Christmas Party 2009

We held our annual Christmas Party at Sheelah's house in lovely Old Louisville. If you've never been before, a good time to go is during the St. James Art Show, voted as the best in the country, at one time. Also, there is an Old Louisville Home Tour, during the Christmas season.

We had a lovely time with our pot luck lunch and Show and Tell of our year's past accomplishments. Mary has been hooked by the One Block Wonder, Encore bug. I think she's made at least 6 quilts and these 2 are in the final stages of completion.

Ginny also was busy this year, finishing a Mckenna Ryan block of the month quilt, this is Journey to the Light. If any of you have ever tried one of these complicated patterns, you know what a feet that was-raw edge applique rocks!

We had our unveiling of the Christmas Socks. I'm afraid I wore the same ones last year. I'll be on the hunt for after Christmas sales for next year's socks.

Quilters have a generous spirit and our group has certainly been blessed with just such ladies in attendance. This is Betty. She introduced another Snowbird to quilting last year. This is the quilt they went to a class to learn. The woman did not like quilting. Betty took the fabric home and finished this quilt and will be returning to Florida in the winter and she's going to give it to her. Betty also finished the Quiet Village, a project a few of our members have attempted.

Betty shows us how to makes the Scrubby and Sheelah dresses for Halloween

But first we have some One Block Wonder Encore results. Shirley shows off 2 quilts she made, one red and black and one with frogs and flowers.

Sheelah always has the cutest clothes for Halloween and this year she found bat glasses and shoes with skulls.

In case you haven't guessed this is a group of ladies that like to have fun together.

Thanks to Betty for showing us how to make a Scrubby. I've never been a crochet person myself but, I think it's something I might like to learn someday. Maybe next time it won't be with netting as the material to crochet.

Mary finished hers and this is what it should look like. Sheilah's turned out to be a bit tighter than the round disc it was supposed to be. But, since it is Halloween, she thought of another option.

Part II of the Quiet Village

The ladies started the day in our usual way, chit chatting and catching up on our lives. Ruth and myself are the only ones working on the project today, which is great-private lessons!

Mary and Betty taught our group the 2nd border for the pattern in the Mccall's Quilting Magazine's Quiet Village.

Mary's border represents the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. It is made from batik's and has hand sewn stars or tiles, like a Cathedral window block.

Betty has chosen a fabric more closely shown in the magazine. She used a stripe turned different directions. Both quilts are fabulous.

They also gave us a peak into the final border that will be appliqued.

Calendar October through December, 2009

October Set Up: Pat Miles

10/06/09 Sit N Sew

10/13/09 Betty and Mary will demonstrate Part 2 of the Quiet Village

10/20/09 Part 3 of the Quiet Village

Betty will give us the supply list for the Scrubby

10/27/09 Betty will show us how to make a Scrubby

November Set Up: Ginny Blattner

11/03/09 Marie will show us you to make a Pin Cushion Caddy

11/10/09 Sit and Sew

11/17/09 Sit and Sew

11/24/09 No meeting

December Set Up: Dot Oechslin

12/01/09 Sit and Sew

12/08/09 Sheelah’s Home for Christmas Party

12/15/09 No Meeting

12/22/09 Meet Betty Downey for lunch TBA

12/29/09 No Meeting

One Block Wonder Encore

We had part II of the class for the One Block Wonder Encore quilt. The ladies are finding it pretty challenging. But, the results are worth the effort.

Classes like this are wonderful examples of getting a finished quilt with lots of advice and help. We are planning on bringing the finished quilt to the Christmas party at Sheelah's house for Show and Tell.

Next Tuesday we are having another class for the Quiet Village. This pattern is from the Mccalls Quilting magazine, which requires you to purchase 3 magazines to get the full pattern.

One Block Wonder Encore Class Begins

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU ARE HAVING FUN!


Northeast Quilting Friends Quilt Guild is starting our new "season" off with a bang. We are learning the technique of making hexagons from the One Block Wonder Encore book. Most of the group chose to participate in this class. We took four hours and one quick lunch break to learn how to align the fabric, cut the triangles and sew the half hexagons. The interesting thing to me was how 2 sets of ladies chose the same fabric for the class. Oh well, with this design there is no possibility of them being similar, unless they began with the same alignment points-which they did not.

This picture is the "before". There's no stress in quilting, but, sometimes there is intense focus.

These are another set of ladies that bought the same material to work on. Amazing, or maybe not, we travel to quilt shops all the time and I guess it would be possible to pick it up on the road, especially if it was part of a great sale.

Mary has an extremely large repeat, 24 inches. It will be interesting to see how hers turns out and really they all are so interesting, it's just that no one has a repeat that large.

Kentucky State Fair Time

Here is Doris, a member of our group, that is multi talented in sewing arts. She won this blue ribbon for machine embroidery. She also entered this really nice quilt that had a poem about monkeys.



Our members took another opportunity to visit the State Fair. Only a few of our quilters went this year, but, we weren't disappointed with what we saw. I used to always put a quilt in the fair, it was just my goal to have something complete by July 1st, as that's the time they role out the mega book of entry rules and forms for our fair. I think I need to start that habit again. Yes, people touch your quilts-WHICH IS VERY ANNOYING-but, I think you have to go into it knowing that some people have no respect for the work involved and if everyone did it, the quilt would be ruined in no time. So thank you to all the quilt admirers that attend competitions that have the self discipline not to touch.

Enough of my soap box, on to the quilts.

Our quilt club offers free classes to anyone new to quilting, or are experienced pros. We have blue ribbon winners to beginners attending. Basically we have a lot of fun and fellowship, built around this hobby we love. Our schedule includes two of the quilt types we saw yesterday. This is a One Block Wonder Quilt. You use one piece of fabric to get the variety of design. The French Braid quilt is another technique we will be learning in our group. I understand it is a deceptively simple, but difficult looking to make quilt.

Here is the best in show quilt, it was beautiful.

I'll leave with some pictures of the many beautiful quilts at the Kentucky State Fair.