Lovely Pillowcase Obsession

I have been following Bee in My Bonnet blog for a while.  Recently, she has posted all these luscious pictures of her pillowcases that she has sewn and then added this really lovely crocheted edging.  This is so old fashioned looking yet so fresh because of the colors of her fabrics and her crocheting colors!  Yikes, I want to dig out my crochet hooks and get going.

She also tells where she learned the techniques on these pillowcases so I checked out the tutorials on You Go Girl.  She gives you very complete instructions including how to sew the pillowcase.  The complete tutorials are listed to the right side of her blog under On The Edge Tutorials.  After this seemingly long and endless winter, those pretty fabrics are a sight for sore eyes.  If you don't make any, at least enjoy all the color.

Speaking of weather and winter, will the weather cooperate today and let us have a meeting?  Lets hope so.  Please remember your pin cushions, also that this is the end of the UFO Club so please tell me at the meeting if you've finished all your ufo's if I don't have them marked down.  I try to keep track but sometimes I'm not told if they were part of this club or not.  Looking forward to tonight.
Diana

Zippers

If you're into making purses or little pouches, here is a place to get zippers in almost any color and at a great price.  You could go together on buying a big lot and divide them up and they end up at .40 or .45.  Pretty good buy.
What are you sewing this weekend? 
Diana

McCall's Quick Quilts

Many of you may read McCall's Quick Quilts.  In addition to the articles and patterns in the magazines, they offer free additional patterns at their websites so check out your favorite magazines sites for these offers.  Terry Albers of Hedgehog Quilts has a quilt she designed and sewed in Quick Quilts and here is a link for a free pillow pattern that matches it.  The quilt was quilted by yours truly, just tooting my horn a bit.
I think many of you will remember Terry when she came and did a great presentation of her quilts for our guild, probably a couple years ago now.  She has designed for quite a number of years and has recently been really busy designing patterns for many major fabric companies including Thimbleberries, which this featured quilt was made from. 
As a really informative feature of this pillow pattern, Terry shows you how to make your own chenille for the fuzzy part of your pillow or quilt, way too sweet and soft, and you can apply this method to many other quilting projects.  Think babies, or young people or anyone who loves soft fuzzy stuff...

As a tip for those of you read this blog and others, if you want to go back in time and read posts that you may have missed, just go to bottom of the page and see Older Posts or sometimes it says Archives and you should be able to access those posts.
Diana

Free eBooks and more on Cotton Prices

There is a great site called Sew Daily that you can subscribe to and they send you a daily sewing email if you wish.  Today they sent a free ebook with many nice things to make for your sewing room to help organize it, we all could use a little organization couldn't we, me for sure.  This is a link for a blog that tells you where to down load your eBook.  I just take things like this that I really like but can't sew right away and save them into a file on my computer.  Then as I wish, I can go back and look at these patterns and sew away.  This is an eleven page booklet that has cute pincushions, an organization bag that I really love with many compartments and much more.

Rhoda in Las Vegas recently sent me an article from her local paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, with more information regarding the price of cotton.  According to this article, the price of clothing  is to soar 10% this year, with the largest rises in the second half of the year.  Due to the rise in cotton prices and world economic recovery, (are they sure?)other synthetic fabric prices have jumped roughly fifity percent as demand for alternatives rises.  I guess we better buy our socks and jeans now. They say there will be fewer choices in colors too.

Cotton prices are at an 150 year high rising to $1.90 a pound, just one cent more than it was in the previous record of $1.89 during the Civil War!  I think that explains the limited amount of quilts that remain from that time period and how precious those fabrics are.  So those ladies continued to make wonderful quilts under trying circumstances, I guess we can budget for what we can afford and still create.  Thank you Rhoda for sending that article.

Diana

Lunch Meeting before Sewing Session

For the sewing session March 7. 

 

 Anyone who would like to meet us at WatersEdge for a sandwich at NOON is invited to do so.  From there we will be on our way to the hall for our sewing session.  If possible please e-mail of call Deanna so I can leave the owner know an approximate number.

For the sewing session May 2 we will try a soup and salad supper.  If you care to work with a few people to make a soup or salad would be great.  Different ones have been bringing up these ideas to try something new.  The ladies love to stay and work on their projects so we'll keep them nourished to finish them up!

We will see how these 2 different times will work before we proceed with ideas for others. The plates/bowls/forks/spoons/napkins will always be provided by the guild.  Just bring your own beverage. 

Questions on anything can be directed to Deanna

Ribbons for Panama City Quilter

  When I am not enjoying the company of the Pine Needle Quilters, I belong to Saint Andew Bay Quilters' Guild here in Panama City, FL.  Each February the guild has a members only juried quilt show at St. Andrew's Episcopal church, where we also meet monthly.  The quilts entered must have been completed in the past 2 years.  It is a small show due to the limits of space.  This year 95 quilts were hung and they filled all the area. 

 

As all of you know, it is a group effort to put on a show.  Quilts were entered in the following categories:

    

 (1) Bed Size Quilts (a) made by one person, (b) made by two persons

 (2) Group Quilt  (Any quilt which 3 or more people worked on the construction or finishing.)

 (3) Wall Size Quilt (a) small wall quilt no larger than 160" total made by one person, (b) small wall quilt made by 2 persons, (c) large wall quilt larger than 160" made by one  person,  (d) large wall quilt made by 2 persons

 (4) Art/Innovative...must be entrant's own design or original interpretation and cannot exist in a commercial pattern

 (5) Miniature...by one person, measure less than 24" per side, must be a small version of a full sized quilt or wall hanging

 (6) Other...quilts not using 3 layers such as Grandmother's Flower Garden, Cathedral Window, Crazy Quilt. Whole Cloth quilts also fall into this category.

 

We took our quilts to be entered to the church on Tuesday.  A group received them and saw that they matched the registration form for each quilt that was due in January.  Wednesday the judge spent the day studying each quilt with 12 of us assisting.  On Thursday yet another group hung the show and it was open to the public Friday and Saturday.

At 4 PM on Saturday a group took the show down and returned the quilts to the rightful owner.

 

We are fortunate to have the space available to us most of the week.  Other years much has been done in members' homes.

 

If you ever have an opportunity to enter a juried show, it is interesting.  The judge is looking at each quilt and making comments while a scribe writes down everything she says.  When the show is over you get the sheet of comments she made about your quilt.  Better yet, if you ever get an opportunity to work with the judge, do it.  It is unbelievable that a dozen women can spend a day without talking, except for lunch time and then you cannot discuss the quilts!  You do learn so much in the listening to her make her comments.

 

This year I was able to enter 3 quilts.  Two of them were in the Pine Needle Quilters show in the fall.  I'm delighted to say I received 3 ribbons; a third on one quilt and an honorable mention and Judge's Choice on another.

 Submitted by Lois in Florida

Congratulations to Lois for her win and for sharing her quilts.

Cancellation Due to Weather, Rescheduling

Once again, Mother Nature has interfered with Pine Needle Quilters plans and we must cancel our meeting due to the snow and uncertain side roads conditions.  We will be meeting next Monday, February 28 at 7:00pm instead as we have missed two months in a row and need to catch up and make our election plans for officers too.  Please call  anyone who might not have got a message from us regarding this , thanks.

Red and White Quilts

Here is a photo to warm your heart and take your breath away if you're a quilt lover.  I wish I could go to NYC to see this one.   Diana

Reminders for February Meeting

We wanted to post a few reminders for the February meeting, if the weather cooperates with us!  We will be doing the UFO final show and tell and then the drawing for the fatquarters, so please, anyone who needs to turn in fatquarters, do so. 
We are also having the "pin cushion challenge" this month so bring in your pin cushions to be voted on and also bring in any interesting cushions that you might have collected.  We'd love to have a huge amount of them to share. 
There will be a nominating committee formed for this year's elections, yes, it is that time again.  So be prepared to be asked to be a officer, think about it and what you might have to contribute to our group.  There are a lot of organized and talented ladies in our group and we need you. 
Regarding our quilts for the wounded, Laurie says there is backing available now for quilts that you may be working on.  You can pick some up at our meeting or sewing sessions, just have your specific measurements ready, not just a twin size or lap or whatever, that means a whole lot of different things to different people.  The bolt is 45" wide so figure out your yardage ahead of time and it will happily be cut for you!!!
If the weather does get as bad as they say it might, please try and check the blog for meeting cancellation notices and also Peg will try and get out a mass email regarding this if we do have to cancel.  Please think good thoughts as we did not have a January meeting and December was a lot of eating and drinking and foolish games....which was all very good for us of course.  Now back to business. 

Bloggers Who Giveaway

Have you ever entered giveaways on the many wonderful sewing blogs?  You should, these quilters and suppliers and designers give away such beautiful things.  Right now is a great one at Dye-Candy , a great place with fabrics dyed and jewelry made by a fellow Wisconsin blogger, Chris Daly.  Go check out her blog and leave a comment.  I love her jewelry pieces, I think I've seen them at shows, maybe by Sun Prairie or Madison?  Anyway, very nice offerings.
Here is another very sweet, free embroidery of tea cups at BusyAsCanBe .  Just sign up at her email list and she will forward you a nice file of the embroidery.  She also has tips on embroidering it on her blog.
As mentioned in a previous post, Esther Aliu has started her new BOM.  The first block looks lovely and today I see she posted a nice demonstration on the applique technique that she used to make this quilt.  Its worth checking it out just to see that. 
PS.  I did win an item on a blog giveaway, it was a beautifully handpainted card that came all the way from England.  Very sweet.   Happy quilting.   Diana

Diva Diana!

Sue and I (Deanna) made a special trip to see our February Diva of the Month friend's quilts hanging in the new Quilting Diva's Shop.  Seeing Diana's quilts and ribbons hanging there was very nice.  For those of you who haven't seen the shop it's well worth the trip. 

Submitted by Deanna

New eMagazine

Have you ever looked at emagazines online?  These are emagazines put only on the internet, are probably the wave of the future and are fun to check out. Lizzie B Cre8ive has a new one, their premiere issue, called Dream, Laugh, Create. There are some nice articles, stories and patterns available in this eMagazine.  I especially like the little Irish rose pin for St. Patrick's Day and the fabric lollipops, I think the grandkids would like those too.
I was a little unfamiliar with the workings of an online magazine but caught on.  Just click on the magazine and it will load, it will probably be small and this is where I had a problem, couldn't read it.  Just click on the page again and it will bring it up larger and you can put your cursor over it and move it up and down too.  The arrows are pretty self-explanatory, they take you forward or backward through the magazine.  I hope you enjoy this free magazine that these nice ladies put together, they look to be very creative!   Diana

Kathy's Flower Girls

Kathy’s Flower Girls……

This is a group of ladies interested in the “Grandmothers Flower Garden”

Quilt. This is sometimes called English Paper Piecing and is done by hand.

No sewing machine needed. It is made up of hexagons, any size from ¼ inch

To however big you like. If you like hand work, it is rewarding.

Since we had one of the experts at this process in our Quilting Guild, I asked

Kathy and a few other girls if they would like to come over and she would help

Us get started. That was the beginning and we have been meeting monthly

Or close to that ever since. I believe there was 5 of us to begin with and that was

Two and half years ago…..as time went on, many projects started and some have

Finished their project. Our starting group included myself, (Evie), Joan, Dorothyann,

(who has since moved to Arizonia), Shelia and our leader, Kathy.

And a couple other gals (Barb and Lois) have joined us, we now have six in our group.

We meet at our home usually for lunch and then work on our projects for the

Afternoon……..we welcome anyone who would like to join in…..

Here Kathy, Sheila, Joan, and Dorothyann work on their paper piecing.

Sheila's finished quilt earns a ribbon at the Treasurer's of Tomorrow Quilt Show at Marshfield.

Evie, Dorothyann and Kathy display their blocks.

Submitted by Evie

                                

New BOM for Esther

Do you remember the beautiful "Red Delicious" BOM offered by Esther Aliu?  Peg and Laurie each made one and they were entered in our last quilt show.  What a wonderful design that was!  I have one started, should be a goal to get it done, what a waste to have it sitting in a bag. 
Anyway, Esther is starting a new BOM in about a day so go and check out her blog.  She has her personal fabric choices for this BOM displayed and like the last one, you don't really know what it will all look like until your done.  You can be assured that she does wonderful designs and you won't be disappointed!  Diana

What's Up With Cotton?

I was recently emailed a link to American Quilt Retailer for a really good article about the rising prices of anything to do with cotton, including our fabrics, batting and even our clothing. I think you'll find it interesting reading.   diana

February Sewing Session

 Yesterday was our monthy sewing session.  If you are not a regular there, come join us sometime.  It is inspiring to get together with friends and sew.  If you are working on something big, like squaring up a quilt it is really nice to have access to the large tables to lay things out.

Many of us are working on our Mystery Quilts, and it is fun to see the color choices everyone has made, and to watch the progress on those.  Here Evie is pressing the strip pieced components for hers.

There were a couple of birthday girls at the sewing session as well, and all enjoyed in sharing their birthday cake!  Happy Birthday Ladies!

Laurie

Moda Pillow Talk

Rita has sent me information on a fun place to check out.  Moda had challenged it's designers to create a pillow using Moda fabrics.  These pillow designs will be featured here, so go take a peak.  It may be of interest to some of you that the featured pillow for February 20th was designed by Lisa Bongean of Primative Gatherings.  I know that many of you enjoy that shop, so go and see her design, as well as all of the other creative designers featured.
Rita also informed me of another site,The Golden Thimble, which has a lot of fun patterns and BOM's to check out.  I have also added it to the BOM page.
Laurie

Baby Boomer Quilting Bee

There are a lot of fun and generous quilting blogs out there.  One that I have recently enjoyed is BabyBoomer Quilting Bee.  Jamie is a blogger from Louisiana who features many projects and at the moment she is participating in Judy Laquidara's challenges for this year.  In addition, Jamie has a wonderful selection of free quilt patterns that she offers on the side bar of her blog.  The pattern, Kristy's Dream, is a nice pinwheel type pattern, Missy's Fall Garden uses "Layer Cakes", which are 10x10 precut blocks, Nicole's Journey is a great way to use up scraps and Kendra is a bright way to use black in your quilts.
She also had a nice tutorial on partial seams.  This technique is used in the Nicole's Journey quilt and well worth learning to do. 
Jamie's blog is a fun place so go and check it out and maybe you'll be inspired to start a new project.  diana

Valentine Quilt

Its February already and have you thought about Valentine's Day quilts?  Here is a link to a really cute quilt designed by the Electric Quilt Co.  If you do searches online, there are a lot of free patterns out there.  Diana