Challenges Revealed

Last night was a very exciting meeting as we all got to see and vote on the challenge pieces for this year.  We were all given the same fabric, but three different words to incorporate into our quilt.  The words were a block, a shape and a technique of some kind.  Here are the fabrics to refresh your memory.

(As you will see my memory is a little hazy on all of the words that went with each quilt.  If you want to drop me an email with what I have missed I will be happy to make corrections.)

Last night, all members in attendance were handed a ballot and just asked to pick our favorite.  

Which one do you like?

Let's start things off with Karen.  She picked the fabric for this year's challenge and gave us our mystery words as well.  I can't remember all of Karen's words - square in square and ???

Next is Dawn, her words were basket, strip pieced and embellishment.

Jackie decided to make a quilted bag.  Her words were tree, four patch and echo quilting.

Bev's bow ties.  She did a great job following the floral print with her quilting.

Genny's cute quilting did not show up very well in this photo.

Cindy had hearts, prairie points and curved piecing.  Those center hearts are pieced not appliqued!

Sherry had applique and flying geese and. square. She had trouble deciding which direction to go so she made two.  The butterflies weren't on the table for us to vote on, but she did show it to us later.

Gloria had stars, applique and ??

Marion had churn dash, heart and bias tape.

Linda had trapunto, rail fence.

Karen M had flying geese, miters 

Cheryl had flowers, nine patch and something that has slipped my mind!  These pictures do not show the lovely details at all.

Then there was me.  I had nine patch, tree and embellishment.

Have you picked your favorite? If you want to see the lovely detail in these quilts they are going to be on display at the Parkland Regional Library here in Dauphin all summer.

And the winner is.....

I am very honored to say that my fellow guild members chose my owl as their favorite.  My prize for winning is getting to choose the fabric for next year's challenge.  I think I was just told I have to go fabric shopping - whatever shall I do??

More about the the rest of the meeting next time.

Lori

DEADLINES!!!

So.... have you completed your challenge?  They are due at the guild meeting that is happening on May 3rd!  Tomorrow is May 1st - time sure does fly doesn't it?  Mine is done expect for the binding, so I better get cracking. Complete projects will be on display at the library. I am excited to see what everyone created with the three challenge fabrics and the three words you were given.  Should be an exciting meeting!

On another note:


The windup this year is being hosted by the Stitch'n Tyme Quilting Club of Ochre River. Here are the details:


Date: June 11, 2012
Where: Ochre River Hall
Doors Open: 5:00 p.m.
Supper: 6:30 p.m.


Shopping on site with vendors: The Quilter's Den and Mam Bear's
Demos presented by members of the Club.
Door prizes!
Please bring your most current quilted item for show and tell - please attach a label with you name, name of the project and the pattern name if possible.
Silver collection at the door.
Cost: $20 for non-members.


You need to RSVP or you will miss out on all of the fun.  RSVP deadline is this week.  If you will not be attending the meeting on Thursday, please let Dawn know if you want to attend the windup!


Hope to see you Thursday!


Lori

Free Motion Quilting Inspiration

Now that so many of us got excited about Free Motion Quilting again on the weekend, I'd like to share some information about the Free Motion Quilting Challenge being hosted by SewCalGal. 


Every month in 2012 a Free Motion Quilting expert will share a tutorial with tips to help quilters learn and/or improve their free-motion quilting skills. The focus is on inspiring others to learn and have fun doing free-motion quilting. Isn't that what we all need?


Although it began in January most of the tutorials are still available.  Here is a link to the Free Motion Quilting Challenge. I hope some of you will take the time to check it out.  The January tutorial by Frances Moore is a great place to start.

Happy Free Motion Quilting!

Lori

Free Motion Quilting & UFO Day Highlights

Who is this barefoot quilter??

 There were 17 members of the Crocus Quilter's Guild that joined in our Free Motion Machine Quilting Workshop and UFO Day yesterday.  It was a wonderful day of learning and sharing.  Here are a few of us in action!


Many looks of concentration as we tried to master new skills...

I hope all of you go home and continue to practice, practice, practice, and don't forget to bring the results for Show and Tell!

Some ladies brought their projects to work on. Lots of advice, laughs as ideas were shared.  If you have not yet joined in on a UFO day it is a great time to share your hobby with others who love it too.  

You are guaranteed to learn something new and leave inspired.  Please do join us!

 

And here she is the barefoot quilter working on her 1600 quilt!

It was great spending the day with such a wonderful group of women!  Happy Quilting!


Lori

Free Motion Quilting Workshop & UFO Day

Just a quick reminder about our UFO Day & Workshop on Saturday April 21st.  The workshop is being held at the WATSON ART CENTRE - Old Firehall from 10 a.m. until approximately 4 p.m.


Please feel free to come and work on your own projects or join us in our informal free motion quilting workshop.  We hope you will make friends with your own machine, and leave with some ideas to help you improve your own skills.


This is what you need to bring:

• Sewing machine in good working order (we are not repairmen), and manual if possible.The ideal machine can drop its feed dogs, if yours does not drop the feed dogs we can modify it.
• If your machine has an extension table, please bring it as well.
• 4 - 8,   18" square quilt sandwiches out of scrap fabric.
• Extra machine needles
• Thread for both the bobin and top stitching; a good contrast to the fabric will allow you to really see what is going on. You may even want to pre-wind a bunch of bobbins to save time.
• Extension cord.
• Free motion quilting foot/darning foot (the king with the spring). There are two examples below, and a walking foot if you have one.

• If you find the chairs at the hall a little low, you may want to bring a cushion to sit on.
• Quilting gloves is you have them, if not a good substitute is a pair of gardening gloves with griper fingers.  Now is the perfect time of year to find some in town.
• some scrap paper and a pencil to practice drawing designs/ warm up.
• chocolate or your other favorite treat in case your start getting tense ;)
• other UFO projects to work on.
• lunch

If you have not already done so, please RSVP to Dawn or myself so that we know how many people to expect.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Lori

Now easier to leave comments

I changed some of the settings to make it easier for those guild members who don't have Google or other accounts to leave their comments.  Hope some of your will give it a try.  If we get too much spam I may have to change it back, but we will give this a try this way for a while. I am happy to hear of any suggestions or changes you would like me to make along the way.

Karen M. passed on some information regarding a sale on quilt batting at the Fabricland in Brandon until the end of the month. It is 120" wide, all natural cotton regular priced at $24 on sale for $9.50/m. Apparently the sale was supposed to be over the end of March, but because they didn't have it in stock then they have extended the sale. Karen has not used this batting before, but the clerk that cut it said it was good to work with. A phone call over to them to make sure they still have it in stock might be a good idea if one is planning on going over to Brandon.
Keep working on those challenges!

April Meeting Highlights

The Crocus Quilters Guild met on April 5th and here are some of the highlights if you were unable to attend.


We will be collecting pairs of friendship star blocks in green and cream for one more month.  This is a great start, but won't really make a quilt so hopefully a few more of you will find time this month to make a pair or two.  If you need the instructions I would be happy to send them to you.

 Genny demonstrated how a bear paw block is put together.

We had a nice variety of Show and Tell:

Gloria finished the pineapple blocks she started to demonstrate "rip-less" paper piecing.

.

 Sherri was very busy making 15 hots pads and a lovely wall hanging.  

That was a lot of binding -  all hand sewn with the tiniest of stitches on the back!

Genny finished her "Fun and Done" quilt.  Unfortunately this photo does not do the colors of this quilt justice.  It is stunning in person - you'll have to believe me on this.

 We also got to see the projects Karen worked on while in Texas.

Her beautiful batik "Night and Day" runner.

 Karen P. has been keeping her longarm busy with three lovely projects.  A cozy fleece blanket with a cool lizard panto. 

 Her Red Onion quilt made to help use up some batiks ;)!

I tried to get Karen in this photo, but she was too quick and ducked under her quilt.  The lighting in the hall didn't allow me to get a good photo of the wonderful freehand feathers that made this quilt extra special.

We are planning a free motion quilting workshop during our next UFO on April 21st.  I will post more details soon.




Don't forget - Challenges are due at the May meeting.  If you haven't started yours yet, you are not alone.  Nothing like a looming deadline to get those creative juices flowing!  We want to have a great display at the library, so please do you best to finish those projects.


Happy quilting!

Lori