February Bee - Lots of Industry

I hosted the February Blanketeer Bee at my house again on Sunday. It was well attended and we got lots of stuff done. 8) Here are Brandy (l) and Jonquele (our newest member) sewing steadily. We were very cozy, I probably should have put the leaf in the table. It's so nice to finally get some use out of the dining room! It was by far the least used room in the house before the bees started up last year.

Here is Sheila hard at work and Virginia in the kitchen. I really like how everyone is getting to feel more at home here. Of course, I want everyone to feel comfortable, but it's also so much less work for me if everyone helps themselves to what they need. 8) That's my latest finish bundled up in front of the near sewing machine. You might recognize it, since it looks very much like my last finish. I'll be really glad when all six of my "First Steps" are quilted and bound!

We had a project day two weeks ago where Rhonda showed us how to make these cute little sailboat blocks, and wouldn't you know? My camera was dead as a doornail that day. Here are Rachel, Virginia and Jonquele holding up some of the blocks. I don't know if the yellow boat belongs to Jonquele or Rachel, but I know that Virginia made the red boat she's holding. Jessica, another new member, (Yeah!) dropped off the two blocks on the ends. Everyone "planned" to finish their blocks before the bee, but a number of blocks were actually finished at the bee. ;) But not by Sheila, she was on a binding tear! She bound not ONE,
not TWO,
but THREE darling little quilts. (And she did it in the time it took me to get 3/4 of one quilt bound one ONE side. I'm very slow!) Of course, Sheila was quick to point out that they were "all pinned already and just had to be sewn", but the rest of us thought it was pretty amazing. Sheila is definitely our "Little Engine that Could"!

I had thought (hoped) that we would get around to putting together the neglected Quilt of Valor. I had it all ready to go in the next room, but we got to sewing and gabbing, and, you know, time REALLY flies when we're sewing and gabbing, so there it sits for another day.

Virginia offered to come over and help decide how the blocks should placed. Thanks, Virginia! 8) I keep forgetting how pretty it is; I think it's going to be really lovely when it's all done.

The food was extra good (and plentiful) at this bee too. Virginia made the same scrumptious white chocolate chex mix that Sheila had brought to the project day. Jonquele surprised us with a delicious razzle-berry pie, and I splurged on a chocolate ganache cake. No one should ever go hungry at one of our bees. 8)

Peppers & Pinatas - My Quilt, Starry Night

I designed Starry Night using EQ6, then pieced and quilted it myself. It's the main reason I didn't have anything else completed this summer. lol I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I started with the basic Ohio Star, and chose 3 other star variations and paper pieced the lot of them. Starry Night follows the color wheel around the circle, dropping one color and adding the next in line; yellow/orange/red, then orange/red/red violet, etc.The first set of blocks I did were the yellow/orange/red Ohio Stars. I had never paper pieced before, so this was very much a learning experience. You could really tell from the backside which blocks were my earliest paper piecing attempts, lol I was very glad to get the quilt sandwich made up so all that could be hidden away permanently!
I stippled, of course, this is me after all, with red on top and blue on the back. The backing material is the same blue fabric as the blue in the red pointed star. I didn't have enough of the orange in the first set of Ohio Stars to make the last block, and wouldn't you know this was fabric I bought in Canmore, Alberta! Fortunately, my friend, Neelu, and her family went to Calgary for a lovely Indian wedding and then on to Banff for a vacation. For a very small bribe Neelu happily went to the quilt store in Canmore and found a VERY similar fabric. If you look very closely (don't) the orange fabric on the star in the upper left corner is very slightly different from the ones all in a row. Thanks again Neelu, and also to your two boys who were sooo not thrilled about going to a fabric store on vacation.



Here is Pat of Marty & Pat's Frame Shoppe, on literally the day before the Peppers & Pinatas silent auction. Talk about being just in the nick of time! Next time I hope to work a little further in advance of need, because this one was a killer!

Peppers & Pinatas Group Quilt

What a busy summer this has been! I ended up making my own quilt for the Peppers & Pinatas silent auction last Tuesday as well as putting together the group quilt. They both turned out just lovely.
Here is the group quilt right after Larry and I decided which block went where.


It took us about 45 minutes to decide on the layout. We knew we were done when our last three changes got changed back to the way they were.

Here is the quilt top, ready for our quilter, Karen, to work her magic, and what a relief it was to finally turn it over to her for quilting and binding (thanks again for binding it, Karen!)

And here it is upon delivery. I thought it turned out great! Look at the pretty quilted hearts Karen quilted. That's Virginia on the left, who made 4 of the blocks, and Pat on the right. Pat is coordinating the Peppers & Pinatas silent auction donations.

Let's see if I can remember who did which block: From the left:

Top row: Virginia, me, Sheila, Mary

Second row: Brandy, me, Sheila, Virginia

Third row: Rhonda, Rachel, Mary, me

Bottom row: Virginia, Sheila, Bea, Virginia
Quilting and binding: Karen

Way to go Blanketeers!

Blanketeer's - June Project Day

June 12th saw the Blanketeer's hard at work at the "Quilt in a Day" Project Day. Our goal is to complete 20 quilt tops for the USO reading program at DFW Airport before the July Blanketeer's meeting. Judging by the level of industry and enthusiasm, we shouldn't have any trouble meeting the goal. Brandy is in the foreground with Sheila hiding right behind her. (Thanks again to Brandy's church for letting us meet in this wonderful space!) There is Rachel hovering over her daughter, Veronica. Bea, Sheila's Mom, is sitting in front of Virginia P. (standing), Mary has her back to the camera and Virginia is facing her.

Here's Virginia hard at work on her block for the Peppers 'n Pinatas quilt effort that Brandy is chairing. We're so glad to have Virginia with us, since the last project day (fleece) Virginia had quadruple bypass surgery followed months later by an allergic reaction to an antibiotic that put her in the hospital almost the whole week I was in New York.

Look how pretty Virginia's block turned out too! (I need a better camera, my current one doesn't capture soft pastels very well at all.)

Here's Rachel and her daughter, Veronica, who joined us straight from driving up from school in College Station today to start her summer vacation. This was the first time most of us got to meet Veronica, and it was a great pleasure having her with us for the day.

Bea, Sheila's Mom, often makes it to our project days, and there is a very strong correlation between her being there and us getting lots accomplished! lol Bea is our most experienced quilter and is always happy to share her expertise. We almost got her to promise that she would teach us how to applique for our next Quilt of Valor project, if we promise not to paper-piece anymore stars. lol (Bea is a member of the Trinity Valley guild, and apparently their group projects have a heavy bias towards stars, so much so, that Bea is heartily sick of making stars, besides, she much prefers applique!)

Here's another picture of the back of Mary's head. Mary is new to quilting and made excellent progress on her "First Steps" quilt during the project day.

Here are Brandy (on the phone) and Sheila. I just noticed the TV behind Brandy. I never even saw it there before! We certainly didn't have cause to turn it on.

Here is Sheila with "Kissing Kitties", a "First Steps" inspired baby quilt. We were all admiring it as it was one of the first quilts completed, and the kitty-patterned fabric is adorable, when Sheila noted sadly that she didn't intend for the four patch "steps" to meet color-wise (aqua to aqua and purple to purple). I jokingly said, "Oh, that just makes it the Kissing Kitties Quilt", and a quilt was named forevermore. lol I think the colors are stunning. Sheila added the outermost border, which sets it off from every other "First Steps" quilt I've ever seen.

We were glad to have Karen join us at the end of the day, bringing the fruits of her machine quilting labors back to Sheila. (Karen very generously machine quilts any of the Blanketeer charity quilts for free - thanks, Karen!)

Here's what was in the bag. Check out the absolutely fabulous heart in a heart pattern quilted on the back of Sheila's panel quilts! Some happy little kids are going to be the lucky recipients of these beauties.

Virginia P. was soooo happy to finish her Quilts of Valor Ohio Star block. The last little bit gave her LOTS of trouble, but with some coaching she was able to easily finish it. What an accomplishment! And look how great her corners turned out. More paper-piecing, Virginia? lol

Here are Mother and Daughter holding up Bea's Dutch Girl quilt. Bea is hand quilting this for friends at church who are expecting a baby girl. We all oohed and aahed over it; it's really something special!

Here's a better picture of the Dutch Girl quilt. Isn't it lovely? I especially like the lace on the bonnets and the dresses. OK, Bea, you really need to teach us how to applique like that. Your skills are phenomenal!

Here's what Bea did on the project day. I think she called it Bales of Straw. It's a design of her own making and it looked just darling when it was done. I'm not sure how she's planning to quilt it. (I can see I forgot to ask lots of pertinent questions during my brief stint in photojournalism. lol Better not quit my day job!)

Here's Brandy's Delight (also named by yours truly, but sewn entirely by Brandy.) I just love the dimensionality of the design, the dark blocks seem to leap out at you in this picture. Brandy is a fellow stippler, and I can't wait to see the finished product.

Funniest thing heard at the Project Day: Rachel asking, "But, how do you get a stash (of fabric)?" Most of the rest of us just cracked up laughing, but Sheila I think it was, gave the best answer. She said, "You just buy the fabric that speaks to your heart, without any idea of how you're actually going to use it!" Perfect!

Quilt of Valor Quilt Shop Hop

On Friday, members of the Bee Blanketeers met at The Berry Patch quilt shop in southwest Fort Worth to select red, white and blue fabrics for the Quilt of Valor we are making as a group. Here we all are with our selections: from left, me, Mary, Rachel, Sheila and Virginia.




















We found a gorgeous white fabric with a very subtle pattern, three lovely blue fabrics with a wonderfully soft hand, and a red fabric that was so pretty we decided to get it even if it didn't coordinate with the reds at our next stop. A special "thank you" goes to Stacy, a long-term employee at the Berry Patch, who gave us an unsolicited 10% discount after finding out this was a QOV quilt and who took this picture.

Our next stop was Cabbage Rose, where we found all the beautiful reds our hearts could desire. They all coordinated very well with the Berry Patch red, which I'm holding here. We ended up getting four more reds, for a total of 1 white, 3 blues and 5 reds. This should keep our Ohio Stars looking nice and random, with lots of possible red/blue combinations, while still presenting a very integrated design.





















We bought LOTS of extra fabric (I hope). Many of us are new to paper piecing, and you know how that goes! It was very encouraging to us new beesters that we were able to easily agree on fabric choices. I was a little concerned that we would have to fend off advocates of pinky-red, purply-blue and red-orange, but that situation never arose. We all had a surprisingly united vision of how we want the quilt to look. Thanks also go to the ladies at Cabbage Rose, who could not have been more helpful. Once again, they gave us an unsolicited 10% discount and took this picture for us so we could all be in the shot.

First Ever Blanketeer Bee

The first ever Blanketeer Bee was held yesterday afternoon at my house. It was lots of fun, though absolutely no stitching was accomplished and I forgot to take any pictures. We discussed making our first ever Quilt of Valor quilt using paper piecing techniques. The Electric Quilt 6 quilt that I had designed for this group effort was a bit too large, so I made the following changes: 1) The three striped outer borders were reduced in size and combined into one larger blue border, with a red 1/2" binding, and 2) The large blocks were reduced in size from 8" square down to 7" square. The cornerstones remain the same size (6" square).























The final dimensions of the quilt are 69"x69", which is well within the 72"x87" maximum allowed size. The Quilts of Valor website indicates that 54"x67" is their ideal size, and if we wanted to, we *could* lop off an entire row of large and small blocks, which would bring the quilt to about 56"x69". However, I LOVE square quilts; I think they look really nice. So, unless we get to the point where we would rather kill ourselves than piece one more Ohio Star block, I hope we decide to keep the quilt square.

On a happy EQ6 note, the 7"x7" block still takes two pages of foundation paper to print, but I learned how to drag and drop the sections so we won't have to tape any of the sections together.

Now I just need to know that everyone agrees to the changes I made before we go out and buy the fabric on Friday. Please leave a comment or send an email if you agree to the changes I made, or if you have any further alterations in mind. It's very easy to make changes at this point. The only thing I remember everyone agreed to was removing the white from the border because it would tend to quickly get dirty.

Also, be sure to check out Brandy's blog. She's already got the parameters for the silent auction quilt posted. I'm really hoping we go with pastels for that one!