I HAVE been quilting during the last 2 months, just not blogging about it. I finished the "Simplified Log Cabin" a few weeks back and last week I went to GA to see our kids and grands and also to take a class in using the Handiquilter at A Scarlet Thread in McDonough. After taking the class I rented time on the machine for the rest of that day and most of the next day. During that time I was able to get a comfort quilt done that I started 2 years ago - 
as well as my "Simplified Log Cabin" 
and the "BargelloBowl" that I pieced on Super Bowl Sunday 2008 (a Bonnie Hunter project) 
These last 2 will stay at our house - I am hoping to get them bound and labelled in time to put them in the quilt show our guild has in July. I learned a lot from Kathy, the Handiquilter teacher at A Scarlet Thread, and had fun using the machine. Thanks so much to Wendy for helping me out when I had little boo-boos! I am not planning to buy one anytime soon as I have no room for it, but it sure does allow this hand-quilter to get some tops done more quickly!Our guild had a retreat 2 weeks ago. It was held at the Virginia Horse Center in town, but it still felt like a get-away with 20+ quilting friends. Friday we had a class taught by Augusta Cole about making what she called Batik Beauty. We made 9-patch blocks to look like half-square triangles and saw various ways to assemble them. I have 9 blocks made so far and am thinking that I will put them together like this - 
The picture of the red and white quilt is in Karen Combs' Combing Through Your Scraps - called Star Puzzle. I took a class from Karen Combs thru Quilt University 4 years ago when I first got back into quilting - it was called Combing Through Your Scraps, but at that time I didn't realize she had a book by that name. I never finished that quilt, but I did learn a lot from her. We all enjoyed Augusta's class, as well as her lecture on tips the following morning, and hope she will come back for a guild meeting next year. One of the most helpful things she showed us was how to use Eleanor Burns' Triangle Square Up Ruler - a great ruler for squaring up HST's! And most of us bought one from her too!Saturday afternoon at our retreat one of our members showed us how to make a folded log cabin square using iron-on templates from Foldy Stuff. Here are the two I have done so far - 
It is fun to do, and goes pretty fast once you have your strips cut. Of course it took me longer than most of the others because I was trying to use different fabrics in each block, or at least putting the fabrics in different places - typical of the way I seem to do things -- making them more difficult than is wise! A few of my quilting friends were surprised that I was using colors that were not blue and yellow, but I have lots of black/white and white/black fabrics left from the quilt I made for Lillian.I am the program co-chair for the guild for the next two years. We are planning a challenge for our ladies that will begin in June. I don't want to give anything away in case some of them are reading this - but here is a picture of the pieces of a block that is involved in the challenge - 
More to follow in mid-June!
I have been working the last few days on several different projects. One is my first string quilt. I have suggested this as the next project for the Senior Center quilters, so I am working on an example. No surprise - mine is yellows and blues with a few teals and golds thrown in. 
My guild had a work day Saturday where most of us worked on string quilt blocks that were more scrappy than this, but like mine they did have the same color thru the center of each block. I only have enough of the dark blue fabric to make 3 more 4-block units, then I will use a different fabric or 2 and mix them up, but I do plan to have all blues in the corners so that the centers of the big diamonds will be blue. The blocks could certainly be different sizes, but I am squaring mine up to 10". I am trying to make my stripes varying widths so I don't have anything to match up except the center dark blue stripes.
I've been working on a secret quilted wall hanging over the last week - not ready to show it, but here is a fabric basket I made yesterday to go with it. 
I'd been seeing these on Vera's blog and thought they were really cute, so I went to Pink Penguin and printed the directions. I'm sure I will be making more of these! It is about 4" x 6" and 4" tall, not counting the handles. Thank you Vera for posting your pictures!
Recently Carol Doak started a new BOM on her Yahoo Group - here is my October one. 
Each block will be a 7" square. I already have plans for whipping up another one with a different kind of tree and a creek instead of a road. She has already given us the November one, but I am not looking at it, or the pictures that others have already posted, until Nov 1.Friday I used a friend's long-arm machine to quilt the Senior Center's first Turning Twenty quilt. I had practiced on it a couple of times and selected the stars and loops pantograph to do on this quilt. I got there about 1:00, chatted for awhile and then we began loading the quilt. When I got down to the actual quilting it took about 15 minutes to do a pass across the quilt, then about 10 minutes to reposition, etc. We were taking it off the machine by 8:30, and we had taken several breaks. It is just my first attempt, but not too bad. I thought this pantograph allowed a bit of freedom about exactly where you put the loops, as long as they don't run into the stars! 
Here is the back of the same quilt 
A couple of days ago a quilting friend of mine let me come practice some on her Gammill. I used some of the pantographs she has and also did a little free-motion quilting. I have several quilts in progress that I would like to try quilting on her machine, but we are wondering how to best do that when she also has quilts to do for a few customers as well as for herself, and she has another friend who also uses her machine some. We are looking into the Quick Zip System as a way to easily change out quilts that we are working on since we don't think any of us would necessarily be able to finish one in a single segment of time. Does anyone out there have experience, good or bad, with this system? Here are 2 links to a description of the system - KM Quilting Supply and Quilting Connection. Sounds like she would need to have a machine set and then each of the users would need a quilting set.
