December recap

We had a great day catching up with our fellow Divas.  Here are a couple of candids to show all of the merriment.  We had fun experimenting with different beverage combinations, including Jan’s soon-to-be-patented basket of punch.  Her process is genius and tasty too.

 

Laura quilted Dianne’s pineapple quilt and brought it to the meeting.  The quilt and quilting are spectacular.

Kathy finished this Hello Kitty quilt for a friend.  Luckily, she warned me in advance that it wasn’t for me.  J

We had lots of great snacks and sweets in the morning and had a late lunch which was wonderful, as usual.  No holiday lunch would be complete without a themed creation from Judy.  These were as tasty as they look in the photo.  Brady had one after dinner and said it was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole life.  So there you go!

Thank you all for the fun and games today.  It is the highlight of the holidays for us.  For those of you who were not here, you were missed and talked about.  Happy Birthday, Ruth!  Get well soon, Fran!

We will skip January’s meeting because many of us will be in Amishland. 

 

Nice personality

Usually I can tell when I'm avoiding something because I find myself repotting plants.  Since I've killed all of my plants, my new avoidance task is cleaning my sewing room.  Recently, I had a couple of hours and went into the room with a ruthless mindset to really take action on some delayed decisions. 

First up is a charity top that I showed a short while ago.  I finally got it bound and will ship it soon.

The next few projects are doozies.  They each prove that I truly am resolved to finish all of my UFOs.  I am not tempted to give or throw away any of them, no matter how homely. Who knows if this is a fault or a virtue.  After all, you never know when you might need to change a tire. 

Here's a not so lovely primitive Moda panel.  I have NO idea where this came from or where it was intended to go.  Where could I possibly have bought this?  Certainly not Erie Street. Must have been a weak moment at Remembrances.  It was partially (poorly) free motion quilted with ye olde nylon thread, mostly bound, and wavy for a multitude of reasons.  I removed a lot of the nylon and requilted it with some functional and decorative stitches.  It also features an ill-conceived faux piping that is snipped at the intersections.  Odd and wonky---but it is stitched down now and not going anywhere, for better or worse.  On the back is a not so pretty 90s green almost calico.



The next piece was developed as a way to use up remnants of that fusible grid stuff that some folks used for water color quilts.  I was also trying to use up all of these leftover squares I had from a Lorraine Torrence workshop.  Those two reasons are not the best start for a successful quilt.  Many of the squares are on the bias (long story) and, combined with the fusible stuff, it is  kind of wavy.  It was quilted and mostly bound when I unearthed it.  The binding on this one and the fall piece is really strange.  It is about 1/4 inch on the front about 3/4 inch on the back.  Clearly, I had no idea what I was doing.  When Brady saw it finished, he loved it and asked if he can have it.  It's certainly not spoken for otherwise. 



Last up is my serendipity piece from Color from the Heart.  Like a dummy, I stuck to the rules (of course I did) and picked randomly from the bag--resulting from a not so charming set of squares. This was a top so I quilted and bound it.



I thought I'd also have my Marie's Scraps included in this post. It's been pin basted for a long time and all of the anchoring quilting was done.  After recently completing the fall row by row quilt with lots of continuous curves, I quilted the Marie's Scraps pretty quickly and easily.  I've been stumped for a couple of weeks on how to quilt the nine patches, though.  I finally decided to dig in the night we had the recent power outage. I got most of the first block done and didn't like it at all. As I paused to decide what to do, the power went out.  I decided that was an omen to take a pause and reconsider my plan.  The good news is that the binding is cut and I just need to finish the three strips of nine patches.  Maybe inspiration will strike soon.