My quilting blog is now at http://mamanance.blogspot.com/ but I am trying to solicit ideas from as wide a group as possible so wanted to post this message here as well. I am on a committee for my guild that is trying to find out how guilds that are growing have addressed the issue of having small group experiences within the larger guild. Do you go for interest groups, geographical groups, etc. What other ways might you have had of making a large group seem small enough to make friends and have a chance to be with each other? We have about 63 people now and have probably added 20 or so of these in the last 2 years.

I have just finished setting up a new blog on Blogspot -  http://mamanance.blogspot.com/  I don't plan to remove my posts from here, but will put new, and hopefully more frequent, posts there. I think I have made links on my new blog to most everyone here whose posts I read and reply to most often - but check out my list and let me know if I have missed anyone.

Hope to "see" you there.

Nancy

I just joined the Quilters Corner Club - I've looked several times at the NY Beauty Project they are doing and decided I must be a part of that. Are any of the rest of you in that group?

Last week I posted about my plans for practicing machine quilting, and then actually doing some quilting. I worked on the practicing a good bit on Thursday and Friday, and got helpful advice from several of you. Monday afternoon I practiced some more, and yesterday I was ready to actually start on the quilt itself - meaning I had done several other things -- just procrastination because I was worried about how it would go. I probably picked a more difficult stencil to do than I should have - and then it was a tad too big for the blocks I was doing so I scanned it, reduced it, printed it out and cut out a template for it. The picture I have here is the comfort quilt I have made and want to machine quilt. Since it is to give away I didn't really want to spend all the time it would take to hand quilt it. I spent over an hour doing the design in one of the middle blocks, but it came out pretty good for a first try. Then I decided to work on some diagonal lines working out from that first block before doing the next block. I thought they would be easier and give me a rest from the tension of doing all the curves. Well, my machine decided to act up I guess because the stitch length started becoming very erractic - it would start out the size I had set it and then unexplanably get really tiny, then sometimes would go back somewhere in the middle. I took out most of the lines I put in that way. Thought it might be lint around the bobbin case so cleaned that, changed the needle, practiced on the practice sandwich some more, with the thread I was using as well as some Sulky rayon thread I had (that looked really nice in the good stitches, but then the stitches got tiny too). Figured it must be my walking foot, so emailed the company - my machine is a Brother CS6000i that I got at Walmart one year ago this week - to see if they have other walking feet that would work on this machine --- they don't. Thought I would try a regular foot on the quilt to see if I still had the erractic stitch length - I did. Then gave up for the time being on this quilt.

The machine stitches fine on regular seams - thank goodness! But I really need one that will machine quilt. So I'm asking advice again. Do any of you have a Brother like this, or any suggestions about something else I could try. I know that the space between the needle and the machine - don't know what that is called - should be bigger so the quilt is not so bunched up. Maybe that is part of the problem, but it was also doing this on the sample sandwich which is only about a 16" square. Maybe what I need is a machine that will allow me to do machine quilting better than this one. Of course, there is no other place besides walmart in town to get one so I will have to go out of town no matter what I get.  VERY FRUSTRATING!!! Especially when the sewing machine is in a part of the house that is not air conditioned and it was been in the upper 90's for days. Now I am cutting out and sewing together some blocks for a quilt I have promised to my son and his wife. Nothing like a new project to get you out of the grumpies about an old project!

This picture is of the quilt before any of my quilting. I'm too frustrated to take a picture of the quilting I've done so far - and I haven't taken out all of what I need to take out of the tiny stitches.

Yesterday while I was hand-quilting on my Hydrangeas and Butterflies wall hanging I was listening to an audio CD I had gotten from http://www.how-to-quilt.com/  It was their first Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation and it was with "machine quilting expert" Pam Bauer. I have only machine quilted a rag quilt and a small pieced thing I was trying, unsuccessfully, to make into a door stop (another story).  After listening to the CD twice I think I am more intimidated than before about trying it. I started out hand quilting because I didn't know how to do machine quilting, but because of problems with my wrists and thumbs I know I need to start machine quilting some if I hope to finish very many projects. I've seen lots of beautiful machine quilting and think that surely some of it has been done with a regular sewing machine, which is all I have. Hazel's recent comment about feeling like she cheated to do machine quilting is what inspired me to write this entry. I don't think many people any more think that machine quilting is "cheating," and so what if a few do! What should matter to us is that we get projects finished and that we, and our recipients, are happy with them. I don't want to completely give up on hand quilting, but I certainly cannot do it as much as I would like, and it is not very fast.

I am going to be trying some simple straight-line machine quilting on the comfort quilt I am making for our guild. Any pointers from all of you would be greatly appreciated! Pam said she always spray bastes and that she spray starches the backing a lot, as well as her fabrics before she begins cutting them out. I always use sizing on my fabrics, but she recommends the spray starch - putting it on the back of darker fabrics since it does kind of flake off. She also likes using the blue painter's tape for straight line guides, and mentioned the borders-on-a-roll that Jen has mentioned. She does not use a frame, just bunches the quilt up, rather than rolling it or folding it. She says she makes a kind of frame with her hands in the area where she is quilting. She also uses a particular kind a of gardening glove to move the fabric under the needle. She recommended Warm and Natural cotton batting for machine quilting beginners because it does not stretch and seems to grab the fabric well. There was a lot more on the CD - I'll definitely be listening again, plus I got another CD with the transcription on it so I can read what she said as well.

Any pointers from all of you would GREATLY appreciated!

OK, I followed Jen's instructions and now my links include my RSS feed, and I have an account on Bloglines.com and I have added subscriptions to it of those Quiltbloggers that I know have set up an RSS feed. So now I feel like I need to update my own blog! I just realized today that I have a "free day" tomorrow and Friday. You'd probably think that since I am retired I'd have 5 free days at least a week, but I volunteer at the hospital for about 5 hours one day, teach a computer class or sometimes 2 and kind of lead a quilting group at our local Senior Center one day, and every other Thursday I work at Habitat helping build houses one morning a week. Plus I meet with some fellow quilters one morning a week --- so do you see what I mean when I say I have 2 free days - no classes, no meetings, no volunteer jobs, nothing on my calendar but trying to stay cool and quilt. Well, I will fix lunch and dinner for hubby but if I'm home that always happens. Now my dilemma is to decide what project/s I want to work on. I'm thinking about

(1) finishing the handquilting on the first of 2 borders on my Hydrangeas and Butterflies wallhanging

(2) adding the borders onto the comfort quilt I'm making for our guild

(3) cutting out more squares to add to the Spectacular Scraps quilt (this is the one that we started at our quild's retreat in May - the one that Erin is already quilting on!!)

(4) make more flowers for the Grandmother's Flower Garden and start sewing them together

(5) decide on a block to make to go with the 4 Fat Eighths Carol Doak blocks and get started on it

(6) start the handquilting on the T-shirt quilt

Yikes!! This is beginning to look like one of Jen's lists, and I am nowhere near as fast as she is on anything!! Well. now that I have told you about these projects, I must plan to actually work on some of them because inquiring minds will want to know how I did on them! The first step will be to stay away from the computer - or at least stay away from the chair in front of the computer!

Here are my 4 Fat Eighth Swap blocks back home from the Carol Doak Group.  All of them had to use my fabric - the blue/teal/gold and then make a 12" finished size block using a Carol Doak paper-pieced design.  I think I will make a lap quilt using these and some others that I will make following the same idea - so a kind of sampler quilt with sashing all around. I'll want to use some of the same colors that they used in some of the blocks that I make. I have some ideas about some of the blocks I want to make, but no deadline on it - it will just be for me. This was the first swap I had done and I really enjoyed it, though I sure did spend a lot of time on it, but then so did they.

I have spent the last several days catching up with the news from all of you. It takes awhile when you've been away from the computer for a week or so.

Here is a picture of the progress on the t-shirt quilt. It is hard to see, but there is a narrow cream border around the whole thing. Next I need to do the top border which will have lettering on it made out of the same fabric as the narrow border fused to the fabric used for the sashing. This thing is going to be BIG - Dave is 6'3" and he is holding it up and it still drags the floor, and the last border is not on. As a recap, the shirts are from 16 fun runs that he participated in - the pictures are from either him in the race or some of us immediately after the race, or some memorabilia from the race, and some of the shirts have the logo from the back sewn to the front to make them the same size as the others. When I am in the pictures I am wearing the shirt that the picture is attached to - when he is in the pictures he is always wearing a different shirt. There are other pictures of this, and my other quilting projects on my Quilting Links webpage - http://mamanance.info/quilting/index.htm 

I would have been finished with this quilt sooner if I hadn't had to redo many of the seams where I sewed the sashing on. I made the mistake, by going by a book I would NOT recommend, to use Fusi-Knit to back each of the shirts. It does not stabilize the enough so they still stretch too much. I ended up using Grid Grip, freezer paper with a grid printed on it so you can cut the exact size you need, cut to the size of each shirt/photo combo and ironed on to stablilze the shirt while I added the sashing. Also had problems with Printed Treasures, the paper-backed fabric that I used for printing the photos, but that eventually worked out ok. I think I have decided to try to hand quilt it - something simple in the sashing, outlining the photos, then probably doing some bigger stitch quilting just highlighting some of the shirt designs. I want it to be all done by me, and don't want it to be my first experience with machine quilting and don't want to tie it, so that doesn't leave me many options.

I am one of those "older and attached" women she was talking about at the Monday morning quilt group - most of us are old enough to be her mom!! - but in the group we are just a bunch of quilting friends. We have a great time in our little group. I love starting out my week like that and find that it spurs me on to get something accomplished during the week so I have something to work on, and show, the next Monday morning. Some of us are in the local guild, but a new member to our little group isn't in the guild, and that's fine. Since it is at the library no one has to be Hostess and clean house or anything yucky like that! I am so glad that she is taking the mornings off to join us. Sometimes I bring my machine, other times work on smaller things, and of course lots of talking, not all about quilting, helping others plan their next project or work out some problem with the current one. Her quilt out of her late father's ties and dress shirt is gorgeous. The white shirt is so cool and smooth, all starched and ironed, and the ties are all kinds. And she has a great setting for the Dresden plates - hope she posts a picture of that. And the little conference room we are in has a big quilt hanging in it that was made by women in the community about 20 some years ago. One of the women who worked on it was my first quilt teacher. Connections like that are nice to have. Vesuviusmama and her husband and my husband work at the same university - but I didn't know about the gym bleachers, so neat to catch up on the local news too! Don't you love that idea of building the playhouse out of them.

Here are all four of the Fat Eighth Swap blocks completed. You may remember that this was for the Carol Doak Quilt Group, so they all had to use one of her patterns.  This has been my major project for the last couple of weeks. They are due to the Swap Mamma by the end of the month, and we are going on vacation next week, then long weekend away from home the next weekend, so wanted to get them finished before leaving town. I will mail them to her after showing them at our quild meeting tomorrow morning. You can see better pictures of them on my Quilting Links webpage - http://mamanance.info/quilting/index.htm#swap  It was certainly a challenge to find patterns that would fit the various people's preferences and the fabrics themselves. Lots of the patterns that I looked at called for more material than a Fat 1/8th, but that is supposed to be part of the challenge. Now I need to catch up on some of the projects that didn't get much attention while I was working on these! I know you all know how that is.  I did finish the quilting on the pillow top to go with the Hydrangeas and Butterflies quilt - that pillow top was my first paper-piecing project.

I also have told my son and daughter-in-law, and one of our daughters and her husband that I would make a wall hanging or lap quilt for each of them -- one has decided on the pattern, I have it ordered, and am going to be mailing them all my batiks to help them start selecting fabrics for it. The other couple has narrowed the list of patterns to about 4 so they will soon have one selected. Before I actually start piecing on them I really want to FINISH Hydrangeas and Butterflies and the T-shirt quilt, but we'll see how that goes.

As if I didn't have enough quilting projects going, I recently started a quilting group at the Senior Center where I also teach computer classes. I was thinking that it would be a group where we get together and quilt, but seems most of them don't know how to quilt, or want to learn new things. So, the 2nd week we met I wrote out a pattern for the baby rag quilt and showed them how to do that, then last week, and again some this past Wed, I demonstrated Carol Doak's paper-piecing methods to them. Some of them are starting to bring in things to show that they have worked on, so that is great. The numbers have dwindled from the first time though so we'll see how it goes. I DO NOT want to be the only one demonstrating techniques, etc. Somedays I want to just quilt - on my own things.

I am posting this picture in response to an email from Jen. I am now working on the 4th flower. These have not been sewn together but I wanted to show how they might look. So far I have only put the "path" around one since I don't know how I will place them. As I mentioned to Jen they are about 9 1/2" across in one direction and 10 1/2" in the other (this includes one side of the path but not both sides). This is a project I reserve mostly for a small carry-along thing - in the car, waiting for the car to be fixed, etc. I guess I am thinking it will one day be a queen size quilt, but it is for us, and no particular deadline, unlike some other things I have been doing. More about that in some more postings.  Even though I haven't posted a message recently I try to keep up with everyones and really am enjoying the pictures and stories!

Here are the first 1 1/2 flowers from the Grandmother's Flower Garden that I am making using the Quilt Patis that Vera mentioned recently. This is a fun take-along project - but will be a long-term one I am sure! I am using the 1" Patis, meaning that the measurement of each side of the hexagon is 1". So far I have 2 packets of them (50 to a pack) but since I am not sure that I will be putting these side by side, I may need more Patis, as you don't want to remove them for re-use until you have attached every side to something else. So at this point there is still a Pati in each pink hexagon, as well as all the yellow print ones, the second center yellow and the top and bottom blue print. Does that make sense?

Here is the first quarter of the quilt that I started at our retreat last weekend. It is from the Spectacular Scraps book. It will be queen size when I finish, after I add a border. The squares are 4" and I think each of the blues/purples/teals are only there once in this quarter. I have repeated some of the yellow/gold/orange triangles because I don't have as many of those, but I hope to remedy that next week when I visit a few quilt shops in the Atlanta area while I am with my mom visiting my kids and grandkids. 

Can you see the blue-ish diamonds (big and little) and yellow-ish diamonds - also big and little?

Here is the first of my 4 Fat Eighth Swap blocks. It is a Carol Doak design - #115 from her 300 Paper Pieced Quilt Blocks. The gold swirly design is the fabric I was sent. I did have to do some frog stitching, and started over once because I had an off-white/yellow design for the background that didn't allow the yellow centers to show very much. We have until the end of June to complete our 4 blocks and return them to the Swap Mamma, but several folks have finished all 4 already - fortunately no one in my group -- then I would feel really pressured! I have selected the potential fabrics for the other 3, and have some ideas for patterns, but nothing definite yet.

The rest of this week will be involved first of all, quilting-wise, with cutting more 1 1/2" strips for a version of a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt (with 9-patches and applique) that we will learn to make at our guild's retreat on Friday; then cutting 70 or more 5" squares for the Saturday retreat quilt, which uses the Spectacular Scraps book. This will be my first retreat and I am really looking forward to it. It is not an overnighter - that would be great fun I think - but I've heard many good comments on the previous ones, especially from Vesuviusmama! While I am cutting all these fabrics, I am also cutting 2 1/2" strips to make hexagons for a traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt I am just starting. For that I am using Quilt Patis - little 1" per side plastic hexagons that you baste the fabric around, then keep in until it is completely attached to other hexagons, then you can pop it out using the hole in the middle and re-use. I don't right now have any idea how big this GFG will be - I'll just see where it goes, but it seems like a great take-along project. I'll post a picture when I finish the first one.

I finished the patchwork ball yesterday. It is stuffed with cotton stuffing, not polyester and not batting, that you tear off in wisps and put into the ball before finishing the last few seams. It seems like you can stuff it forever, so I could have probably put more in it. You can fluff it up in the dryer by putting it in with a damp towel for a few minutes. I would not recommend submerging it completely in water but I'm sure it could be spot cleaned. This one is the "soccer ball" design; it has 12 pentagons, all the same fabric, and 4 each of five different hexagons, so 32 pieces all together. I sewed the first half on Saturday, the second half on Sunday and pieced it together and stuffed it yesterday. They are fun to make!

Have any of you made one of these? It is from a book by Jenny Byer and you can buy templates for some of the shapes. This one has 32 pieces - 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons and uses 6 different colors. They are hand-pieced and go together pretty quickly. This is my second one from the book - you may recognize the fabrics. I am making it for my granddaughter who will be 1 year old tomorrow. We will see her, as well as her brother and cousin and most of our kids, this coming weekend. When the ball is stuffed it will be about 7" wide. Her mom told me she likes to play with balls, and seems to be better at trying to catch them than her 2 1/2 yr old brother. I was afraid this might be too big for her, but her mom says she plays with basketballs so I guess this will work.

I just finished my first paper-pieced block. It is a Carol Doak design and will be a pillow top to go with the Hydrangeas and Butterflies wall-hanging I posted a picture of earlier. In the wallhanging, I plan to use the strip in this block as the binding. All of these fabrics were used somewhere in that wall-hanging. I recently joined Carol's Yahoo Group and have been eager to try some of my own. I signed up for her Fat 8th Swap, so thought I'd better try at least one on my own first before I start doing blocks for someone else!

Good morning Quilters,

I was out of town for a few days and had no access to Internet. When I came home yesterday afternoon and read the messages posted on the blog I think I probably missed some. Does anyone know of a way to retrieve them once they have gone off the opening page. I have been checking the pages of my Friends but I don't have everyone in my Friends list.

I haven't added a new entry in awhile, but that does not mean I have not been quilting! I am now adding the binding to my mom's Say It With Flowers quilt  - by hand unfortunately since I have a very specific place I want the binding to be. I will definitely post a picture when it is done. I also joined Carol Doak's Quilt Group and have been spending a lot of time on her site reading messages and looking at all of the photos quilters are posting. They are amazing. I got up the courage to join a Fat Eighth Swap so am now trying to decide which fabric I want to send out to my swap-mates. We send the moderator 4 Fat 8ths of one fabric, she sends us back 4 different Fat 8ths from the other 4 people in our group, then we have 2 months to make 4 blocks using some of the Fat 8th in each block and adding some of our own fabric. Then we send them all back to her and she returns the 4 completed blocks to each of us. Of course, since it is the Carol Doak group our blocks have to be one of her patterns. Since I joined the group I have purchased some of her books and CD's, so I now have about close to 800 of her patterns to choose from! I signed up for the Beginner group since I have not finished any paper-piecing project yet. I did try her beginner's block in the car this weekend - doing it by hand. Not sure how that will turn out, but I'll post it too when I get the last 2 of the 4 I am working on finished and assembled. I think DH thinks I am taking on too much new stuff, and he is getting concerned about when I will finish the t-shirt quilt I am doing for him, so I must get back to it as soon as I finish the binding on my mom's quilt!

This was my 2nd finished project - I have pictures of just the quilt but this is my favorite picture of it and Reba together. Her mom and dad selected the pattern from several books I sent them to select from, and they also selected the 2 main colors to pick up some colors in the rug they had already selected for her room. There are other pictures of it, and my other projects, on my website - http://mamanance.info/quilting/index.htm This one is hand-pieced and hand quilted and I have assured them it is washable - good thing since she spit up on it shortly after this picture was made -- just minutes after I gave it to them!