TQG Spring Fling



 

Each year my quilt guild Tidewater Quilters' Guild hosts a Spring Fling. It's a nice day of quilting, food and fabric fellowship.

 

 

Classes are given by talented quilters in our guild, or if you like you can "Sit N Sew." It's hard to choose!!!

 

 This year, I picked the Quiltsmart- Mondo Bag which lots of people around here have been making, but which intimidated me!

You start out with a purchased foundational interfacing onto which you fuse 2 1/2 inch squares. Lots of cool color combos were working in our classroom.

 

Details are important....the pressing note is key!!

 This one is mine.....I had a load of blue batik scraps and strips from a scrappy trip quilt I made.

Construction was the most hairy part to me, but it was surprisingly simple.

At the end of the day, we "Show and Tell"....all the bags were beautiful!

Because I am the photographer and webmistress, I didn't get mine together, but that will happen soon!

College Banner

Had my step-daughter's 18th birthday coming up and wanted something special to commemorate the day and her acceptance to William & Mary. I looked at all the W&M logo's and came up with this little wall-hanging.

 

 

I started by free motion quilting popular W&M landmarks...Swem Library, Sadler Center, The Daily Grind, the Crim Dell Bridge.

I added some of the traditions such as The Flat Hat, the school newspaper, Raft Debate and so on.

I put a representation of the Crim Dell Bridge in the center with her expected year of graduation.

At our Hibachi dinner, I gave it to her....and she had a big smile, and that made me smile!

MAQF: Barb Olsen's Jump Start Your Creativity

This past weekend was the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival held annually at the Hampton Convention Center. The quilt show for me, sort of marks the doorstep to Spring, much in the same way the Philadelphia Flower Show used to when I lived in Philly! While the weather was totally uncooperative with a significant snow on Wednesday evening, causing me to miss my first class, by Thursday I was raring to go and excited for Barbara Olsen's, "Jump Start Your Creativity!"

She was a great teacher with lots of inspiring quilts to share...

 

 

We started with tracing our design on Sulky Totally Stable, making registration marks to aid in aligning the pieces.

 



Then we started auditioning our fabric in our pieces. I was using a big pile of Allison Glass Designs fabric in the Lucky Penny, Clover Sunshine and Field Day lines. Check out her stuff here: Alison Glass Design's

 

I was having a creative ball!

 

To me one of the things that makes the design is the quilting that Barbara did on her finished pieced.....just gorgeous!

 

My first petal was done my the end of class. I have since constructed 2 more.....plugging along, thinking of spring!

Click here for Barbara's website!

40 Bags in 40 days!

Love this idea! 40-bags-in-40-days-2015

With all the transitions in our house over the past few years, kids back and forth, moving to their adult life and the like...it is time for some streamlining of everything! Plus I am not too fond of giving up chocolate for lent! haha!

My targets will be the ridiculous collection of books we have all over, taming the paper in the office and getting the clothing to people who can use it. (let's not talk about the sewing room though) ‪#‎40bagsin40days

Finis!

Barn Stars ....bound

 

And hung in the foyer.

 

On to the next mini quilt!

TQG February- Molas!

We had an interesting presentation at the Night Chapter meeting of the Tidewater  Quilters Guild last night, “Molas in a New Light,” by Lola McCracken Lola shared her mola collection and gave a short lecture on the Kuna Indigenous people in the San Blas Islands, Panama.

 

The mola forms part of the traditional costume of a Kuna woman, two mola panels being incorporated as front and back panels in a blouse. Molas are handmade using a reverse applique technique. Several layers (usually two to seven) of different-coloured cloth (usually cotton) are sewn together; the design is then formed by cutting away parts of each layer. The edges of the layers are then turned under and sewn down. Often, the stitches are nearly invisible. This is achieved by using a thread the same color as the layer being sewn, sewing blind stitches, and sewing tiny stitches. The finest molas have extremely fine stitching, made using tiny needles.

 

The fiber artistry of a mola reflects the traditional oral (non-literate) Kuna culture and represents themes of Kuna life and history. Mola art developed when Kuna women were encouraged to cover their traditionally painted bare upper torso by missionaries who were offended by their toplessness! 

 

The quality of a mola is determined by such factors as

• the number of layers
• fineness of the stitching
• evenness and width of cutouts
• addition of details such as zigzag borders, lattice-work or embroidery
• general artistic merit of the design and color combination.

When Kuna women tire of a particular blouse, they disassemble it and sell the molas to collectors.

 

Molas are often sold in pairs, the pair consisting of the back and front panels of a blouse. The two molas are usually two variations on a theme. Matched molas complement each other and should be displayed or used together for the greatest impact.

 

To appeal to the tourist market, modern molas may represent non-traditional themes, like the caduceus above.

After Lola's talk, we had a demo on reverse applique. Fun!

Making Progress

 

Got the Barn Stars all pieced while watching the John Adams series on HBO Go. It has a bit of wonk, but overall I think its a decent job on a quilt with tiny pieces AND I achieved the goal of finishing the January quilt before picking up the February pack. Or at least I will have finished once this crosshatch quilting is completed!

 

Couldn't stay inside all day though, as we had a delightful break in the winter weather with highs between 65 and 70. We took a ride to the beach house to do some maintenance (I think half the light bulbs were burned out) After quick work of bulb changing, filter changing and spreading some pre-emergent weed stuff....we were off to the beach to enjoy the calm ocean, and gorgeous clear sky with other beach lovers. There was one surfer in the water, though there were no waves. When he got out of the water, he returned to his van which bore a striking resemblance to the "Mystery Machine," of Scooby Do fame!

The sunset by the sound was really pretty....

 

All in all a terrific weekend!