

Another table runner by Chris Porter from a pattern in EQ7. Like Marcia's above.

I'm thinking this was Marcella's. All hand embroidered.

I really apologize. I can't remember who's this was. Isn't it pretty though?

Jennifer Jones's BOM from 2015. She's really scrappy!

This was going to be the center of Jennifer's but she liked it all by itself.

 A toddler quilt by Jennifer.

This is also Jennifer's. Love the colors!

Lots of pictures to look at. Hope you enjoyed them

Chris

January 14, 2015

Hi quilters!

I wasn't at the meeting but here are some notes that were passed on to me.

Yvonne gave a demonstration on hand applique, showing us the needle turn method. Members worked on a heart to learn the technique.  Because of time we weren't able to get to the machine applique with Racheana. She will do her demonstration either on our workday, or at the next meeting on February 11th.

Yvonne demonstrating needle turn applique.

For the workshop on January 30th, I had pieced together two different quilt squares for the members to decide on which ones to use for our raffle quilt These are strip blocks using 1-1/2" strips stitched onto 10" plain squares of fabric. If we don't think this is big enough we can always go bigger. One is a crazy block and the other is just strips sewn diagonally using fabric we have available at the church. These will then be trimmed down so they will all be the same size blocks. We will use sashing to finish up the quilt top. At the meeting the two finished scrappy quilt squares were passed around and everyone seemed to really like them a lot.

We have a lot of ideas going on for projects this year. Plans are to also make walker bags for residents of  our local nursing home. These fit over walkers so books, glasses, water bottles and misc. can be easily carried without juggling by hand. There is also an idea of making and donating quilts to a halfway house in our county. This was brought to us by Marlene as her church group is doing this project but need more quilts made than they can keep up with. These two projects need to be put on hold until after we get our raffle quilt done and get through the quilt show in April. We need the raffle quilt to raise funds so these other projects can be completed. Batting, backing and quilting will be an expense for the guild, so we need to concentrate on that first. The quilts for the halfway house might be a project that our individual members can take on like we did for the quilts we did for a local foster family. this could be a good way to use scraps you have in your stash or you can use some of the fabrics we have stored at the church. We have more than enough. Likewise for the walker bags. We can discuss how we want to handle the batting, backing and quilting of these tops when the time comes. I would like all of us to work on the raffle quilt at the workshops together starting on January 30th. 

Our quilt show is coming up in April, the date is set for the 9th. This will be held in the church sanctuary. Start and end time hasn't been set yet. Information sheets for the quilts were passed out at the last meeting. If you need one please contact me at acp1955@hotmail.com. Fliers will need to be made up and passed out to local businesses and a press release is also in the works. This is open to the public and an announcement was made via facebook on a couple of local pages. Deadline for information sheets to be turned in will be March 10th. That is a regular meeting for us.

 

For show and tell, Marcella showed off her 10 minute block and Martha had three holiday hangings to show. 

Above are Martha's holiday wall hangings.

We've had a request from Karen to learn quilt as you go. At the February 11th meeting we will have a DVD demonstration for this along with machine applique from Racheana if we don't get to that during our workshop.

The workshop on January 30th we will of course start on the raffle quilt. Bring your machines, cutting mats and whatever tools you think you will need. We will need to have an assembly line to make the work go faster and so everyone isn't trying to do the same thing at the same time. We'll need someone to press, cut and sew. We can switch so people don't get tired of doing one thing all the time. For luncheon Marcia will be providing vegetable beef soup. Yvonne will be providing crackers and Martha is bringing cheese. Bring your own drink or there are vending machines in the youth room. We start at 9:00 a.m. and end around 2:00 p.m. If you can't stay for the whole workshop that's okay, come and stay as long as you can. If you can't come at 9:00, come when you can.

See you at the workshop on January 30th!

Chris

December 10, 2015

Merry Christmas all! 

By the time you see this there will only be 8 days left until Christmas!!!! AAARRRRGGGHHH! Are you ready? With the weather the way it's been it doesn't even seem possible.

We had our Christmas potluck and gift exchange on December 10th. We had a great turn out, wonderful food and spectacular conversation. Beforehand we had a brief (well it went longer than I had planned) meeting and worked out a few details for the coming year.

Hometown Holidays was a success, we are planning on adding a raffle quilt for next year. More on that at the next meeting.


Starting with our January 14th meeting, Yvonne will be demonstrating hand applique and Rachenea will be demonstrating machine applique. Bring a small pair of scissors for the hand applique and if you want to try the machine applique process, be sure to bring your machine. There is fabric available for both demonstrations in our stash. For our workshop on January 30th we will be starting work on a scrappy quilt for a raffle later this year. We will be using the fabric we have in our stash. I'm still working on a block pattern and I have a couple of ideas I'll run by you at the workshop, then we can decide. Don't worry, they're easy peasy. Lunch is going to be a soup by Marcia, we can decide at the regular meeting on what we would like to go with it.

Our February regular meeting will be on February 11th. We need someone to volunteer to do a demonstration. If you have a particular technique you like and want to share, please do so. It doesn't even have to be quilt related but should be some kind of soft textile orientated. Our February workshop will be on February 27th and we will continue with the scrappy raffle quilt. If anyone had a suggestion for lunch, please speak up. If no we can always get subs from Subway.

March meeting dates are March 10th regular meeting, March 26th workshop.
Again we need demonstrators for all regular meetings. Don't be shy, you may know a different technique that one of the other members may be dying to learn. Or a new tool you discovered. Could also be a shortcut you use to get your quilts done quicker or anything crafty related. There's tons of possibilities.

2016 is the year for our quilt show. The date is cleared for April 9th at the New London Alliance church. The public is invited to display quilts they have made and this year we are setting up categories. These will include, mini quilts, table toppers and/or runners, wall hangings up to 36", wall hangings up to 60", wearable, bed size quilts, crib quilts, holidays, antique quilts, unfinished tops, misc. such as purses, bags, pillows and our BOM challenge. The deadline for entries is March 1st so we may get tags with the quilt information printed. You can start letting us know what quilt you are going to display so we can get started on making the tags. We want them to be uniform with each other and easily read. Information needed is owner, who pieced, who quilted, machine or hand, year and name of quilt if available and who the pattern was by.

Here are a few pictures from our potluck, enjoy!

Happy Holidays!!!!!! See you next year!

Chris