February 26...A Quilty Weekend

My favorite type of weekend....Quilty !

Friday I drove the 20 miles to Champaign and met with friends to "sit and stitch". This is an informal bunch who try to get together every Friday, Illinois weather and family events permitting, and sew, gab, and perhaps do some shopping later in the day.

Many take their machines but some prefer to do hand work such as binding. We arrange tables in a sort of a square circle so we are officially a sewing circle? Most have one of those little Gem machines so we have electrical cords snaking all over the room and fabric is flying.

My friend Gail was working on the binding of a baby quilt (upper right) to be sent to England for a new baby, born very early, but now at last home with family. The blocks came from a swap we did in local guild several years ago. I think I have a pile of those blocks somewhere but don't they make a cute baby quilt? Maybe when I dig into the "closet from hell" I can find mine?

Saturday was the date for the Land of Lincoln Quilt Guild, our regional state guild. We met in Decatur and had a fine day. Breakfast snacks at nine followed by the board and business meetings, then a catered lunch and finally a nice program. One of the highlights is always "show and tell". I seldom have much to show but yesterday I took the completed top of the flag quilt (upper left) which I finished on Friday. Now, I realize a top is not a finished quilt but it is now at the point I can turn it over to Sue, one of our more than capable long-arm quilters.

I bought the pattern at another LLQA meeting about a year ago and after showing it to my Annie's (Civil War) group we decided to do it as a swap. We bought a common background and drew names for which sets of three alike blocks we would do for each other. Each swapper did her own star section. I did my star section like the pattern showed using a light background but when I put it with the rest of the quilt, it looked awful. So, I got a bottle of fabric dye and tried that...still awful. I knew I would never be happy with it the way it was so I redid the section using the common background. Thank goodness we had purchased enough!

Today, Sunday will be catch up day for me here on my corner. I have two sets of minutes to write and send out, two pages of recipes to be written for newsletters, and my house is a bit of a mess. Oh by the way, I have committed myself to doing the Farmer's Wife quilt...insanity? There is a blog doing this and four of us have been bitten by the bug........

February 18...Time to Quilt

It's been a while since I last wrote in this blog. Every morning, with my first cup of coffee, I write to my quilting group, the OddOnes (another story for another day) and they hear much more than they ever wanted to know abut my life here on the corner. It seemed redundant to repeat the same so I have decided to dedicate this blog to my obsession, quilting. Being the ripe old age of 72 and already possessing more fabric, patterns, kits, and ideas than I could possibly ever finish I have dedicated this year of 2012 to finishing a few on my older projects. Now I know myself too well to believe that I will not start any new ones but at least I am going to try to combine the new and the old.

Located in my quilt room is the "closet from hell". In this same closet are three humongous tubs filled with kits, numerous BOMs, sets of swap blocks, fabric packs for projects, unfinished tops, unfinished everything you could think of. On top of the tubs is even more. One is in peril merely opening the closet doors. I opened said same doors and pulled out an unfinished quilt started about 12 years ago. I started doing it in thirds and had the center finished, the first third partially quilted and the last third pieced only. It combines both piecing and applique.This will be my first project to finish. I surely was a novice back them because there are some glaring errors. I had to laugh at myself when I noted I had quilted the first two thirds clear up to the edge. Now, how did I think I would join those two pieces? Obviously there will be some unquilting happening. I'm making progress but will say I would not do another quilt this way. I honestly don't enjoy hand quilting except on small pieces. Evey day I am thankful for the wonderful long arm quilters we have nearby, without whom I would never have finished quilts. Someday in the not too distant future I may be able to post a pic of this quilt...finished at last.

The quilt top above is one from a swap in my Annie's group, a Civil War bunch who meet once a month and do swaps using only Civil War fabrics. I took these blocks to a recent retreat and got the top together. Oh how I love these retreat...what motivation from stitching with friends.

Today, give yourself the gift of time to spend quilting or doing whatever your passion is.......