Quilter's Day Out Planning Committee

I'm all a twitter with excitement about Quilter's Day Out. It is a national holiday, of sorts, for quilters. Whoopee!! Quilter Jargon spoken here: fat quarters; bias binding; and 1/4 inch seams....smile...you understand, don't you? If you are in the secret sister quilt club, you do...smile

The idea behind QDO (Quilter's Day Out), is there is one day that all the quilters in our area come together for one giant Sit-N-Sew. The event has evolved, this year to include a speaker, Valerie White, who is an accomplished contemporary quilter. All quilting is art, whether contemporary or traditional. Both evoke feelings, which is, in the end, what true art is all about. Valerie will be showing some of her quilts and giving an in depth discussion for 45 minutes, about her art form.

QDO (Quilter's Day Out) is held on the 3rd Saturday in March, this year being St. Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17th. The event will last from 10:00 to 3:00, with a cafe, hosted by the youth group of the church.

We are having this gathering of the guilds at Ballardsville Baptist Church. In this picture you can see the oversize gymnasium that will be filled with hundreds of quilters, both active in guilds and those that want to check this thing called quilt guild out. Then again, it might be they are there for a chance to win 1 of 4 sewing machines we will be having for a door prizes.

These events take lots of planning by the quilters and let's face it, some really, really helpful husbands, who we are fortunate to have.



For our part, Northeast Quilting Friends will be organizing a quilt challenge, "Think Green" is the theme. This is the first attempt to issue a quilt challenge at any of the QDO events. We wanted to make it easy for everyone to contribute a quilt, so, the only requirement is the quilt must have green somewhere on it and, do to space limitations, we are asking the perimeter be no larger than 200 inches, or smaller than 72 inches. A form must be filled out and submitted, for planning purposes, no later than March 1st. Viewer's Choice will award the cash prizes and ribbons. Please e-mail me if you want an entry form: Julieb380@insightbb.com.

Good Luck to all that enter!
See you at Quilter's Day Out!

Next week we will have Sit N Sew

Next week, February 12th, we were supposed to be going to the Carnegie museum in New Albany to see the Form Not Function quilt show. Instead, we will be staying in and having our usual Sit N Sew, 10:00 to 1:00. You can work on your tote bags, or whatever makes you happy!

Tote Bag Class

Mary helps us all get our project complete.





Sewing machine cases at attention...behind Joan, busy on one of those wonderful featherweight machines. Was there ever a better machine?


We had a wonderful class, even though our blizzard got us a little out of sorts. I think we mostly got enough completed with the help of Mary, one of our generous teachers we have in our group. If you are new to quilting, or an experienced quilter, you can always find a helpful person here to assist you if you ask for it.


A view from our window during our class....yikes!

Start Studying your patterns...

Okay gals, let's get a little understanding of the Kwik Krazy Tote Bag pattern before we come to quilting next Tuesday. Looking ahead, read the previous post about the big items to bring next week. One small thing you will want to bring is some sort of stickers for the cutting process. Read your pattern for more information. Frankly, I'm a little confused about the stickers and am looking forward to seeing this done. I know Mary will instruct us very well.

Also, instead of canvas for the lining, I'm going to use Craft Weight Fusible interfacing to give the tote more body. I'll fuse this after we make the finished blocks and use regular stash fabric for the lining.

Tote Bag to make on February 6th

Mary will be showing us how to make a crazy quilt style tote bag. Hopefully, everyone got some of the yummy fabric generously donated to us from the decorating/design stores in town. Anyway, have your 12-12 inch squares cut and ready to be diced. If you have freezer paper bring that, otherwise, I think between all of us we probably have enough for everyone.

Remember to bring your lunch. We can work from 10:00 to 2:00 or longer, if needed.



Also, bring your machines, if you want to work on the tote bag in the class. Of course, with all the usual stuff to make a quilt/project. Boy do I need one of these totes! And

remember, use 50% from your stash-which can include the lining, or donate a fat quarter.

Meet some of our members...

This is Joan, who is working on a Diamond in the Rough pattern block by Debbie Caffrey This is a great well written pattern, with color coded cutting and sewing layouts. Several of our members chose to take this class together and it was great.



Dot also has made most of the blocks for the quilt and will enlarge it for a bigger quilt for a bed, as it is, the quilt is probably a large lap quilt, but, it's beautiful either way.


Evelyn is the Grand Damn of the group, one of the Charter members, who keeps us all together and laughing. Everyone should be lucky to have her outlook on life. Whatcha lookin' for?

Our teacher for the day is Shirley. As show in an earlier post, she is teaching a sampler for the rest of the year.

If you haven't already found a good quilt group, keep looking or join us in Kentucky for laughter mainly, but, second is a big gabfest, then we really do get some quilting done...smile.

Birds of Paradise, mind-blowing courtship displays

this is a great video...