April 16, 2016

Wow! What weather we're having, right? Snowing one weekend and sunny and 70's predicted for this weekend. Why couldn't last weekend have been sunny and 70's for our quilt show?! Oh well, when you live in Ohio you have to take weather like it comes. They say "wait 5 minutes and the weather will change".

Despite the weather we had a pretty good turnout for our quilt show at the New London Alliance Church on April 9th. There were over 80 quilts and quilted pieces on display. The youth of the church had their coffee shop open and served beverages, muffins and cookies. Lots of comments were made about the quilts being beautiful and so much work had been put into stitching each one. We gained 3 new members from the attendance of the show and we are glad to have them join us. They will be additional assets of talent to our membership. If you weren't able to join us, here are some pictures.

 We held our regular meeting on April 14th, there were 11 member in attendance, 3 were our newest members.

Marcia reported on the sale of tickets for our raffle quilt. As of this meeting we had brought in $154.00, minus $82.50 for supplies (backing, batting, quilting) we are to the good by $71.50. Not bad for only a month (?) of selling tickets. We have until the Hometown Holidays in December to sell tickets. If you need more to sell Marcia will have them at every meeting and workshop. Please turn in your sold ticket stubs and money at meetings and workshops so we don't take a chance of losing them. Here's a picture of our raffle quilt.

This picture does not do it justice. It turned out just fantastic!

A few of us had made a trip to the I-X center for the International Sewing and Quilt show last month. Reports varied from the new quilts they had exhibited to vendors. The quilts were amazing while some were disappointed in how many vendors there were and what type. If we had any input we would request more vendors with quilting supplies. There were a lot of sewing and quilting machine sellers set up and seems like fewer supply vendors than before. All in all it's a great way to spend a day with your quilting buddies.

We were asked if we would be willing to do a quilt show at the New Haven Methodist Church. I'm going to find out more information about when they would have an opening for a date. So that means keep in mind what quilts you would like to show again. I'll need your information again because I didn't have the foresight to save all your information sheets on the quilts we had showing last week.

Next workshop is April 30th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. If you can't be there right at 9:00, that's okay, come when you can and stay as late as you can. Bring your machines and any tools you may need. We will be having a salad bar for our lunch. We already have lettuce, cucumbers, chips shredded cheese, raisins, seeds, eggs, croutons and tomatoes signed up for. Let me know what you will bring so I can add it to our list. We will be working on the rest of the walker caddy bags. We need batting for these bags. The size is 15" by WOF (width of fabric), low loft is preferred. We may even start on our next project, the strip quilts for Teen Challenge. These quilts use 2 ½" strips in a certain pattern and a certain size. If you have some strips you want to get rid of, bring them in. We have lots of fabric left in our stash we need to use also.

Next regular meeting is May 12th. One of our new members Joey Watts will be demonstrating paper piecing. Information on what you need to bring will be coming soon. Look for an e-mail on this.

Future plans were discussed. An exchange block idea was brought up by Rachenea. Our Christmas party gift exchange ideas were discussed. If you have an idea, bring it up at the next meeting. Nothing has been decided yet. We will again be participating in Hometown Holidays in December. Set up may be in the Hileman Building this year. More information later.

We always have a couple show and tells.

This baby quilt was done by Karen for her daughter's friend.

One of our new member, Brad did this twister quilt

This is Joey, Brad's wife with her New York Beauty paper pieced quilt top. The colors really make it pop!

Joey did this umbrella at M & E Quilt Shop in Sandusky. Gorgeous! The fabric is then treated with a water repellent spray.

This was long but I hope it was informational. See you at the workshop!

Chris

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