Show & Tell January 18, 2014

Pat Pipa started this week off with her weekly inspirations of Fidget Quilts and a beautiful red and white churn dash block with pinwheel center square that she made using the disappearing pinwheel technique.  I absolutely love that fun sewing, starts off very easy, a little creative fun, and before you know it, there's a very impressive finished quilt block ready to be a stunning pocket for any tote back, or block 1 of a stunning quilt.  Pat also showed off some beautiful pineapple scrappy blocks she made during Pat O'Connor's Trash to Treasure Bee last week.  Pat & Pat you both are awesome ladies!!

Lucille Karatzas - had creation fun all week for sure - she made her first Fidget Quilt and a baby-size rag quilt.  Neither project is very stressful, so you need to say creative fun.  Fidget (busy lap pieces) Quilts are "no mistakes" sewing and rag quilts - do not involve any tedious seams, triangles, cutting, or quilting - they just turn out squares sewn together for soft snuggly pieces.  Lu - you're a fast learner - terrific stuff!!

 Lois Rose - Lois read a thank you note received from Hawthorne Village for the selection of "busy lap quilts" donated for its memory care unit.  And Lois told us about crafting visit to Mission Oaks last Wednesday.  Besides all that, Lois still had time to make up another group of Fidget Quilts.  It's always fun to see how creatively she uses the applique pieces and scraps of fabrics.

Bonnie Meyer (with a boo-boo arm - sorry!) shared a pretty beautiful table top piece made with border fabrics and what looked like 60 degree angles.  Pretty cool tumbling block effect.

Sue Campbell - wow'd us a bit with beautiful red and purple (yes Red Hats) lap quilt - nicely made! with beautiful stitching and gorgeous purple appliqué hats on the red-as-red-can-be background.

May Kahlow - Showed her stunning birds wallhanging made from a panel of fabric!   So she started with a beautiful fabric panel, added her own sewing stitches and quilting, made a backing and binding and now has a piece of art ready to hang.  It's a lovely addition for any wall for sure!

Tall Eileen Navikas - as always doing her fun sewing - doggie bed and baby quilt.  Then Eileen shared a scrappy strip piece quilt top she has started and how much fun she's having just using up scraps, some short, some long, some from home, some from our club's leftover stash, row by row being added. 

Actually, when you read a little about first days of "quilting", that's kind of what our ancestors did.  They added any piece of scrap fabric, or leftover clothing, or used clothing, etc., and they just kept adding piece by piece.  Eventually the pieces got so cumbersome to work on that historians say that's how quilting block patterns came about.  The ladies would work on the smaller blocks, one by one, and then when they had a bunch of blocks together, they started finishing them in rows and put rows together for quilts.  So often these blocks were made around events, or places, or during certain times, so that's how blocks got a lot of their names and second and third names.  Generally speaking, a block (like a churn dash) will have several version names or even an altogether different second name.  Some blocks like log cabin and drunkard's path have so many variations and versions it is hard to determine all of them.

Sharon Ross brought 3 very creative fidget quilts.  Two were made with fabric from old jeans and the 3rd was embellished with one of her wonderful sea creatures.

Judy Johnson took last week’s callenge to decorate a small bag for the homeless children campaign.     Nice job Judy.