Canton Village Quilt Works and BOM

I found a new BOM that started this month at Canton Village Quilt Works.  The Blogger's BOM features 8" blocks from around the web designed by 12 bloggers.  Each month a new block is posted and you get to visit a blog and find you new block.  Jackie at Canton Village also has an online fabric shop so be sure to check her out.

The first month's block comes from Sherri at A Quilting Life.  She also just posted a nice tutorial on making gift bags, might be something to make a whole lot of and you will be set for Christmas.  Just a thought.
Have a great weekend.  Diana

Aprons Galore!

Our September meeting featured an apron Show and Tell.  Members were asked to wear an apron to the meeting and also bring in others for Show and tell.  It was amazing to see all of the aprons that came in, and to hear the stories that went along with them.  We had Grandma's aprons, Christmas cookie baking aprons, fancy crocheted or sheer entertaining aprons, aprons with 59 cent price tags still on, children's aprons, aprons with funny phrases, apron sewin in the 7th grade, aprons from other countries!  You name it we had it, all in all I counted about 140 aprons that came in to the meeting!  What fun!

President Deanna shows her newly sewn chicken apron, and chef hat as well.

Joanie has a very pretty sheer "entertaining" apron.

Rosemary models her apron.

Marge brought in a bunch of aprons.  Is that a squirrel embroidered on this one?

This embroidered children's apron was brought in by Marge.

Missy brought in her Grandma's apron.

This fancy crocheted apron was brought in by Shirley.

Laurie

Monday Meeting Reminders & Congratulations too!

Just a reminder that our Monday, Sept. 19th meeting is Show & Tell Apron night.  Please wear an apron to the meeting, and bring aprons to show!  It doesn't matter who made them, or whether they are store bought, old or brand new.  Maybe you have stories to share about the aprons you bring in?  For each apron you bring in your name will be put in the pot for a drawing.  This should be fun, I can't wait to see you all "decked out" in your aprons.

Also congratulations to Diana who has entered her quilt Sweet Candy Dots in the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVIII in Philadelphia, which is happening right now, and was awarded Best of Show!  Be sure to tell her "way to go"!
Laurie

Local Quilt Shows

I have a couple local guild shows to tell you about.  The Shawno Area Quilters are have their show on October 8, from 10am-4pm, at the Seniors Center which is located very near the post office downtown.  The admission is $3.00 and they are having vendors, a white elephant and a bed turning.  At the same time, a Tour of Art is happening in Shawano with tours of local artists studios.  Information about this and the Barn Quilts are available at the Shawano Chamber of Commerce.  I wasn't aware of how many quilt blocks are on the barns now until a couple ladies from Shawano told me!  And there are some nice pictures of them on the Chamber site along with a map.  The same weekend has their October Fest and a Farmer's Market.

From October 14-15, the Rapid River and Bay de Noc Guilds are having their show in Escanaba.  You can get all the information at Quilts at the Bay.  A nice drive for October maybe?

I found some nice patterns to take a look at.  The Lollipop Quilt would be a great idea for our little ones.  Who doesn't like lollipops?  A really different look comes in Glorious Geeslings by Shiisa Quilts & Mustard Seed Quilts. I found both of these patterns at Quilting is Murder which is a mystery quilt site done in murder mystery style.  It is free and you have to sign up to get their "clues" and newsletter which has more than just the clues.  Fun stuff.

Here are a few sites that have some great patterns.  Me and My Sister Designs , Anthology Fabrics, and StudioE Fabrics.  We thank them for the great designs, fabrics and sharing their patterns with quilters.

Have a great weekend.  Diana

Quilting Diva's Demo

What a neat bunch of mini demonstations we had at our August meeting!  Terrie and Judy (who just happen to be sisters!) from Quilting Diva's Boutique in Green Bay were our guest speakers, and they were armed with some fun ideas for our group.

Judy shows the ladies how to creat a Halloween design using fusible 2 inch grid.

She also showed us how to use these rulers, Leaves Galore to make leaves, neat curves, as well as scalloped quilt edges.

Terrie demonstrates how to make a table runner using the Less Than Traditional design.

Terrie also showed us how easily you could make this elaborate dising using the Divine Diamonds cutting tool.  It is used to decorate the fun purse in this photo.

The Diva's brought in some show and tell.  Here Judy models a Christmas tree skirt.  Two fun ladies and a great evening of sharing quilting ideas with us!  Take some time to visit there website.  They offer some classes that might be of interest to you, and carry all of the neat products and patterns that they demonstrated for us.

Laurie

Gardening and Quilting

Deanna's article in this month's newsletter got me thinking about all the links between gardening, canning and quilting.  They  can be past times that give a lot of pleasure, they provide comfort and nourishment of one sort or the other and can be frugal and maybe not as you can buy a lot of expensive fabric or an iris bulb that costs $50.00 each!  None the less, they can become compulsive hobbies.

I then did some searching about the internet about  some of my favorite gardening and preserving related items.  The first one that came to mind was corn and beans which is a very neat block.  Quilting Assistant has a nice page with the corn and beans block assembly and My Quilt Genie has a nice page on how to calculate a quilt with this block.  My Quilt Genie has many,many block to calulate out so take a look at all the possibilities.  The Wooden Thimble Quilts  has a nice  printable page of the block also, along with some other familiar patterns.

Here's something I didn't know.  Do you know what a "Sweet Potato" quilt is?  They are those older quilts with lots of that gold-orange color in them that has more recently been called "cheddar".  I think this sweet potato term is more common in the south.  Have you ever wondered why the ladies used that sweet potato color their quilts, especially when it seems to be so vivid?  An explanation that I heard was in the times of these women, they used candlelight or lanterns as their main lighting and when a sweet potato or cheddar colored quilt was laid on the bed, it absolutely glowed...they knew their stuff.  Location, location, location and lighting.

Another food and preserved block pattern that I thought was interesting is the pickle dish pattern.  Now I went to quite a few sites to look at them but many of them showed me a wedding ring pattern instead of the block that I recognized.  I was a bit confused but did find one that show what I though of as the pickle dish at Quilt Obsession .  This shows the pieced tooth like block that is based on those old cut glass pickle dishes that everyone's granny used to serve  up their special pickles.  Now I know that many blocks have the same name but this is the one I'm familiar with.  Also, the Kansas  City Star Quilts official home is called the Pickle Dish.

Deanna's salsa making started me on this so I had to find something with salsa and found the Strips & Salsa Quilt.

Still into pickles, so I found Bread and Butter quilts.  One is a medallion style quilt at Wilmington Prints.  Another I found at Red Rooster Quilts.  Go to  their site, click on store and then free patterns and you will find the Bread and Butter Quilt.  They were having some internet problem so I couldn't provide a direct link.

Everyone loves pumpkins and FavQuilts has a cute runner.

Do you remember Kitty Cucumber by In The Beginning Fabrics?  When you get to their site, go to free patterns and find the Kitty Cucumber but I think  you'll be checking out all the other nice super cute patterns.  For those interested in Halloween fabric and such, the Hallowgraphix Quilt is really great.

This is a link for a miniature quilt by Martha Wolfersberger called Cranberry Relish.  Traditional and sweet. It comes in five parts.

You will enjoy a blog called Red Pepper Quilts.  Rita, who is the blogger and quilt designer, has a lot of nice patterns and when you go to her shop link you will also find a tutorial for a scrap buster quilt called Pieced Border Quilt.  Its very charming. 

Hope you enjoyed the gardening, canning and quilting tour.  I  bet  you can find a lot more!  diana

September is National Sewing Month

Where has the summer gone?  We've had a frost already and the days are shorter, maybe some time coming up for sewing and quilting.  September is National Sewing Month which was enacted by President Reagan.  There are many nice sites out  there with ideas just for this month.  There is an official website, National Sewing Month , that has some cute free projects.  Check out the really cute pansy pins made with zippers! They are having a contest through September 30 so you might want to submit some creations.

FavCrafts:Blog has a contest too and each day this month you go back to the blog and they will feature a new project.  Some cute ideas.  There is a really huge site called All Free Sewing and they have just a lot of projects for kids, teens, pets, home dec, Christmas, the list goes on and on.   I only checked a small amount so far but like many sites, one site leads to another and pretty soon your off somewhere.  That's how I ended up on a site that featured felted sweaters on one of their posts and I know a lot of you like to use recycled sweaters.  It's called ThreadBangers and there was a lot of cute ideas along with kinda weird but all worth looking at or getting a chuckle over. 

Hope those who made it to the Madison Expo show are having fun and that our contestants are proud of their entries as they should be!  Take care.  Diana

The Last of August Show and Tell...at Last!

Here we are already past Labor Day weekend, and looking on to the lovely fall colors that will soon be approaching!  Maybe life will slow down a bit for me too, and I can be more "regular" at posting items on the blog.

Sheila shows her Quilting Diva wallhaning.

Each month she can change the fun little quilt that the Diva "holds".  Very sweet!

The 52 block quilt (each block different!).  Sheila added a couple more borders to her top.

Terri has made a warm flannel quilt to be given as a wedding gift.

Joan, Sheil, Lynette and Rhoda show off the fun purses they made.  Barb S. had done a demo on these fast and easy purses.

Remember if you want to view any of these photos close up, just click on the picture to see more detail.

Laurie

More August Show 'n Tell

Here is some more of the lovely quilts that came in for our Show and Tell.  You ladies are always so productive!

These Cottage Creek wall hangings were all made by Ruth.  What nice welcoming designs.

Ruth also made a Crazy 8 Table topper out of fun St. Patrick's fabric.

Rhoda has made a pair of quilts for twin boys.

Rhoda has finished her Mystery Quilt...just need to trim and bind yet.

Here is quilt that Rhoda finished up.  It was started by her sister's friend 10 years ago...another UFO done!

This Sampler quilt was made by Rhoda!  She has been really busy it seems.

This quilt is called Family Reunion from Quilting in the Country with Jane Quinn in Montana.  It was made from a kit, where one block is Corn and Bean's and the other is Farmer's Daughter. 

Laurie