Longarm Group Meeting

Despite all of the rain, we had a great time yesterday.  There were eight of us that met at Jamie's house for one of our periodic longarm group meetings.  Her home is set in a picturesque area of Ripley County and includes a wing built using logs from a dismantled log home.  

We started off with Show and Tell.  Carolyn had two wonderful quilts, one of which had the corners cut off at an angle so it was less bulky on the bed.  Great idea and it looked beautiful.



This is another of  Carolyn's quilts.  You can see the feathered vines in the light areas and all of the beautiful colors in the quilt, expertly pieced.

This is the back of Carolyn's quilt.  The quilt is gorgeous but  I was enthralled with the quilting.  In particular, I like the mix of fills around the straight line quilting emphasizing a square block on the front.  She develops her own designs to  fill the spaces perfectly.  

 

Another of Carolyn's quilts.  You can't see it here, but the fills around the baskets are all different. 

We moved on to unfinished tops.  Several of us had tops and everyone chimed in with ideas.  Several of the tops had applique so ideas for fills around the applique were a hot topic. 

We used an acrylic sheet on which to audition quilting designs.  Harriet had developed a wonderful quilting design for one of the dark squares in the stripe but was unsure how to complete the triangle areas outside of the square.  Several ideas were offered.  We'll look forward to seeing this beautiful batik top quilted.  Don't forget to look out the doors to the view of Jamie's back yard.  Although rainy and gray, it's still a beautiful scene.

After lunch, it was upstairs for hands on play.  Jamie had drawn two different applique possibilities and we had several ideas for fill around the applique. 

Gloria working on one possibility for a fill around the applique.



Here's Harriet's idea for a fill - feathers around the applique on one side of the vine with piano keys on the opposite side.  What a great mix of texture and design.

Another possibility - outlining and adding a leafy shape around the applique and adding swirling ribbons in between the leaves.

We also experimented with embellishing the Terry Twist idea and discussed how to address issues if the block is actually made up of quarter triangles rather than a single piece of fabric.  You can also see the meandering feather that was started toward the bottom of the picture.

Another idea for a border fill - easy and fast, particularly if there are blocks that can be used as registration lines for starting new fern fronds.

 Driving home, we all were reenergized and ready to put ideas into practice.  As soon as I finish this, I'm off to quilt.

Cheers!
Margaret