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.