Bonnie Hunter Workshop Report

I'm now back home from the fun of a Bonnie Hunter workshop. Bonnie was at my old guild in Lexington, VA - the Rockbridge Pieceworkers Quilt Guild. I drove from south of Atlanta to my mom's house in east TN Thursday, then on into Lexington Friday morning. Met with our realtor, since we still own a house there, then met Bonnie and some of the officers of our guild, and Erin, for dinner. Great conversation flowed and it was soon time to leave to get to the Virginia Horse Center where we were meeting for the evening. After a brief business meeting we had Show and Tell. Erin and I both brought a quilt we'd made using one of Bonnie's patterns. Erin brought her Scrappy Mountain Majesties that she made for her mom. This was the quilt that introduced her to Bonnie a few years back.  (I felt honored to get to sleep under this quilt at Erin's house later that evening!) I brought my Orange Crush top - finished as of the day before I left for the trip. Bonnie presented a great trunk show, showing many of the quilts from her books. It was so cool to be able to see them up close and actually touch them. When Bonnie asked for volunteers to fold the quilts after she showed each one Erin and I jumped up - we're too short to hold up big quilts, but we can certainly fold!!

Erin was gracious enough to let me spend the night at her house, and I felt honored to be sleeping in her younger son's bed with her mom's quilt covering me. Thanks Donald for the loan of your bed!

Bonnie's workshop - Scrappy Mountain Majesties - was such fun. Everyone brought different fabrics and it looked like everyone made real progress. Bonnie posted on her blog about our workshop - http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/02/bit-of-lexington.html and here http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/02/scrappy-mountains-in-blue-ridge.html Here are Erin and I in front of Bonnie's large Scrappy Mountain Majesties

I think the one thing that stuck with me the most was Bonnie's idea of what constitutes "neutral."  She goes by the background of the fabric, so even if there is a lot of colors on the fabric, if the background is white or pale then she counts it as a neutral. Others may have this idea as well, but I will remember it as hers.

As a result of her idea, I have decided to add more of her version of neutrals to my fabrics for my Christmas version. Here is what I have done so far.   and a closer up look at it I'm not sure that I will stick with this design, and I'm sure I will spread out the darks more as I get more done. This is one of the fabrics that I think I should have made be with the print as the light and a dark as the dark. It is a fabric I got from Erin so I'm not sure if I can get more or not.  Here are some others that I have pulled from my stash that are Christmas-y but that I had previously thought would be too light to use. It's hard to tell how they are going to look until you sew. slice and sew again. I may have several to go on the back of this quilt!! Here's some of the "new" neutrals I'm thinking of adding, along with some of the darks that I haven't used already. These will certainly give it a different look. I'll have to use a good many of them interspersed with the lighter lights. More to come on this project I'm sure.

 Before I continue on this project, or any other, I need to make 3 blocks for the ALA Biblioquilters group. One of the quilts we are making to donate to the American Library Associations silent auction at their annual conference this summer is a wonky log cabin done in pinks, browns, teals and greens. I had to buy some fat quarters for that - couldn't go shopping in my stash for any of it. We made one of the quilts using this tutorial last year, except each of the blocks was monochromatic, so some were blues, some were greens, some were yellows, etc. And the blocks are different sizes - 4.5", 6.5", 8.5" and 12.5". I have volunteered to make one each of the three smaller sizes. More later on the Wonky Log Cabin.

Long Time Since I've Posted

I doubt anyone is even checking my blog these days because it has been so long since I posted anything. I have been doing some quilting, but I'll have to admit much of my time between November and February was been spent online house-hunting. My husband announced his retirement in January. He is a librarian at Washington and Lee University and will be retiring at the end of June. This has been in the works for awhile, though pretty much in secret. We plan to move to McDonough, GA, where one of our daughters and her family live. That means we will also be much closer to my daughter and her family in Marietta, GA, and to my son and his family in Athens, GA. We were in GA for Thanksgiving and Christmas and looked at houses both trips. After Christmas we even went with a real estate agent to see 9 different houses. We were back there in February, looked at about 9 more houses, and a few days later made an offer on our favorite one that we looked at for the first time in December. The owners accepted our first offer, and we closed on the house April 30. We've already moved some stuff in, and will be taking more there in a couple of weeks, and will officially move in June 26. Exciting times, and sad too, because we are moving from a town we've lived in, except for 2 years, since 1983.

Quilting-wise, I have finished the hand-quilting on Reilly's quilt and gave it to her in February. Here I am marking some of the designs I handquilted on it. Here you can see some of the hand quilting and here is a close-up of one of the corners of it. and Miss Reilly in her crib on her new quilt.

My Christmas projects included another tablerunner, so I was able to give each of our 3 GA kids a tablerunner. Then I made 8 napkins to go with each of the 3 tablerunners. Here is the latest runner and napkins - I also made bags with ties attached for each of the grandkids for Christmas. The boys' bags with drawstrings are in the front, and the 3 girls' ones are in the back with ribbons that can be tied into bows stitched to the bags.

For Easter I made each of them an Easter basket, similar to the ones I made for our girls when they were little, probably 25 years or so ago. This one is Reilly's and this one is for Atticus. Here are Reba, Jack and Lillian with their baskets. Reba's is the same fabric as Reilly's, but purple, Jack's is the same fabric as Atticus' but green and yellow, and Lillian's is a red print. Reba stuffed hers full with more eggs.

One of our recent guild workshops was called "Nickelmania" - here is the beginning of my version of that idea. I doubt that it will be any more finished by the time I move, but I will have a room just for quilting in my new house so hope to get back into serious quilting then.

For 3 years now I have contributed a few blocks to the quilts that a group of library-related quilters make to be raffled or auctioned at the American Library Association meeting. Here are the blocks for this year's quilts. This one is Carol Doak's Connecticut Star, and these are 3 Wonky Log Cabin blocks. You can see that these quilts will be quite different! The third quilt for the raffle is a bookcase - a pattern that I definitely want to do sometime.

My main goal quilt-wise before I leave here is to finish my second comfort quilt. It was started in July of last year when we had a workshop to get some more started. This is the front and the back of it. Just need to pin-baste it and quilt it. I will be doing it on my machine - probably just some diagonal lines in each section. VesuviusMama will recognize some of the backing fabrics! And she will be surprised that I have actually posted on my blog after all this time.

Allie's "Going Around in Circles Again," the Final ALA Biblioquilters Block and Progress on the Simplified Log Cabin

Allie has now finished her "Going Around in Circles Again" quilt and it is probably on its way to the recipients. This photo shows her quilting really well. I don't see how she does all those lines so evenly spaced, even with using the walking foot, on her domestic sewing machine!
Here is another picture showing the quilting up closer and closer still I wish I could see the quilt in person, but she made it for the niece of the family that she works for, and it is probably on the way to her and her new hubby now.

I finished the last of the 5 ALA Bilbioquilter blocks a couple of days ago. I like the design, and I like the look of stars, but I don't think I can do them very well. I can add the flying geese pieces on the sides OK, but sewing the blocks together so that my seams don't eat the points is frequently a problem. I always have to sew at least one seam again to get it better. If anyone has suggestions for that problem I'm all ears!
I've also been working on the Simplified Log Cabin and now have 9 rows pieced It is 11 blocks wide; I'm thinking I will make it 13-14 blocks long and hope to be working on it some more today. I love the fact that the border is a part of the piecing, so when I'm thru it is ready to sandwich. I' m thinking I will use a batik for the back - maybe see what I can find in a wide piece so that I don't have to piece it. I think I want to learn how to use a Handi-quilter at some shop where I can then rent time on the machine to do some quilting myself. There is a shop about an hour from here that does that, but you have to buy a set of leaders. There also at least 2 shops in the Atlanta area that have Handi-quilters so I might be able to work in a day or two of lessons and practice with an extended trip to see kids and grands there.

Cabin Branch and Stone House Quilters 2009 Show

Today we took a roadtrip to Northern Virginia - DH attended a sports card show in Chantilly and he dropped me at the Cabin Branch and Stone House Quilters Show in Manassas. This is only the 2nd quilt show I have attended that had vendors. It was not nearly as big as the Hampton Show, which I have only heard about, but certainly bigger than my guild's show. I took pictures of some of the 225+ quilts and loaded them into an album on my Webshots page. This was one of my favorites The woman who made this quilt was there as one of the "white glove" ladies, so I was able to hear about the making of this quilt - and it made entirely from batiks, which I love to use. Check out my Webshots album to see more of my favorites. I also took pictures of most of the labels, so if you are particularly interested in some of them let me know and I can maybe tell you more about them.

Two of the things that I was specifically looking for there was some fabric sheets for the printer and some Civil War era reproductions for the final ALA Biblioquilters block. I was able to find all of those things, plus some fat quarters, patterns, books and 1/2 yd cuts that just jumped into my hands! I was there from 11:00 - 4:30, so it was a long day of walking and standing, but also quite an inspirational day!

Blocks for ALA Quilts

One of the online quilting groups I belong to is the ALABiblioquilters. We are all librarians and library-related folks. For the past several years this group has been making 2 or 3 quilts to be auctioned at the annual ALA meeting held each summer. The proceeds of the silent auction go to ALA's scholarship fund. I just heard about the group and joined last year, and contributed blocks for 2 of the quilts last year - shown here. This year I volunteered to make 2 blocks for "Chicago BLT" and 2 for "Star Struck"(a Bonnie Hunter gem) For "Chicago BLT" (Chicago because it is the home of ALA, and the site of this year's conference) the organizer sent us the brown and red fabrics and we are to supply the yellow and green. For "Star Struck" the organizer sent us the more solid red, which we could use for some or all of our sections, and were are to supply the black and white prints. For this one we are to send the 8 quarters back to her and she will arrange them. I have lots of black/white prints left from Lillian's quilt and would love to do a bigger one of these. As usual, Bonnie has come up with a great quilt pattern! I have one block to make for the 3rd quilt, then I'll mail them all off to the "Quilt Mamas." It is a version of a 4 patch with 2 parts being smaller 4 patches and the other 2 being stars. I still need to select my fabrics to go with what was sent to me for this one.

The other two blocks for an ALA quilt

Here are the other two blocks that I recently made for a different quilt for the ALA BiblioQuilters. This quilt will have all purple and green Log Cabin blocks, and I volunteered to make one of each. It will also be part of the Silent Auction that will be held at the American Library Association meeting this summer in Anaheim. The center block will be the same in all of them, and the organizer also sent one purple and one green fabric, along with one beige that we could use if we wanted to. I used her purple and green ones on the longest outside positions, and the beige is in the top center of the purple one. I had not made a Log Cabin block in a long time but liked doing these and now want to do some more for myself!

Sterling Touch Quilt Blocks

Recently I joined the ALABiblioQuilters Yahoo Group - a small group of librarians and library-related folks who make quilts to be in the silent auction at the annual American Library Association conference. Since I attend this conference most years with my husband I offered to help make some of the quilts. This year they are making three, and I am helping with two of them. I have finished the two blocks for the first one - "Sterling Touch." This pattern was in Quiltmaker last year. The organizer of this quilt sent me 3 pieces of material - I needed to use at least one in each of the blocks. The rest of the fabrics were to come from my stash. In this one the fabric of hers that I used was the tan with burgundy brush strokes in the small triangles on the outer edge. This is the bottom center block. The second one that I made was the left center one. The fabric that she sent that I used in this one was the burgundy oak leaf design in the center. The organizer of this quilt converted the patterns that were in the magazine to paper-pieced designs. It took me a pretty long time, and a special trip to a quilt shop 45 minutes away from here, to come up with fabrics that I hope she will approve of!

The other quilt I am helping with is a log cabin design - I have one of them partially finished and have selected the fabrics for the other one, and hope to finish them both today. No quilting since Friday night -- we spent the weekend painting our hallway. We finished just in time for me to watch the last few laps of the Daytona 500! None of my favorite drivers finished in the top three but it was an exciting finish!