April group meeting

My quilt group is always inspiring and show and tell is the best part. Here are the show and tells from today's meeting and our project.

 My show and tell

  Make-up brush holder

 Wall hanging

 embroidered pillowcase

 Two baby quilt tops by Diane. The pattern is a very easy free tutorial called Road Trip, by Cluck Cluck Sew. These quilts are going to Humanitarian Services.

 Apron

 Nancy's scrap quilt called Mumbo Gumbo

 Plaid quilt

  This purse is made from recycled baby car seat belts by people in that area. The ribbon and flower are interchangeable.

Quilt made with one layer cake

 Susan won this nest and the large owl in an auction. She then made the 2 additional owls.

 Door prizes

 Our take home project for the day. Susan taught us how to make the robin from a book called Countryside Softies. They are made from wool scraps. There are lots of very cute and very easy animals to make. It was a fun book to look through and now that I've made the robin, the others look very do-able.

Finally

I finally finished a few tops I've had sitting around for a little bit. This one is one of my favorites. It was easy to do and fairly easy to machine quilt using my friend's long arm. It's raw edge appliqué on a solid white background. I've done a couple similar to this but with square shaped appliqués. I love the shapes of these. After I machine quilted it, I washed it to rough up the edges a bit. I'll probably wash it a couple more times to age it just right. This is one of those quilts I love looking at every day on my couch.

Group meeting

Here's all the show and tell and info from my group's meeting yesterday. It's always inspiring and motivating!

 A completed donation square top. This quilt was sewn together by Diane Spackman with the help of her friend Michiko Hardy. Sewing these together with another is enjoyable~one can sew, one can pin. This top will be tied and donated.

 Diane's cathedral windows and a link included for an easy tutorial.

 Diane won this pin cushion online, but what she likes most is the cute jar.

 Kelley, from Alaska and visiting with us for the first time shows us her round robin quilt from her Alaskan quilt group. Each quilter added a new border.

 Rachel's fabric flowers

 Rachel's quilt

 Close up of wool flower

 Rachel's quilt

 Nancy's quilt

 Lenette's quilt

 Back

 Lenette's hand crocheted pillowcases

 Jeri's wool table topper

 Kelley's quilt

 Kelley's quilt

 Kelley's heart quilt

Close up. Notice that the heart is visible because of the quilting design, not the piecing.

 Monica's aprons she made for the help at her daughter's wedding. The flower is detachable with a snap.

 Lori's wool table topper

 Lori's table runner

 Lori's star quilt

 Back of star quilt, hand embroidered title

 Lori's felted wool ball. She uses it in the dryer to speed the drying process and as a toy.

 Our project for the day, a pattern by Rachel and Lori from their newly formed company called The Cackling Hens.

We exchanged wool squares so we can make this table topper. Thank you for the pattern!

 Lori demonstrated the wool dying process. So easy! Here's the link to the full tutorial from an earlier post.

 For lunch we had hot soup, yummy artisan bread made using the 5-minute method in this book

Then we topped everything off with these beautiful Italian Cream Cupcakes made by Lori.

This recipe is found on the  website http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/