And the Winners are...

Our Quilt Guild had an Unfinished Object (UFO) Challenge this year. The guild was divided into two groups - the Calicos and the Batiks. The challenge was to see which group would complete the most unfinished quilting projects by our November meeting. The guidelines were pretty loose - the project had to have been started before 1/1/11 and it had to be quilting related - not rug hooking, embroidery or other needle arts.

Rosemary had these leftover half square triangle fabrics and set them with white HSTs for an interesting visual effect. Way to use those leftover pieces!

The challenge picked up momentum through the year. It was interesting to see the projects finally completed - some begun in the early 90's and others as recently as last year. Quilters really got in the spirit this month - cheering teammates on and waiting for the final tally:

Batiks - 126.5 ........... Calicos - 155.5

The .5 related to a quilt completed early in the year where two guild members did equal amounts of work on the project. Rather than split hairs, each team got credit.

Carolyn is modeling her completed quilting project - a jacket she started last year on a quilting vacation with her sisters and completed on this year's vacation.
Colleen had this beautiful string quilt - I love the bright diamond-shaped stars made by the design as well as the alternate cream stars in between the colored fabrics.

It was wonderful to see how projects were completed - the variety was endless. Several orphan blocks ended up in smaller quilts that will be given to our local Firemen's Cheer Fund for distribution with dolls to area children.

Mary delights in working with small pieces of fabric. Her quilt above has 56 different fabrics.

I also liked Mary's comment that they weren't "doll quilts" as much as they were quilts for little girls who had a doll.

We also enjoy seeing the Halloween costumes that are made for the lucky children of some of our members. This year had a back to nature theme...

Anne, modeling her "tree" outfit that she wore to her son's school Halloween party (his outfit was cute but I missed my chance for a picture).
Susannah's daughter had a wonderful earthy type costume - note the headdress! It's wonderful to be surrounded by such creative women.

Cheers!

Margaret

Harmony Quilters

I visited the Harmony Quilt Guild in North Vernon last night. It's always interesting to visit other guilds to see how they operate, to learn about the projects in which they're involved (this group makes quilts for the local WIC program), and find out other creative ideas. This guild certainly had quite a few interesting things going on including a fabric exchange one month and a block exchange on alternate months.

They also have a traveling box, here being opened by Jeanie. There were scads of fun items in the box including fabric, scissors, finger cots, a tote bag from the Chatauqua weekend, hand made note cards that were wonderful and best of all - chocolate! She'll take the box home and at the next meeting will bring it back filled with a different selection of items.

Of course, there's always Show and Tell. I don't remember the name of the lady (on the right) who made this gorgeous top. She said that once the fabric was cut, it went together quickly. I have a large print fabric that I'd like to make into a bed quilt and a relatively simple design like this would be a great way to showcase the fabric.
The Top Hat Quilt (above) was pieced by Norma. It's really visually striking, isn't it?

Jackie had the most interesting item for Show and Tell. Apparently she had seen a thread stand like this at a quilt shop for $69. And I thought $16 for a thread stand was expensive! A friend of hers made this for her and it only cost her a can of pop and a bag of chips! Such a deal. What a cute way to dress up a functional item. So if you know someone who welds, have at it.

A fun time with a wonderful group of women.

Cheers.

Margaret

A New Longarmer

One of the fun things that happened recently was that Becky came to stay with me. She came on a Wednesday to attend the CSQ Guild meeting, spent time in town catching up with friends and spent the night before attending the workshop with Mary Buvia on Thursday.

Becky has been thinking about getting a longarm machine so this was a perfect time for her to try one out and see if she liked working on it. I got several quilt tops from the local QOV group and we loaded one for her to quilt.

She picked it up quickly and I think she enjoyed the quilting experience. She kept saying, "This is so much fun!" She got the entire quilt quilted and it's now back in the hands of the QOV group that she participated in for so many years. Who knows...in the next year or so, when she gets moved into her new home, she might find herself looking for a new longarm. In the meantime, she might be back with one of her quilt tops to quilt.

Cheers.

Margaret

Meeting with the Master...

...Quilter, that is. More on that in a moment.

The Columbus Star Quilter's Guild meeting earlier this month was a feast for the eyes. There wonderful quilts completed by guild members. Here are just a few of the gems brought in this month as we near the end of our UFO Challenge.OK...blogger is acting up and I can't get this picture turned the right way. I can't even delete it so I can edit it elsewhere and start over. But you can see Sara's beautiful Christmas trees on this small quilt. It will grace her home along with the angel quilt she completed and exhibited earlier this year.

Rosemary showing one of the quilts she completed.

Rosemary with another of the quilts she completed. She had at least 2 more and she's been on this kick for several months. She's really taken the challenge to heart. She did say that although the quilts incorporate the simple 9 patch block, they all are quite different with the variety of colors and layouts that are used. And Rosemary quilted them all quilted beautifully.

Joan completed her New York Beauty quilt, quilted by ME! This was a fun quilt to work on as Joan liked the spiky quilting around the spikes and the swirls in the sunbursts.

Lois' birthday is on Hallowe'en and she made this fun quilt as a present to herself. I love the monster's eyes and the happy Jack O' Lantern.

We then had our program, given by recently named Master Quilter Mary Buvia. This award is made by the National Quilt Association to recognize those who have produced a masterpiece work - "work which reflects a consummate level of skill in quiltmaking."

Mary's work certainly exemplifies the best in all aspects of quilting - planning, piecing, applique, quilting and a variety of other techniques. She brought plenty of examples that were passed around so we could see up close the detailed nature of her work.

We also were able to see several of her larger works. She discussed her process starting at the idea stage, talking about how she drafts the patterns, enlarging them to get to a full size pattern. Then, and only then, she shops for the fabric that will be used in the quilt. What, no stash?!
I love the joyful nature of her quilting designs on this 4th of July pillow. She also uses metallic threads and other decorative items to add sparkle to her quilts.
We were also fortunate to have a machine quilting class with Mary the following day. She was full of tips, valuable information about needles, threads and quilting techniques. I came away with several new pieces of information that will serve me well both with my domestic as well as my longarm machine.

Stay tuned - her "Loading Dock" quilt has been selected for one of the top 3 prizes at the Houston Quilt Show coming up in November. I've seen that quilt up close and it is tremendous.

Cheers!

Margaret

P.E.O. and Quilts

I attended the biennial convention of the P.E.O. Sisterhood earlier this month. It was a wonderful chance to catch up with other P.E.O. sisters that I've known through the years as well as an opportunity to meet new sisters and get updated on all that is going on in the organization.

Quilts show up in interesting places - like behind the registration desk at the St. Louis Marriott. I did ask about who made the quilts and was told a local quilter but they didn't know the background. They were visually striking, encased so they kept free from dust and behind the registration desk so it was hard to get a close look at them.

There were a total of four quilts, all made using the same technique. Lots of tiny scraps went into the piecing of these quilts. Looking at the quilt with green borders more closely, it appears a flange or some piping was inserted between the pieced center of the quilt and the borders. I didn't notice that when looking at them.


Here's the P.E.O. part of this post!

Opening night ceremonies features the Parade of Flags. Here are Susan and Mimi, who led the Indiana delegation, with the Indiana flag. One of the exciting things that happened during convention was the invitation to the 2015 convention which will be held in Indianapolis! Y'all come!

As always, the most moving part of the convention was listening to and meeting the women who have received a grant or loan from P.E.O. While they were all outstanding speakers, Dr. Shwayta Kukreti, the Scholar Award recipient, was a particularly eloquent speaker and talked about her involvement in a groundbreaking research and development project - a process using laser scanners to locate biochemical markers for tumors and be able to distinguish between benign and cancerous tumors. This would be an alternative to mammograms, a welcome change for many women. Not yet approved by the FDA, this should be coming in the near future.

One of the more exciting developments was Dr. Rogers' announcement of the three Bachelor degrees now available from Cottey College, the women's college owned by P.E.O. Cottey students participated in several of the workshops. Those young women are poised, articulate and going to do great things in life.

It was a great convention and I had a wonderful time.

Cheers!

Margaret

BIQR 2011

Last week was a beautiful time of year to spend in northern Michigan...Elk Rapids to be exact. Jeannette, Lois and I met Carol and 26 other quilters at Elk Rapids for Gwen Marston's retreat. This year's topic was small studies with the theory being that you can test color choices and design options very quickly using small quilts. Gwen had completed 37 small studies with many different design ideas incorporated in one or another of her quilts.

Here Gwen is shown with a larger quilt based on one of her small studies - you can see the small study 4th from the left on the middle row.

After an introduction to the concept and a few demonstrations of curved piecing techniques, we were off. I have to admit that I struggled with this idea for a few days. It always takes me awhile to integrate new information and this year was more challenging than most. Gwen used solid fabrics almost exclusively. There are a few prints in very small amounts. Well, I brought mostly prints and decided to try the technique with them. Although she cautioned that my composition might end up looking muddy as the prints blurred together, I gave it a shot.

My inspiration was a Van Gogh painting in a children's book, compliments of Carol R. Yes - the two green prints next to each other were somewhat blurred but the other prints showed up nicely. I also did a trapezoidal small study rather than a square one - primarily due to the curved piecing and availability of the sunny fabric used at the top of the quilt.

With that sample completed, I concentrated on other projects, completing two of the quilt kits I had purchased in 2008 and 2009. Yeah!

The last day there was a gorgeous day - bright and sunny, pleasant temperatures and with a slight breeze. I went with our Australian quilters, Ann and Rosie, to Renee's House of Quilting for their annual sale.

Ann and Rosie at the tent behind Renee's, looking for bargains.

After the sale, I walked to town and spent a delightful hour watching boats as they either came home to the marina or left to explore Grand Traverse Bay. Sunny, warm, waves lapping on the shore - what a gorgeous way to spend a lovely afternoon.

As a final wrap up on Saturday, each student had to stand up and introduce their small samples. One overachiever (Carrie - you know who you are!) completed 10! This included attaching the binding and quilting them. There was an interesting collection of small studies with lots of variety. Jeannette is using Gwen's liberated pointer (a stick picked up outside) to point to one of her small studies. You can see my trapezoid and Lois' beautiful study with the graceful curving pieces to the right of my quilt.

The ride home was long and uneventful but very pleasant with Jeannette and Lois keeping things interesting.

Now - back to work.
Cheers!
Margaret



































Here's my result.

Again, Mum's the Word

Again this weekend I took time out from quilting to participate in my P.E.O. chapter's annual fundraiser. P.E.O. is a Philanthropic Educational Organization and Chapter DN has sold mums each fall to raise money for the scholarship programs we support. It involves asking friends if they'd like to add some fall color to their yard by buying mums and then delivering the mums to them.

Things went like clockwork this year. We were able to unload the truck and sort the mums pretty quickly. It's really true that lots of hands make light work. Lots of hands also means lots of talking and catching up with each other - one of my favorite parts of the mum selling and delivering process. I get to catch up not only with members of my chapter but also the friends to whom I've sold mums.

Laura and Jane checking to see what color the mums are before adding them to the grouping in the yard. It helped that all of the mums except the yellow mums had tags this year.

Michael had lots of cool activity books and Colin had really fun boots. The only problem was they complained about being cold! I have to admit, it was cool on the porch.

Once the mums are unloaded, they're grouped so that each sister has her own stash of mums. Friday was also Deb's birthday and we enjoyed hearing about the weekend plans - including a stay at the West Baden Springs hotel. With both of her kids in college, this is a real splurge for her and one I'm sure she'll enjoy.

We also caught up on the latest antics of Julia, who is now keeping Monica awake at odd hours of the night. She's still an adorable little girl - she woke up just as Monica was getting ready to leave so we got to coo at her. Deb even got her to giggle.

As a new P.E.O., Jane has made her mark by selling an enormous load of mums - 76, I think. She managed to get them all in the truck. Hope she got them all delivered.

As always, proceeds from this sale go to support the P.E.O. projects, providing money for women to continue their education in a variety of ways. If you know a young woman who would benefit from some financial assistance, let me know and I can work to see which program would be appropriate for her.

Cheers!

Margaret

September's CSQ Meeting

The UFOs are really pouring in as are other quilting projects. We've seen some wonderful quilts and other sewing projects this year - some of which have languished for years. Just look at the line of quilters holding projects in their arms for the Guild's Show and Tell time. Wonderful!!

Jeannette showing one of her three projects completed since the last guild meeting. I was fortunate enough to quilt two of them, including this lovely quilt. The border fabric is poinsettias and I quilted around all of the poinsettia plants with gold thread for a lovely effect. Time consuming but very pretty.

Sara shows here Reserve Grand Champion quilt of an angel. She did a marvelous job quilting this darling piece and attached some gold cording to the border for a lovely effect. She used glue to attach the cording in spots - claims it worked extremely well.

Carol shows a lovely wall hanging showing Santa and his reindeer. This picture doesn't do either Carol or the wall hanging justice. She did a wonderful job on the machine applique.

Susannah always has such interesting stories to go along with her projects. For a niece's or nephew's first birthday, she provides a set of bibs with fabrics for each month or season, including a special one for the birthday months. Her husband's side of the family has several kids approaching their first birthday so she's been busy! But what a fun idea this is.

Another lovely idea is this quilt shown by Lois. It's a family heirloom and starting with her father (I think), babies have slept under this blanket in a special family crib. The names of each baby are embroidered in the squares on this quilt. There's still an empty square but who knows when the next baby will arrive to fill that spot. This also happens to be my all time favorite quilt pattern - the Irish Chain.

Ruthanna (in blue) had several projects. The Log Cabin pattern is another one that I like and this was a stunning example of a scrappy log cabin that is just gorgeous.

Although technically not a quilted project, Lena completed this dress that may be the oldest project completed to date. She said it was started in 1989. It does have the look of that era, doesn't it? She also had this beautiful Hawaiian applique block. I love the look and have been practicing my applique but am not anywhere near Lena's level of competency. This was a beautiful piece.

There were a total of 31 UFOs shown at this month's meeting as well as several other projects that weren't UFOs. It's always inspiring to attend a meeting and see the variety of projects in the works and completed. So, now to sew!

Cheers!

Margaret

Milroy Amish School Auction

Today was the 50th Annual Milroy Amish School Auction. Auctions are always fun events but this one even more so as they always have a great selection of quilts and quilt tops. I got there in time to briefly look through the quilts. They were piled up and it was difficult to get a good look at all of them before they started auctioning them off. But I was able to see a few that I found interesting.

One of the quilts I bought was a whole cloth - or Plain Quilt as it was labeled. It had been marked and hand quilted beautifully. The picture of the entire quilt doesn't do it justice but you can see the elegant design in this section of the quilt. What a treasure!
I also purchased two quilt tops. I had purchased a black and white Lone Star quilt top a few years ago and quilted it for my grandson. When this Lone Star quilt top came up for sale, I was sucked in. I know how I'd like to quilt this and can't wait to get started.

The other quilt top I purchased was also a Lone Star. What attracted me to this was that it was red, white and black - a color scheme that I love. I've been collecting red, black and white fabrics for awhile now so need to look for a different pattern for the one I make. This has some wild fabrics and that's what I love about this quilt top.

Towards the end of the auction, they had several smaller quilts, table runners and other fun stuff. Look at the fun quilt I got for a song!

I have a special purpose in mind for this small quilt and it makes me smile - certainly worth what I paid for it.

Cheers!

Margaret

Camp Margaret

My family gathered earlier this month to celebrate my parents' 60th anniversary. We had a wonderful time and I enjoyed playing in the surf with my brother's grandson and my niece. Toward the end of the week, brother-in-law Bob, niece Diane and I went to Mare's Bears, a quilt shop in Lewes, Delaware. Bob wanted a simple quilt for their guest bed and was thinking about getting some red fabric. After exploring all of the fabric (and there's loads of fabric there), he selected some blue fabric.
Diane came home with me for a week at Camp Margaret full of sewing, quilting and other fun things. We started with the blue fabric as all Bob wanted was one fabric on top and one on the bottom. I loaded a practice piece of fabric on the longarm so Diane could get the feel of the machine. Once she was comfortable (or at least not quite so nervous), we loaded the blue fabrics and she was ready to quilt. Diane is nestled in the blue quilt after completing the quilting. The most difficult thing was hand sewing the binding as the backing fabric is so dark it was hard to see the thread.

The next quilt we worked on was a 25th Anniversary Quilt for her parents. I've been meaning to try the Strip Tubing process all summer and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I also thought it would be relatively quick and easy since you start out sewing strips of fabric. Well...that part was quick and easy. Then came the cutting into squares and sewing those squares back together. In the photo above, Diane is working on the layout. She got all of the blocks laid out to her satisfaction and then began sewing the blocks together.

This was really her first time working with quilt blocks. She has made a quillow, pillowcases, and tote bags before but this was her first pieced quilt. I was the chief in charge of pressing and she did all of the sewing on this quilt. I'm just so impressed with her work. Look at the block below - the points are wonderful and not cut off! I have trouble with points but she got the hang of it and did beautiful work.

Once the quilt was together, she selected a pantograph and proceeded to quilt it. She managed to get this quilted in an afternoon - pretty good for a queen sized quilt. Good thing, too, as we still had to bind it before she headed home.

We shared the binding, sitting in two chairs next to each other. Finally, the binding complete, Diane relaxes with both of the quilts she completed. We're already planning for next year's Camp Margaret.

Here's a final look at the completed quilt. Fits my bed beautifully. I just couldn't talk her out of taking it home with her.

In the midst of the sewing, we found time to do some other things - like spending a day at Conner Prairie and visiting the Farmer's Market on Saturday. We also managed to eat at Zaharako's twice, including an ice cream dessert both times. It was a wonderful week and I'm looking forward to having her with me next summer for another week of quilting.

Cheers!

Margaret