March 25th Meeting Report

 We met at Joyce's today and Betty had her We Are Canadian quilt completely finished.  She found some fabric from Canada's sesquicentennial with lines of little maple leaves for the border--a great way to finish off this quilt.  Speaking of maple leaves, does anyone know why the Toronto Maple Leafs are Leafs and not Leaves?  Is this just bad grammar?  

Betty also swapped out the rabbit's carrot for a hockey stick which was appropriate for a Canadian quilt.  

Sue and Adrienne both finished off the two pastel baby quilts, one made by Marybeth and one by Joyce.  They might both need labels and I should have a look through our stash of donation quilts because I think there might be a few more there that need labels.

Charlie was visiting again today and was hard at work keeping us entertained by squeezing into a box in order to provide us with photos ops.  Here is one of her sweet poses:

Betty, Colleen and Adrienne worked at arranging our Disappearing Nine Patch I Spy quilt blocks.  At first we decided to use sashings to calm down the busy-ness of all those I Spy fabrics but once Joyce and I started sewing the blocks together we all liked the result as is so went back to our original plan

Here is a picture of the blocks being added to the design wall that Betty rigged up.  Charlie made sure she had a spot right underneath it in case we needed some help. 

We decided against sashings on this one but on future Disappearing Nine Patch I Spy quilts we can consider making the blocks between the corner blocks in white to add a built in sashing.  That means fewer I Spy fabrics, of course which might not be so interesting to the child who receives the quilt.

The final snap is our finished top which we all thought looks great.  It always feels good to get a new quilt pieced because the next quilt is always the most exciting one.  That will probably be the X & Plus scrappy quilt that Nancy showed us recently.  Joyce originally sent us a photo of a finished quilt and we put it on our list to use up some of our growing collections of scraps.

Joyce will be busy for the month of April so we will have to come up with some other places to meet or we could have some Zoom meetings.  Adrienne will likely be available to host next week.  I put that on the next meeting page but please check back as that is not confirmed.

Goodbye for awhile

 I am going to have to be absent for awhile. I have started going to an Osteo For Life class at Bonsor. The classes take place at 12:30 on Tuesday and Thursday. I feel this is necessary at this time for my recovery. My physiotherapist has recommended that I attend. I will miss you all but I will miss fitness class occasionally in order to attend TAQ. I look forward to reading the blog so I can see what you are all doing. 

March 11 Meeting Report

 March has been a busy month for quilters.  I hope everyone was able to do something quilty last weekend, especially on March 15 when it was International Quilting Day.  I know many Tuesday Afternoon Quilters got to the PSQG Fleet Show, Little Quilts in Small Spaces.  

Our meeting on the 11th was a busy one, as usual.  We had a special visitor, Charlie the cat and she cooperated by posing for endless photos, some of which follow:

The I Spy workshop happened after coffee, lunch and Show and Tell but since the above pictures showed our work area I will mention that first.

March 11 was our second session at completing I Spy blocks for our first quilt and we now have all the blocks needed to complete one top.  They have all been pieced and squared off now so in our session on March 25 at Joyce's we should be able to lay out the top and get it pieced and ready for quilting.  We will be looking for volunteers to do the quilting and binding very soon.

We still have lots of I Spy blocks cut and sorted and I believe we decided that we would make a different pattern for our second I Spy.  We all liked the following two I Spy patterns which Nancy brought to show us so we will probably go with the Stacked Blocks one to use up all the blocks we have cut.  

Leng had lots of Show and Tell.  Here is some cross stitch she did when she was still hoping for a granddaughter.  

Leng made two and they could probably be incorporated into a quilt.

Leng also surprised us with a great little travel tote that converts to a back pack.

Here is a Youtube tutorial that is similar to Leng's

Here is another tutorial that Leng sent but she customized her bag to provide the storage that was useful to her.

This is a rag quilt that was made from a donation of flannelette squares already cut to size.  There were enough to make four of these quilts, two of which will be donated back to Heron's Nest for the toddlers in their program.  I made this one as a trial.  I used three layers of flannel without any batting.  It was quick and easy to make and the cutting wasn't too onerous or hard on my hands.  The other three bundles were taken by Nancy, Colleen and Sharon.  It's really great to be in a group with such hard workers!

We also had a large donation of flannelette in two different patterns that we can use for backing our baby and toddler quilts.

We were given approximately 10 meters and it is 60" wide so it will come in very useful.  They were donated to us by Debra DeGaust who makes knitted blankets for Project Linus.  They referred her to us when she was looking for a group that makes community quilts.

March 4th Meeting Report

 We were so busy working on Tuesday I forgot to take any pictures so this will be a very short report.

There was a large group present, all of us had busy hands since this was a working meeting.  Sue and Adrienne continued working on bindings on Marybeth's and Joyce's baby quilts.

Joyce had her dining room set up assembly line style.  Sharon and Leng ironed, Betty, Nancy and Colleen cut squares, Joyce pieced the blocks and I pinned the blocks together for stitching.

We produced 16 blocks and need 7 more nine patches which will yield the 26 blocks still needed to complete the top.  We are cutting enough blocks to make two of these quilts.  If you want to do some cutting before the meeting the I Spy blocks should measure 5.5" square.  We will save any duplicates for future quilts.

We recently received a stash donation from Adrienne Beaton at the Heron's Nest.  Most of the fabrics, notions and craft supplies will be donated to Bases but there were some precut flannelette squares that we will make 4 rag quilts with and at least two of those will be donated back to Heron's Nest per Adrienne's request.  I made one from beginning to end in just a couple of days.  It was very easy and a great quilt for a beginner because it is very forgiving of wonky cutting and stitching.  This was my first flannelette rag quilt and probably my last but, thankfully Sharon, Nancy and Colleen volunteered to make the remaining three.  I was quite fearful that the loose fibres and lint would clog up my washing machine but that wasn't a problem at all.

I also kept three pieces of flannel from the donation which we will use for quilt backings.  Yesterday Project Linus called me about another fabric donation of flannelette and fleece, mostly in prints suitable for babies.  It isn't a huge amount so I will pick it up on Thursday or Friday next week and save any flannelettes we can use and take the fleece fabrics to Bases with the other donations.  Please let me know if anyone is interested in looking at the fleece.

Please visit the Next Meeting page from the tabs at the top of this page to check out what we will be doing at our next meeting.

Should You Fix Your Piecing Mistakes?

 Here is a great little video which addresses this question.  Click on the box on the lower right of screen to watch full screen.