Sewing with Grace

Gracie came over on Tuesday to have a sewing day with me. We had a blast! Love that girl:) We ended up sewing from 9 in the morning til 5 in the afternoon....we just kept going and going and going. We did stop to go out to lunch which was nice too. Grace picked all the fabrics from my stash, we cut them into 5 inch squares and started banging out the quilt. Chain-stitching helped sew all those squares together.

 Hard at work.

 Top of quilt.

Back of quilt.

Well, you can certainly tell we were at it all day by the looks of these last pics...our hair is a mess! But we're happy! Stella* and I decided that we MUST do this more often and that we will definitely do it annually around her birthday. YAY!

We're hoping Auntie Kath will quilt it for us...hint, hint,auntie;)

*Stella....aka Grace

Quilted Postcards

We made quilted postcards at out CMQG meeting on Sunday. Mine is the one in the bottom left right corner. I was trying to go for a wintery scene. I'm so done with summer and hot and humidity.

A splendid time was had by all;)

Iron Quilter

Here's what happens when teams of 4 quilters are given fabrics and embellishments they must use to create a bound quilt whose dimensions are at least 15". In 2 hours. We had some very ..shall I say....interesting results;) The quilt in the lower right corner was the big winner.

 The quilt I helped with is below.

It actually was really fun and you got to bond with quilters you may not have bonded with in the past. This would be a good icebreaker for newer quilting groups.

CMQG....OMG ...we are so cool!

We're so cool, you can get our logo printed on T-shirts, mugs, apron and a whole lot of other fun stuff. Check out Cafe Press to see more. Plus, 25% of what is purchased goes to our guild. Like I said...COOL! Here's a few pics of what can be purchased.

I'm thinking I must have this canvas bag....

Spring Retreat 2011

Well, a grand time was had by all. Our first quilting retreat was a smashing success! Here are some pics.

There were 15 of us in this room. Some folks thought it was a bit cramped, so I think we'll try and arrange the tables a little differently next time. We made it work,tho and everyone seemed quite happy;)

We had A LOT of snacks. In between snacks, we were served full meals down in the cafeteria which were delightful. Plenty of salad and fruit among other things.

We blew a fuse....I don't know how ;) One of the sisters said,"...hhmmmm....That's never happened before. I wonder where the fuse box is."  Fortunatly, after a 10-15 minute search it was found and the power was restored.

Sorry,Sister....we'll try and behave next time;)

Everyone had a private little room. I really appreciated having my own tiny space. The bathrooms and showers were right down the hall. My window looked out onto the lake and I could here the waves crashing at night. It was really nice.

The Sienna Center.

Here's a charity quilt we all worked on. It was a really fun challenge and we plan to do this challenge next time as its really quick to throw these baby quilts together. This retreat we have 3 quilts that are almost finished.

And, here we all are. Don't we look happy? We were. So fun;) We already have the next 2 retreats tentatively planned .

Here's the projects I worked on. I made another panel for my ticker tape quilt, I thread painted on the flowers I had acrylic-painted at home and I started a funky flower piece. I also sewed together all the squares we made for one of the charity quilts as well as started peicing a back with the leftover scraps.Whew...that was a lot....so fun.

Show and Tell from CMQG*

Here's some pics from our last meeting on Sunday. There sure is a lot of talented gals in this group.

*Chicago Modern Quilting Guild

Ticker Tape Quilts

At the meeting one of the ladies, Angela, gave a presentation on how to make ticker tape quilts. Everyone brought in scraps from their stash and we picked what we wanted. There were a lot to pick from! Since I had already started one of these projects, I was able to show and tell what I had done already which was fun. So far I have a blue panel and a yellow/orange panel done and a pink panel started. There was also a debate about how I could sew them together once they were finished which was really helpful. Fun times!