You think retired people have nothing to do but somehow it seems that I don't have that much time for my hobbies. Of course I do admit that I have too many (hobbies) but this blog is a little about sewing.
Once a month I spend a couple of hours at quilters' meetings. The WE Quilters (West End) meet on the 3rd Tuesday in the morning. When the pandemic situation got better we started meeting again. At our first (new start-up) meeting we all decided to have a BOM (Block of the month).
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Here are the rules:
At the May 2021 meeting is was decided to begin a BLOCK OF THE MONTH PROGRAM.
- Each member who wishes to participate should make two blocks (set) and bring them to the meeting.
- Blocks will be collected at sign-in, one to be used for charity quilts and the other to be raffled off.
- For each two blocks (set) a participant brings she will receive a raffle ticket.
- Of course you can bring only one and add it to the charity pile. No raffle ticket.
- These are volunteer hours. Please keep track and record on our sign-in sheet at each meeting.
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This was the write-up for the first one:
Blocks to bring to the June 2021 meeting:
Size: blocks should be 12" finished (12 1/2" unfinished).
Pattern: any of your choosing
Colors: background should be pure white or white-on-white
with blue and yellow fabrics
If you need help to find a pattern: google on free 12 inch quilt patterns
One of those free pattern places:
https://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/12-inch-quilt-block-patterns.html has a lot of samples. If you scroll down far enough you find sections 3x3 and 4x4 etc which is interesting.
Here are some samples:
https://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/susannah-quilt-block.html
https://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/evening-star-quilt-block.html
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It was a great success. We had enough blocks to make two quilts. Friend Janet (also a member) sewed the blocks together with sashing. Here they are unquilted:
I had volunteered to head this program. Meeting is at my church now and sponsored the raffle tickets which we needed.
I like to come up with the next "pattern" and write up the directions. June and July we had verbaly agreed on in May and it didn't need much writing.
Here is July.
Again we had enough blocks donated for two quilts and Janet sewed them together again. One with blue sashing and one with red sashing.
All quilters do not work the same. Some like to be creative and some just would like the pattern and do it. Picking out the fabric is enough creativity there and some didn't like to have to search for the pattern. So for August I wrote directions for cutting and all. I designed it to be a 14 inch block finished so no sashing was needed when making the quilt top.
Again we had a great response. We had 22 blocks in the charity pile. Of course there is almost the same number in the raffle pile. Some members are choosing to only make for the charity and don't want to participate in the raffle (which is very nice I think!).
So I crawled around on the floor and laid out the two quilts ... and changed them around ... and changed again until I liked it. You see the 2 missing. I could now pick colors which would fit best into the places out of my stash. Hubby is holding up the two finished quilt tops. I might take them to the Stitchers Group (they are the recipients and will quilt/finish them) and add a border around them to pull everything together, probably with fabric of the back and binding. Will see. Happy that I got so far.
At the August meeting of course was given out the September meeting. Autumn is coming so I thought this might make nice quilts. Again it is a 12 inch (finished) block. I made two blocks and used those to create the second page how the whole quilt might look like. The creative members have the option to make just a 12 inch leave block without the "logs" which could make the quilt even more interesting. I look forward to that meeting.
Nashville grandson started 6 grade couple of weeks ago and needed more masks. What does he like. Fitting? We should have done that when he was visiting in summer. Sigh. The apple one could be a gift to a teacher?
My quilters group in Montpelier is a once a month on the second Tuesday evening group. This month' lesson was on EPP (English paper piecing). It was very well done by member Liz with demos and even a kit for everybody but I can't see myself doing that anytime soon. Handsewing is not really my preferred way of doing this. It was very interesting though. Look at the tiny pieces she had made!
And now it is time to get back to what keeps me from sewing. Sigh.
