Holiday Recap

We had a lovely day at our holiday gathering today.

 

Gwen showed a stunning sports-themed quilt she made for her grandson.  It has a deep blue Minky on the back.  He is going to love it.

 

 

 

 

Dianne quilted her one of a kind piece.  It is really beautiful.  We tried to convince her to enter it into the Farm Park show and tear up the evaluation without looking at it (since they have been known to have questionable judgment).  She also finished a very sweet quilt with a cute border print on the back.

 

 

 

Judy brought her Mary Ellen Hopkins challenge piece.  I am so amazed at her fabric selection and design.  It is a really creative and successful piece but, hey, that’s Judy!

Speaking of works of art, Judy brought her own edible arrangement creation. 

Jan made some adorable and tasty mice.

Speaking of lunch, here’s a link to the soup recipe that I served today.  I made two changes to the recipe as written, besides serving the rice on the side. I left out the allspice and I mistakenly bought (and used) fire-roasted tomatoes.  If your holiday plans involve ham, I highly recommend this soup recipe.  As the blog post says, it seems like another ham, bean, and greens soup but it was really stellar.  

Kathy brought one half of Cari’s wedding quilt and she pinned it to Lori’s half so they could be sewn together.  Kathy brought the backing, too, ready to go.  After lunch, we roped the group into a pinning-bee so we could get the quilt pin-basted.  No photos yet because we don’t want any spoilers, but it is really sharp.  If her taste is anything like her mom, she is going to love it.  We’ll present it to her pinned then take it back to quilt it and mail it to her when it is finished.  We made a valiant effort to get it done.  The Friendship Group was very responsive in turning in the blocks but the holidays put us over the edge time-wise.  That’s ok.  It will be a great gift for the newlyweds.

Thanks to everyone for coming. Lunch was fabulous.  It was a great way to spend the day before the peak of the holiday craziness kicks in.  For the Divas who were unable to make it, rest assured that we talked about you in glowing terms.  That includes our honorary Diva Candy, too.  Happy Holidays!

November meeting

We met on the 16th and we started out with an array of post breakfast food. Several kinds of muffins, small bread slices with spreads and a veggie tray with dips.
Judy likes to personalize her food contributions. We decided the veggie tray was a great color scheme for a quilt.


There was not a lot of machine sewing going on but there were some  people working on their quilts. Suzie was re-layering her church dash made fabric piece. She decided she wanted a different batting. Judy was planning her Mary Ellen Hopkins quilt. You can see the pattern she is planning to use in the book along with her fabrics. It will be colorful and lively, like Judy. Maryann was working on an advent calendar with Suzie and Gwen looking on.

 We had some show and tell as well. Kathy brought her Stack and Whack flimsy. It was her UFO commitment to finish.
Lori has been working on this little Halloween project. She questions whether this is what she should be doing at this time with Halloween come and gone and Christmas coming soon. Sometimes working on something that is just plain fun is what we need to do.











There was a lot of talking and laughter, as usual.




I didn't work on a thing except to consult with Judy and get some good advice about embellishments for my giraffe wall hanging. I brought along a red work piece that has been 15 to 20  years in the making. I spent an hour locating it Friday evening but never even got it out.

I did acquire this nice big piece of "made fabric" from Fran; she says making fabric is not her thing. That worked out well for me because I love to work with "made fabric". I plan to cut it up and make some Anvil blocks to go with the ones I got at Friendship group last week.

Diva's at the Quilt Show

 Sunday was the Wildwood Quilt Guild annual quilt show in Mentor, Ohio. Many of the Basement Divas are members of the guild and there were many quilts there representing the Basement.
Unfortunately I forgot my camera but a friend from my church group had her camera phone and got some shots for me.

This first group of photos is from their very clever challenge. The inspiration for the challenge  piece was  to come from a food package.
I am not sure how many of these were from the Basement divas but I know for sure that the one close up on the lover left was made by Lori. Those little HST's finished  at 3/4 inch. Her package was from Lipton Tea.

There was also a corner with the Diva "Made fabric'' challenge. I missed our last 2 meetings so I didn't get  so see them before the show. In the top row on the  left is Kathy's and on the right is Maryann's. Lower left is Gwen's and lower right is Jan's.

Lori also had a piece with houses using made fabric but my friend with the camera apparently didn't get that shot, however the owner of one LQS posted it on her Facebook page and you can click here jellen's facebook to see it.
There were others for which I have no photos but maybe someone in the Basement Diva's group has some. It would be nice if they could post them.




I bought some raffle tickets and I won this Princess basket. I saw it when they were putting it together a couple  months ago and I thought I was just too cute. It is loaded  with things to make a little princess happy. The little pink and purple tutu is waaaaay too small for me, as are the wings but I have a plan for this.

October rehash

October, who would have expected the road to Judy's to be closed due to snow and downed trees. It was quite exciting for some people. Jan and I missed the closed part but did manage a tour of the round about that is just past the entry to Judy's development.
 The food was fantastic in the true fantasy sort of way. We all worked on something and some actual work was accomplished. If anyone "out there" happens to come to the Wildwood Quilt show on Nov, 3 they will see our special exhibit. It's at the Mentor Senior Center.
 The Diva's went on the road. Divas Lori, Judy, Jan and Kathy took our show "Collaborative Quilting" to the Ladies of the Parlor guild. What a great bunch they were. Very polite, laughed at the right times and seemed happy to have us there. Thanks for the opportunity to spread the word which is..find a bunch of congenial people and work together.
 Many of the Diva's are up to their eyeballs in preparation of the Sunday quilt show. I would expect there will be pictures posted.
Happy Halloween all.

Happy Halloween

I had a great time at Judy's on Saturday.  I didn't get any photos of the embellishing but I can tell you that there was a lot of activity and excitement.  Judy's stash of goodies was mind-boggling.  It was all I could do to keep focused to build a "kit" of bits and pieces to (hopefully!) sew on to my piece before Saturday ... or maybe Sunday. This might be another year where I take a piece home with me to finish on Saturday night.  Let's hope not.

Thanks to Judy for a great day.  She even had candy for goodie bags!

Here's a collage of our Halloween-inspired lunch.

October Recap

I was feeling pretty discombobulated at October’s sewing day.  It could have been the last minute change … to end a bit early so our family could meet friends for Boo at the Zoo.  It didn’t help matters much that I somehow ended up starting to cook the potluck Beef and Broccoli at about 9:55 a.m.  I can be so overly optimistic about schedules and how long things take.  Oh well.  Thankfully, everyone was patient and easygoing about the chaos and schedule changes.

We had the usual buzz of conversation and catching up.  There seemed to be quite a bit of focus on our Basement and Wildwood challenges and deadlines. I hope that our monthly meetings help you in that regard (assuming you want to be focused J).  I know I really benefit from the deadlines and monthly check-ins.

Selfishly, I was looking for advice how to touch up the quilting on my Wildwood challenge.  Even though it is a miniature piece, the border was looking puffy and needed more quilting.  But how?  I also challenged myself to finish a UFO for the Wildwood show—a 1 1/14” log cabin set as a carpenter’s wheel.  I finished ditch quilting the blocks but couldn’t seem to commit to a free motion design that would complement the setting but not get lost in the chaos of all of the different fabrics.  I got some great suggestions.  I’ll post pics of each of these when they are completed.  The show set up is on 11/2 so there’s nothing like a deadline to kick start a burst of productivity.

Several Divas were working on their made fabric pieces.  Jan got lots of opinions on how to proceed with the blocks she had made.  I think she was pretty happy with the feedback so that’s always good news.  This isn’t the best picture but you get the idea.

 

Susie was working on sewing the binding on her made fabric piece.  She experimented with faux piping/two fabric binding and it really makes the piece.  Just wait until you see it sewn down .. very pretty.

Mary Ann put together the top for her Wildwood box top challenge.  The spicy Old El Paso-inspired piece is lovely and strongly represents the “feeling” and colors of the inspiration.  Somehow, I managed to miss getting a photo so you’ll have to come to the Wildwood show and see it in person.  Mary Ann also brought her ready-to-embellish made fabric piece. 

Judy gave us a pep talk for our upcoming embellishment session on 10/26 at her house.  She’ll forward the details but it was decided that the potluck will be Halloween themed.  You can pull out those bookmarks for black food recipes.  Lunch was excellent, as usual.  Brady got Halloween Pez.  Everyone was lively.  We talked about those of you were not there.  You were missed.

If you are not a member of the Wildwood Quilt Guild, please plan to stop by our annual show on November 3.  Click the link for details, including a photo of our stunning raffle quilt.

September Meeting

The first thing we did after we got there and started getting settled was to look at all the things that were going into the "Princess" basket that Lori and Jan ( not sure if Judy was participating) were putting together for a Chinese raffle at their guild quilt show.





This is so cute it makes me wish I was a little girl again. Jan made the striped  crown and there is a pink and purple tutu, a little purse, a wand, wings, hair clips, a book, a small  "princess marker board, a goodie bag with bunch of neat things that some little girl is going to love. All of it is in a colorful bag that one of them made.














It was a busy day and there was a lot of sewing going on.
 You can see all the busy hands at work in the photos above. I was impressed with the bags of scraps that Jan and Kathy were working from. I don't remember if Fran had a big bag of scraps all throw together in the bag or not.  I always start out with everything sorted by color and when it gets to the point where it is  all mixed up I have to stop and sort it out. These ladies made a lot more progress than I ever do in the amount of time we were there working.



The photos below show some of the things that were made.

 Suzie was working on the Halloween blocks for Friendship Group that Maryann requested for this month. Maryann was piecing hexagons for her "made fabric". Judy's two wool blocks that she had completed previously are in the middle row and on the end is Fran's large piece of  'made fabric".

Gwen brought a quilt top that she has been working on, made with just too cute fabric. She was auditioning borders and got input from several of us.













Sherman voiced his opinion and was quite vocal about how much he liked it.













Lori had a little half square triangle piece laid out and ready to sew. Those HST's are 1 1/4 inches and will finish 3/4 inches. Wow!
Lori showed us some neat Robert Kaufman fabric and her Kona color swatches that she ordered.    

















 Brady gave his sales pitch for his school fund raiser. He was maybe a little shy about it but did a good job and he came back later and thanked us all for supporting his school.














This summation of our day would not be complete without a shot of Kathy's shirt. I really think she forgot where she was going when she put it on.

Bicker?

There is never any senseless bickering in The Basement.

Basement Divas never bicker

Look at how well the Halloween costume thing was handled.

Even we make mistakes and admit to it.

A perhaps tragic event nearly happened at the planning meeting, after a bit of wine and some serious carbs. Our extra meeting is happening close to Halloween. We agreed on a theme lunch. Then someone (not me) suggested costumes as well, (much groaning from me). Then the theme of the costumes.. we each dress like a different Diva, chosen much like Secret Santa. There was a pause and someone suggested "Only if this is our last meeting ever."Solemnly we all nodded our heads in agreement. No costumes, no impersonations. Disaster averted.

Sept 2103

Since I was up all night making sure the basement wasn't filling with water I am in kind of a coma but here are the basics from the meeting today.

 

We will have 2 meetings in Oct. The regular one at Lori's on the 19th and the special beading, embellishment meeting at Judy's on the 26th. More details to follow but the theme of lunch at Judy's will be Halloween so drag out your cauldrons and start to brew. Bats take a good long time to marinade properly.

 

Our next challenge is the Mary Ellen Hopkins memorial quilt challenge.

Rules:

        Make a piece using a MEH pattern or technique.

        This must be something you always wanted to make but haven't as yet.

         The piece has to be bigger than one of her books.

          ( I think Ruth wanted a size)

         Muckled fabric must be incorporated. (Ruth groaned at this)

         You may ignore one rule.

Ruth wanted a deadline, I suggested April, Gwen groaned this time. Maybe it was the lunch speaking. So we decided that we would talk about a deadline the meeting after the jelly roll race. Ruth wanted me to take notes but my memory is pretty good. Some of the things I recall even have some basis in fact.

   The meeting adjourned and then Lori remembered she had a birthday cake for Jan. We lit the candles, sang and Lori covered up the cake for Jan to take home.. we had fantastic desserts at Lunch. The cake was lovely in spite of a near miss with a certain Mr Brady's backpack.

  I will certainly get back to every one with more stories after a nap.

  Dianne and Laura, we missed you. Syd,you too.

Kathy

All for one

Here we are deep in discussion planning the Mary Ellen Hopkins tribute challenge.

Anvil block

Yesterday was our Friendship group monthly get together. Most of the divas are in the Friendship group and most of the Friendship group are basement Divas. We have been working on made fabric
and I had mentioned that if any of the divas would make anvil blocks I would collect them and send them to Victoria.

Here is the one Lynn made and brought last night. She didn't use "made" fabric for her HST's for this one. Actually I like making them this way better so I don't have to deal with all the extra seams in places where I don't want them.

*  Early warning to the group:
I signed up for October for my Friendship block month and I am going to ask for 2 of these 12 inch blocks from everyone.

Oops!!!

So that Ruth knows how much we appreciate her ....

Playing with scraps

I have been playing with scraps and strips the last couple of days. I started out to "make fabric" for an Anvil block to send to Victoria (Bumblebeans)and the blocks for this were on the wall above my sewing machine. Oh look, the colors are the same as what I have out on the table, there is only one block to finish, it will only take a few minutes. Well, it took a few hours, for a number of reasons. I was also cooking dinner and  cleaning up after dinner, and I had to do some ripping and I had to remake one of the finished blocks and no one ever said I was fast. I found this last year on FilmintheFridge blog and I thought I would make a large quilt. That didn't happen and it never will; there are just too many decisions  about fabric choices and the width of the blocks and I was really slow. I like what I have and it is enough.


So after I finished that one and tidied up the mess, I decided to make the Anvil block to send to Victoria. Click on her name to see some of the Anvil quilts and for a link to the tutorial. I am going to make another block but I am not going to make one large piece of fabric to cut into 1- 6 I/2 inch square and 5 - 4 inch squares. I am gong to make one piece big enough to trim to 6 1/2 inches and 5 pieces big enough to trim to 4 inches and I will make the HST's by layering 2 squares and stitching one both sides of a diagonal line and then I will trim the HST's to 3 1/2 inches. I found that by making one big piece I ended up with several seams coming together just where I didn't want them. I think I will also use something with more contrast for the background fabric. I might use larger pieces so I don't end up with so many tiny pieces in the HST's. I see that Victoria is asking for blocks with a blue background. No big decision problems there for me, I have only a few blue fabrics that could be used for background. You can see I missed that blue background request for the first block.

This has been a learning experience for me. I have made a lot of quilts with "made fabric" squares but to cut up a piece to make components for a block requires a different approach, for me anyway.

So..... I will make another block and if any of the Diva's would like to make one or two, I will collect them at our next meeting and send them.

July pics



I had good intentions of blogging after our July meeting.  I can't believe that was three weeks ago! Actually, it all started at Friendship when Lynn brought her fabulous made fabric piece.  I think she plans to add more to it but I think it is pretty great just the way it is.

 

 

 

I also don't want to miss posting the Kilroy shot of Ruth's lovely Blitzen Jelly Roll quilt.

 

 

Aside from cramming in lots of summer activities, I've been trying to finish up a few things.  First, I got the binding finished on the checkerboard.  You can see I took the safe route when digging through Jan's stash but I think it is the right choice for this one.  I didn't take the time to crop the rest of the pics, as you will see.  Maybe next time.



 

 

Next, I finished the two I Spy's for our friends who adopted twin 4 year old boys from Bulgaria. I'm hoping they can use these for bonding and a little vocabulary.

 

 

After sending the Bernina to the spa, I needed a piecing fix so I started working on my Wildwood challenge. I decided I'd save time by using some leftover squares from the Subway quilt, not thinking that this would make the triangles 1 inch finished size.  Let's just say that my piece will be much closer to the minimum than the maximum dimensions.

 



We're on hiatus for August and it looks like our September get together will be 9/21.  I believe that we decided to discuss a Mary Ellen Hopkins challenge in more detail at that meeting.

 

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer!

July meeting

We were missing a few people today but that didn't stop us from having a fun filled productive day. None of us brought our machines though Lori had one set up to use.

Here is the front and back of Diane's Stack and Whack quilt. She started it at one of our meetings a few months back and has brought it along to the meetings since then to show the progress and for advice; someone is always willing to give advice.


At first glance Kathy thought the safety pins were bling but a second look told her that the quilt is layered and pinned and ready to quilt. There was some discussion about how to quilt it. Diane always does a wonderful job of quilting on her domestic machine and I am eager to see this one when it is finished.

Lori has been the "keeper of scraps" for all of the scraps and leftovers we brought to put in a communal scrap pool. She had sorted out some of Diane's left over pieces and parts that she thought could be put together for a group project.

 She started putting them up on her portable design wall and then Diane jumped in and started rearranging and everyone added their 2 cents some advice. Pieces were eliminated and others were rearranged and everyone agreed that those 4 pieces in the center should be sewed together and then we would go from there. Diane did the sewing on Lori's machine and all the points came together nicely. Those pieces were from Mary Ellen Hopkins' "Hidden Wells" pattern. We will work on this again another time.

Here we have Gwen, Maryann, and Suzie layering up Maryann's  Bullwinkle quilt for her husband, detail on the right. Maryann brought the c pieces the fabric pieces cut and ready to sew to the Friendship group the Friendship ladies put the 4 patch block together.  Maryann always makes it easy for us by giving us the fabric  all cut and ready to sew for her blocks.

 This is a baby  quilt that Gwen has ready to layer up. It is from a kit her guild put together and will be given to "Project Linus".

Sisters Maryann and Suzie are looking through the Mary Ellen Hopkins books and notebooks from the MEH Neighborhood Seminars that Kathy brought. Two local quilt shops used to sponsor the seminars in our area and several of the Divas attended all or most of them. I only attended one of the lectures and what fun that was.





 Suzie brought her "made fabric" piece (on the left) that she is going to cut up for positive and negative Churn Dash blocks. On the right are 4 paper pieced sections from her UFO that she committed to finish.





We won't be meeting in August but we will be seeing one another at other happenings before September. I am sure we will be talking about what we are going to do next. Maybe some people will even post some pictures here about what they are working on.

A different sort of Diva meeting

The day shone bright and after the weather that hit the area during Friday night/Sat early morning that was amazing. Judy and Jan were at the Willoughby Art Fair. Lynn, was in Cape Cod. I was in a daze after no sleep due to a flooding basement. Lori was working on her own birthday cake to take to a belated celebration in Pittsburgh tomorrow as well as a fantastic Star Wars sleeping bag for Brady to take on the trip. Fran had destroyed her back hauling sewing machines in for repair. Maryann, Sue and Ruth seemed pretty good.
There was quilt layering going on. Lori started a piece using stuff from Dianne's pieces parts. Between useless comments from the peanut gallery a nice piece was started. I  believe this will be another charity quilt. It is fascinating to watch the creative process and the problem solving. We should rent ourselves out.
In honor of the passing of one of our great mentors, Mary Ellen Hopkins we looked thorough her books and had lot of laughs about the workshops we had attended. Lori had her MEH t shirt on and we compared dates of our signed books. And there was some Chardonnay at lunch.
Lunch was fantastic. A perfect balance of dishes.
No real thought on what to do in Sept when we meet again but most of us see each other at other gatherings.
Give it some thought, Divas. And keep your powder dry.
Lori and Ruth took pictures that I expect will be posted at some point.

Diva's at Quilt Camp

This past week Diva's Kathy, Lori, Judy and honorary Diva Margie, and myself helped out at Quilt Camp for young people at my church.  The 9 camp participants were from 6th grade through college age. and with the Divas we were able to work almost one on one. That made a big difference in how smoothly the work progressed.

These 5 quilts are ones that were made by the girls who were assigned to the Divas.  Each participant was assigned to one adult as their primary teacher but actually everyone worked with anyone who needed help at any given time.


Kathy and Margie helped the girls who made these top 2 quilts. The one on the left chose the four patch option instead of focus fabric; on the right is the original pattern without any changes.  Both of these are going to be quilted by long arm quilters. These quilts on the bottom row are all different in some way. On the right Joanna chose one frame fabric; that and her dark background and raw edge applique give a completely different look to her quilt. The center quilt has an extra fabric as a background fabric and she raw edge appliqued ribbons in her focus squares, one of her frame fabrics blends with the background and though her quilt followed the pattern it also has a different look. The one on the bottom right is her own layout of the blocks that were all made according to the pattern. We are able to do some individual customizing this year because we had extra help.





Lori, Judy, Kathy and Margie demonstrated "made fabric" squares and got everyone started piecing on phone book paper foundation squares. It was a big hit and the squares will be used in a quilt that will be auctioned in the spring to benefit the youth group missions program at the church.
One of the girls said her mom wants to learn  how to make "made fabric" squares she is going to show her how. How great is that!






Below are quilts that the Divas brought for show and tell to give examples of the things that can be done that are different from the easy quilts that we use for beginning quilters. These quilts generated a lot of interest and many questions.




























Finally here is our group photo, though we are missing 3 teachers who had other commitments on Friday and one participant one participant who was sick. Our photographer Kim will patch in those people for the group photo which everyone will receive.

I was excited to hear

everyone talking

about "next year".

Kind of a roundup

Hi,

We were down a couple of Divas today. Ruth had her dreaded vertigo, Laura busy with taking care of someone. Gwen had to leave before lunch and Jan and I were late enough to worry people.

Everyone seemed industrious. Sue and Fran were working on their "commited
project, Mary Anne was working on something wonderful for Cottonpickers,Diane was binding away and there was a good bit of made fabric going on.

Gwen had the top of the Wildwood raffle quilt done and that will be passed on to Laura to quilt.

 Dianne made a lovely gift bag with the gift cards we got for Lori and Mike. There was also new fabric in it. And a bag of Pez for Brady.  I am pretty certain that am the only one in the group that stinks at presentation. I am always amazed and delighted to see what everyone does.  I am more the one piece of tissue and one piece of tape sort of wrapper.

 Lunch was beautiful. So many strawberries and lovely salads. And wine.

  The Diva's allowed Judy, Jan, Lori and myself to kick around our presentation for Wildwood in August. Divas will bring pieces for our show and tell. The subject is collaborative quilting. We will try to inspire every one to have their own group. It won't be the same as ours but it could still be good.

 We talked about thinking about ideas for challenges in the future but right now we are happy with fabric making and working on our "committed to finish" projects. We could get away with this sort of loose outline because Ruth wasn't there cracking the whip. We love you Ruth!

I will go and see if anyone got pictures on the blog.

Take care.

k

June photos

Kathy sent a great recap and I'm here to add in some photos.  I tried to fill Ruth's documentation shoes, although I missed getting a shot of Fran's project and Kathy's charity quilt made from Dianne's castoffs.  Ruth and Laura were missed but, rest assured, we talked about you.

Gwen had a picnic to go to but she found time to stop by and show us the Wildwood raffle quilt top that she'd put together.  It was no small task, I am sure.  At first, we thought maybe the light shining through would be distracting but everyone agreed that the stained glass look gave the quilt a special look. It is a beauty.

Judy was inspired at our last meeting to make made fabric triangles which she turned into this improve top.  She also found some lovely quilt back fabric in the communal pile.  Way to get in the spirit of things, Judy!




Susie was working on her UFO.  I didn't see the whole pattern but there were some beautiful paper pieced units.

Lynn enjoyed digging through the communal pile too and she was hard at work on her own made fabric units.

Mary Ann has several projects looming over her head and she chose to work on a shop sample.  It used a lovely grouping of batiks and a specialty curved ruler.  I read the pattern maker's blog and I was even more intrigued after hearing Mary Ann's positive review of the pattern and ruler. 

Here's a shot of some of the blocks and the pattern.

Syd was also working on made fabric blocks and it looks like a fast moving 5 year old is about to move in on them. Chalk it up to my bad photography and nonexistent editing.

Ms. D was hard at work on the binding for the blue and white tessellated pinwheel fundraiser quilt.

I didn't do any sewing or cutting but I showed two Wildwood charity quilts that I made with Dianne's castoff 2.5" squares.  Somehow I'd managed to pull red, white and  blue donated fabric and Dianne happened to have a large pile of the same colorway of squares.  I think I started with the skyline fabric that I thought no one would ever rescue from the pile.  Both quilts are pin-basted so they don't hang so well for these pics. 

 

Lunch was fabulous, as usual.  The meal ended with a presentation of the unexpected and most generous gifts to my family.  My fellow divas didn't need to reward us but it was a lovely surprise.  Brady used his Pez to make it all the way through fireworks at the Indians game later that night.  I will put the fabric to good use and the gift cards will likely finance Sherman's new fence.  Thank you all for the thoughtful surprise.  Until next time ...