A few photos of march meeting

The Basement Divas were not all there at the March meeting, or maybe I should state that a little differently. All of the Basement Divas were not present yesterday but those of us who who gathered were busy and had the usual good time and great lunch. I got a few photos early before I started hand sewing the binding on a quilt I am finishing and later I got a few more but by then much of what everyone had been working on had been packed up and ready to go. 

Maryann and Suzie had taken a class at Lake Farmpark during the quilt show and here they are discussing the pattern. Maryann is showing the paper pieced blocks she made. I tried to get her to display them on her chest as we are sometimes prone to do when we are discussing our quilt blocks but  this was the closest she would come to doing that.

Kathy is posing with her little bitty paper pieced fan blocks that she had started at a retreat with Mary Huey mentioned in an earlier post the she and  Diane and Jan attended.

 

Diane was working on a large double bed quilt in these beautiful colors. She had an impressive pile of squares cut in an equally impressive variety of fabrics. The black and white print throughout is the perfect fabric  to tie it all together, although the fabrics work together so well anyway.

Fran is holding up a set of square oven mitts and a hot pad that I (Ruth) made for her as a thank you for the bottle of Bubble Jet set she gave me last month. I had fun making these this past week while I pondered how I wanted to quilt my black and white piece.
Gwen and Suzie and someone else where playing with Brady's little transformers and were having a good time too. I only caught Gwen here with the toys.

 

Everyone was working on something but I missed getting photos of most of it.
Fran is working on a Bonnie Hunter pattern Bricks and Cobblestones which several of us have made. and Lori is working an a row quilt that I somehow missed.  Gwen layered up her challenge piece and two other small quilts and Jan was working on something as well. I don't hold out much hope of anyone posting photos from this month as most of the Divas seems to be bashful about posting. If you knew us you would never assign the term bashful to any of us but there you have it.

Our show and tell ended with Lori showing us her recently acquired Melody Johnson art piece. It is really beautiful and no photo can do justice to seeing it in person. She auditioned it in several places in the basement and received a lot of input from the Divas. She wants to hang in where it can be seen by everyone entering the downstairs area.

March meeting

I took no photos at this month's meeting.  I was too busy.  The whole group was very industrious today, as a matter of fact.  We still found time to be social, though.  Ruth did a demo of her QAYG process (thanks for the refresher, Ruth!).  Show and tell was quick but highlighted the volume of  work in progress.  I didn't have any show and tell of my own but was really excited to reveal that I am the lucky owner of this piece by Melody Johnson:  Split Circles.  What a privilege.  Its luminosity is stunning.

 

Lunch was amazing.  As Mary Ann pointed out, last month was great too but the carbs were at coma-inducing levels.  The kids' table was entertained by this guy.  Don't you love his "who me?" expression as he raids seed from the birdfeeder?  What part of "bird" does he not understand?

 

Thanks for a great meeting today!  Next month's meeting is on Saturday, 4/20. We are still planning to do a black and white plus one color themed lunch and our challenge pieces are due, also.  Hope to see you then! 

On the road

A kind of a first for three of us. A retreat at the start of the week. Mary Huey invited the alums of her Hexagon and Friends seminar to come back for a brush up or just to sew. So, Dianne, Kathy and Jan were off and running. Jan worked on her challenge and hexagons. Dianne worked on Stack and Whack hexes and cut another entire, not hex, quilt to use as sew offs. Kathy,(that would be me) worked mini foundation piecing. We listened to the lectures and learned new things and were often quite helpful. If someone needed it we had it, graph paper? Sure. Hand sewing needles? Of course. Purple fabric: What shade?Opinions? You bet your a%$%.
I do think the reveal of these projects will be saved until April.
We missed those Divas not there but we talked about all of you. In only the most glowing terms.
Our good friend from QDP and years and years, Caryn was with us too. She made some fantastic 60 degree pieces.
See you all soon.

February Diva meeting

I am late in posting about our last meeting because I wanted to give someone else an opportunity to post some photos before I jumped in and took over (in my enthusiasm, I have an tendency to do that). It looks like everyone was busy this week.

Below, on the left, is Suzie with her 2012 Jellyroll Race quilt. The one on  the right was quilted by Kathy;  it had been  pieced by her good friends mother.

 

Here we have the front and back of Diane's large blue and white

quilt. She made this for an auction at her church, as she does every year. Diva Laura did the all over quilting design on her long arm.

Gwen finished her batik Jellyroll Race quilt for this year. she said she took out some of the very light strips and  added some from her own stash. I think she said she did  a little bit of revising also.

 

There were several more quilts that people brought for show and tell.  There was a lot of work  going on too. I walked around looking at what everyone was doing but left my camera sitting somewhere and missed it all. I keep hoping someone else will post pics too. Yep, that is another hint (in case you missed the first one).

I was the recipient of a finished quilt and a flimsy. Both Gwen and Suzie were the lucky winners of packs of orphan or leftover blocks that I donated as  prizes for this years race. Gwen offered to take the flimsy home to finish and I was going to take her up on it but I felt guilty letting her take the time to quilt it so I will finish it.   

 

I don't think I got a shot of these last month. Lori made batik patches for all the participants when as we finished we signed everyone's patch. What a nice idea.

I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to make valentines for everyone that wouldn't take me forever to do. I was running short on time because it took me forever to figure out how I was gong to cut all  the heart motifs from my Spoonflower fabric. I did a "not so hot" job of spacing the hearts in the layout I sent and I didn't leave enough space to cut squares of everything. I looked at Lori's race patch and the light bulb went on. I went out and got a new pinking blade and went to work. I quilted over most of the lines in the heart so I only got a few valentines made after all. instead of valentines I cut the hearts apart and gave everyone a heart. Everyone was