Bits & Pieces

 A few bits to catch you up on. 

First our Saguaro bloomed quite a bit this year. This is the third or fourth year it has bloomed and this year has the most blossoms. Photo is from May 15.

My Roadrunner ANG's April Program was Star Spangled Santa by Janet Zickler Casey. This is my progress as of April 30. 

I took a class on May 15 offered by my Quilting Bees Club and we made a tiny teddy bear! Arms & legs move too.

Happy Stitching and More!!

Quilting Bees 2025 Summer Retreat

 This past weekend I attended a very fun quilting retreat put on by my local Quilting Bees Club. 

This is my third retreat. The last two times I worked on Halloween and then Christmas placemats. I decided to do something different this round and used up extra Cake Recipe 2 sheets and 10"x10" fabric from when I made this quilt March 3, 2021.

When I used these sheets for my quilt, I made block 3. This past weekend I went for block 2 and used up the fabric and sheets = stash reduced, yippee.

I don't have the sheets anymore, but the idea is you place a 10" square print fabric on top of a 10" square solid, then you place the Cake Mix Recipe sheet on top. Pin together and sew on the dotted line in numerical order and cut on the solid lines. For this particular recipe, you end up with ten small half-square tringles and two larger ones. You use these to create the suggested blocks on the cover, or you can do your own thing. 

Here is what half of the grouping looks like when squared up and ironed. You end up with two sets from each print. I used the leftover fabric from when I made my quilt, which is Moda Layer Cake Farmhouse II. Those who know me will see a lot of variations of my favorite color - peach.

It is rather tedious - paper removal, squaring up, etc. But I worked on it during the retreat and a bit at home while watching baseball (Diamondbacks).

But, I did manage to finish 12 squares - below. I still have 12 sets to square up and 9 ready to sew into the blocks below. 

I am thinking of laying them out in this pattern, but I am waiting to get them all done and play with combinations before I sew them together. 

The retreat was fun and it puts me out of my comfort zone, I am much more comfortable with stitching and beading.

Day one everyone received a clear zipper bag (not shown) with colored zippers and the pretty fabric flower pin below, along with a post-it note holder with our initial embroidered on it.  I thought the pin looked good on my notions bag that my friend Sandra made me, I pinned it on it.

Also inside the clear zipper bag with colored zipper (mine was orange) were two cuts of fabric. We met in groups with matching zipper colors and changed out one of the fabrics in our bags and then used them to make pillow cases for charity. 

We each got our own 6' long table to work at and could leave our stuff in the room overnight. Here is an area of my set up with my scraps (orts) for the day in a cute bag I got at another retreat. 

That is about all for now!!

Quilting Bees In-house Retreat Day Three

As promised, here is a photo of the cutting table I mentioned in my post yesterday. It was specially made for the club. It is counter-height and 46" wide x 95" long. 

I worked on coasters to go with my Halloween placemats.

I also worked on this strip to put our mugs or glasses on the kitchen counter between uses.

One last photo of the cute service dog we enjoyed the company of these past three days. She was a very good girl, we hardly knew she was there.

I brought some other projects to work on, but I was not in the mood, so I picked out a charity quilt kit to make. It is a three yard quilt. When I get further along I will post about it. I can tell you it uses one yard each of three different fabrics. 

That's all for now!!!

Quilting Bees In-House Retreat Day Two

 As promised, here are the quilt tops for the placemats I made yesterday. Finished size is 13" x18".

I have never been to a quilt retreat, so have nothing to compare this one to, but I think it has been great! The setup - tables, ironing boards, and cutting tables are similar to how the room is set up on club days (Friday and Sunday). The retreat added Saturday and the food component. We had sandwiches, chips and dessert on Friday. A potluck today (a salad bar with chicken) and tomorrow we will have a breakfast casserole. Also various snacks all day. 

Here is my table set up we each have our own 6' long table. I did not spread out as much as some, but there is plenty of room.

 

Here are some better photos of the service dog under the table at my feet sometimes. So far the foot pedal of my machine has not moved and bumped her rump or paws yet. She has been a very good girl.

Today we were given kits to make heart blocks for a charity quilt, I made these.

When I was not making hearts, eating food, or visiting with others I made the Halloween version of the placemats I made yesterday. I did have backing fabric (ghosts on black) so I was able to get them all set to quilt. I think I will stitch in the ditch using some of my machine's decorative stitches. I will need to get some black fabric for binding. I can shop for that when I shop for fabric for my Christmas placemats - oh boy!!

I am really enjoying this. I have a bin full of projects I want to make and while my studio is great for my other hobbies, it is not set up as nicely for quilting like the quilting bees room which has large ironing and cutting surfaces. They have lots of rotary cutters and rulers which includes a big square ruler that is 20" x 20" which really made it easy for me to square up the placemats.  I will try to get a photo of the cutting board for tomorrow's post. I can work at home, but my motivation is less. I am seriously thinking of bringing my machine once or twice a month on Fridays, to try and get my sewing stash reduced.

That's all for today!

Quilting Bees In-House Retreat Day One

 Today was day one of a three day in-house retreat hosted by my local quilt club - Sun City Festival Quilting Bees. 

I was a lot of fun. Tables were set up for each person with a cute bag filled with chocolate and a pretty scissor case. Lunch was provided and two of us brought dessert. Tomorrow is a pot luck lunch and Sunday the board is providing lunch. There are also lots of snacks. We just had to bring our projects and beverage. 

I was lucky to have a table backed up to a lady with a service dog and so I stitched with a dog at my feet. Felt like home!

The hardest part so far had been deciding what project to bring. I decided on a placemat kit I bought last year. Actually I bought two, a Halloween one and a Christmas one. I worked on the Christmas one and got all five (not sure why the kit was for five) done. You cut fat quarters to a set size, stack them up and then cut them making 5 piles. Then you shuffle the piles so each placemat has one cut of each fabric, but they are not the same. I will take a photo of them to post tomorrow.

Here is the first one ready to sew. I did get all five done and had some help with squaring them up - thanks Jami.  I had to leave early today to take our dog to the vet, so finishing up early worked out. I had hoped to have some backing fabric at hope to finish them tomorrow, but I do not. So, I will start the Halloween placemats and I do have ghost fabric that should make a great backing. Hopefully this means I will come from the retreat with a finished project!

More tomorrow, retreat ends at four each day, so the post will be sometime after that.

What 2020 Meant to Me Display

My quilting club, SCF Quilting bees asked members to create a 9 1/2 inch square quilt block that represented what 2020 meant to us.  Twenty people created blocks and I was one of them. Each block was finished by a Quilting Bees person and then they were hung in our recreation center hallway.

My block is in the center of the bottom row - close up below.

Each block was held to each other with gold safety pins and the upper left pin had a bee bead on it while the upper right pin had 3 crystals in bee colors. The quilt came down last week and they gave us the pins!

My block is full of symbolism: 

• The center is my home with night and day sky in the corners
• The bandana heart represents my hubby since he likes to wear a cowboy hat
• I embroidered and finished a number of samplers
• I read 150 books
• I spent time with our dog
• I made by first lap size quilt
• There is a bit of a "rookie" error in the block, but I left it on since 2020 also meant going with the flow and not being overly critical

It was a lot of fun to make and very exciting to see it hung up in the rec. center! I don't get to Quilting Bees as much as I would like since they meet on Fridays and I have other commitments, but I try to go when I can and participate in some way.

Quilting 101 Update

 As I told you on June 9, I am taking a quilting class with my local quilt club, Quilting Bees. Later today will be the last class (class 4), so I thought I would share with you my progress.

Here are the results after 3 classes (actually I jumped a head a bit, teacher said we could) and I put all the pieces together which we could have waited to do at class 4. Class 4 includes next step decisions, so I wanted to get a much done before then as possible. It is about 24 inches square. 

Throughout we have learned how to cut fabric, best sewing practices, etc. 

Class1 was creating strips.

Class 2 was creating the four square blocks.

Class 3 was the center square in a square and Flying Geese.

Class 4 will be sewing it all together and deciding next steps. I may add a border and not much more. Some people may want to make more of the same and put them together to make a bigger quilt, etc. Lots of possible options to learn.

I think later in the year, maybe the fall we will get back together to create the sandwich and quilt it. This will give people time if they are making it larger with more blocks. Just another fun topic for class 4.

That's All Folks!

Quilting 101 - Day 1

My local quilt club, Sun City Festival Quilting Bees, is holding a 4 week class every Friday afternoon in June, called quilting 101. We  are learning (or re-learning) the basics. We will end up with a project that is about 24 inches square, but we can add to it and make it larger if we want. 

Here are my fabrics.

Day 1 we worked on squaring up our fabric and proper cutting. We made strips and four patch squares. Here is my result.

This Friday we will be working with half square triangles.

I can't wait!!

That is all for now!

Some Quilting Finished

I first told you about these quilts in progress on June 8, 2020. Now I can show you the finished pieces. 

I used Layer Cake pre-cuts from the Moda Fabrics Farmhouse II collection and solid white layer cake precuts (all 10" squares). I then used a Layer Cake Recipe 2 card to create the half square triangles and sewed them together to make T blocks.  I used Jelly Rolls from the same fabric collection, choosing predominantly green fabrics to make the binding.

This disappearing four patch star is based on month 4 of the Missouri Star Quilt Company's 2020 block of the month club. I am not a member, but stumbled across the you tube video about this block and decided to try it. It was fun! I was looking for a fun star block for my quilt club's quilt show challenge. The theme was seeing stars (I say was because due to covid-19 the quilt show was cancelled). 

If we wanted to participate in the challenge we paid $2 and received a surprise (a brown bad with a fat quarter in it), All the fabrics were different and all has stars. Mine is the gray fabric. The finished piece is about 17" square. 

Everyone who is in town, was given the opportunity to turn in our challenge pieces and there will be a  mini show for club members on Friday, March 5. The plan to do this again, so members not in town can participate. Sorry I do not seem to have a photo of the back.