May Basement Recap

Wow!  What a great day we had today!  Not that it is always about work, work, work (because we all know that the 'therapy' portion of the day is most important) but this had to be our most productive day yet.  We were at half staff today but the group that came was energized and ready to make some progress.

Here's a group shot, post lunch and after we'd revisited the improv top and developed a list of next steps for it.

Mary Ann worked on adding circles to her curved stack blocks.

Ruth brought her posies and spiderwebs (beautiful and inspiring, as always).

Judy worked on her Karen Stone arcs and had some interesting rotary cutting tips.  Dianne made a lot of progress on her double-duty piece that can fullfill her Basement and QDP goals.  There was also mention of fabulous feathers that we'd see on it next month.  Fran worked on a blue Mississippi that I believe was started when we did the use-up-stuff idea session at her house.  Sorry, but my pictures of these projects were not so hot.  I did get a great picture of Fran demonstrating the art of relaxation.  This was about the time that she started telling Dianne where she keeps her car keys (uh oh!).

I showed my circles project (it's in the foreground of Fran's photo) and demo'ed the Dale Fleming 6 minute circle technique that I used to make the blocks.  Dianne clocked me in at 26 minutes but it could have been 36 ....  I will use the technique again, though.  I also got more opinions on backgrounds for my posies (chartreuse was a favorite).  Brady scattered the auditionees on any available floorspace so that was fun for him.  I think he did an unsolicited drum solo at one point, too.

Mike did the heavy lifting, as usual.  He also made a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade and was giving out samples of his world famous smoothies.  I think it was just a ploy to show me that the juicer and Vitamix really aren't single use appliances. 

We had a great lunch, as usual. We had to be a bit more creative since it was a smaller crowd.  Apparently, Giant Eagle thinks that bite-sized crackers=nickel sized crackers.  Note to self.  Some asked for the Shrimp Orzo salad recipe so here is a link.  I subbed asparagus for the red onion.

Believe it or not, after lunch, we still had energy left to crack open the box with our improv quilt parts.  We decided that we may use the white/black border pieces for a different, Hopscotch type quilt.  We liked Ruth's three inch blocks on Dianne's black multi polka dot fabric but there is a good chance we won't have enough of it to use it for a border.  Divas are encouraged to bring fabrics that might work to our next meeting (black with smallish multi colored stuff on them--stars, dots, etc.).  We are also thinking it needs a bright binding (chartreuse, yellow, orange ...).  Here's a photo of the border idea.

Our next session is June 16.  We will work on our circles, the improv quilt, or UFOs (your choice).  I had two machines set up this time (the Brother and my 1080) and will plan to have them up next time.  I tend to do non-sewing stuff like pressing or cutting so feel free to use them when you are here.

Whew, long post!  Until next month, Divas!