Yesterday was a busy, busy day. We had our August quilting day with a record NINE people attending who either worked on projects or showed projects they had been working on. We’re still squeezing into the basement, so I apologize now for the less than stellar photos. Lighting isn’t great for photos, although I have tons of lamps set up at the workstations.

Lisa wasn’t able to attend last month, but this month she brought her Challenge Project. It’s absolutely adorable – I think the smallest squares are 3/4″. Unfortunately, she said “never again!” (We’ll see about that…)

She also showed her amazing Criss Cross quilt – she finished it as a summer quilt, so it’s tied without batting. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it’s only her third quilt (and her first bed quilt). I love how she went with a dark background, which really emphasized the sparkle of the light blocks. I wrote the instructions for this, and they’re available here.

She also made a valance to go with it:

Finally, she made this wall hanging:

We’ve created a monster!

Our newest contributor is Nancy, my mom’s aunt. Nancy has been doing embroidery and cross stitch forever, and she made this pretty baby quilt:

A couple of weeks ago, she asked my mom for some suggestions on how to put together a quilt from just a few embroidered blocks. They talked about several possibilities, and Nancy chose to frame the embroidered blocks and add alternating snowball blocks. I think the bright colors she used really emphasize the stitching on her main blocks. With the addition of a pieced border (and possibly one or two plain white borders to set it off) this will be a fabulous twin size quilt.

Mom is working on a winter wallhanging with pieced blocks and framed snowman blocks. It’s adorable, although she’s a bit frustrated with the work. The pieced borders on the snowman blocks are really difficult to get just the right size. It’s becoming a chore, but she’s much better at meeting goals than I am, so this will probably be completed before our next meeting.

(So that’s where I get the pinkie thing from!)

Karen brought the completed top for her bright quilt. We got together a couple of weeks ago and really blitzed on this one. We had it finished except for the two borders. The inner triangle border was a challenge, but Karen got it all to work out. Mom was a little iffy on this one, but now that the top is done she really likes it. Karen will tie this quilt, and it then it will be raffled off.

Becky had two show and tells – her completed Challenge table runner (last month the top was done, but it hadn’t been quilted)…

… and her INCREDIBLE Tumblers quilt. She bought this in a kit at the International Quilt Expo in Chicago this spring. There were a few bumps in the road – the pieces were pre-cut, but some of them were cut wrong. Fortunately, the vendor was wonderful and they sent her an entirely new packet of tumblers!

Finally, Mickey’s show and tell was this cute little bag from a pattern called Abby’s Treasure Box by This & That. Is this not the most adorable thing ever?!

Once we finished the main show and tell, we talked about the next basket block. I had instructions written (okay, so I wrote them that morning – at least they were done!), but I wanted to make a block to check my math. I was able to finish the block (see previous post) and handed out the patterns as people left. You can download the pattern here or from the bar at the right.

Here are everyone’s basket blocks so far:

Basket Block 1

Basket Block 2

Pat didn’t bring her second block, and Karen and I haven’t done either block 1 or 2 yet (but she has a better excuse). I’ll add them as soon as possible.

Several of the ladies (Mom, Pat, Karen and Mickey) worked on a new bag pattern from BarBee Designs. Barb creates the most awesome patterns – she calls them Pockets A Plenty bags for good reason. They purchased patterns at Quilts in the Park last week and were hoping to make the bags in time for the Quilt Expo next month. Becky didn’t have her fabric cut out so she worked on something else, but she’ll be making a bag, too. I cut all of the fusible fleece the night before, and everyone cut their fabrics at home so they could get to sewing right away. This is Barb’s newest pattern, a mini bag that has options for a single or double strap. The ladies are making the single strap water bottle version.

Lisa wants to make a bag, too, but she’d like to start with something a bit easier. I showed her the best tutorial I’ve found for making zippered pouches and she’s going to start with a makeup bag. I explained how to box the corners, in case she wants to play with making a larger zippered bag. We just need to talk about straps…

I actually managed to sew for a while, although I was slightly hampered by a small visitor we had. My cousin and her family are visiting from Washington state, and I had a few things that would interest a girl of her age. The most useful was a box of washable Crayola markers. I gave her a couple of “tattoos”, then let her go to town drawing on herself. She drew on me a bit while I sewed. What the heck – it washed off.

I figure I can blame this ugly picture on the markers, right?

Here are a couple of photos of Raine (who is a smart, funny, determined, and well-behaved little girl). It’s actual very appropriate that she be included in a post about our family quilting day. She was at our very first family quilting day, back when she was a newborn. We got together to make a wedding quilt for Nancy’s son, and Mom, Pat, Larry (her husband), Mickey, Jean, Grace (my cousin), Adam (her husband), Raine and I were all there.

She’s showing off her heart tattoo, and you can see a bit of the yellow elephant on her arm. This is the second round – she went to the bathroom and when she washed her hands she cleared most of her arms. The aunt who helped couldn’t resist cleaning off her face, too, although you can see a few purple remnants on her nose.

Here she’s “singing” into the fan. I used to love to do the same, to get that fun buzzy effect on my voice.

Although it looks like she’s airing her pits, she’s really just singing. She threw up her arms exuberantly, and I lucked out.

See how cute she is? Love the pigtails! No, she didn’t bring the toy. That’s a Jibba Jabber that I received for Christmas about 15 years ago.

Because the relatives were visiting, we invited the rest of the family over for a picnic. Unfortunately, it was hot and muggy, so we mostly stayed inside. It was nice to have so many people together, and hey, any excuse for my mom to make potato salad!

Our next quilting day is actually a no-sew day. We’ll be going to the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison on September 12. We’re signing up for lectures and spending the entire day there. This is one of my favorite quilt shows – it’s big enough to be worth the drive, but small enough that you can see it in a single day. They have inexpensive lectures as well as several free lectures on the show floor. They also have a limited number of sit & sew classes that are reasonably priced. Their food is MUCH better than the stuff you can get at the big show in Chicago (Rosemont). Although this year we’re bringing our own, the provided food is well presented, reasonably priced, and very tasty. They usually have a small buffet of hot food, as well as individually priced sandwiches, salads and desserts. If you’re within a couple of hours’ drive from Madison, Wisconsin, check it out! It starts Thursday and ends Saturday. You can learn more here.