Design Floor Friday - April Sew/Craft Friends-zy

Welcome to a new edition of Design Floor Friday!!!  Earlier this month, I braved the first Sew/Craft Friends-zy event in many months.  With everyone fully vaccinated, the church where we meet finally opened up for a select number of people.  I'm not sure what that number is, but there were fewer than a dozen crafters in attendance.  Special thanks to Tiffany for arranging the event!

Three Super Scrapbookers at the one end of the hall...

And Five Busy Quilters at the other...

What was everyone working on, Joyful???

Lisa was working on a 20 year old UFO:

For the first example of design floor use, Carol was layering a quilt:

Tiffany cut out a new class sample:

Lois worked on a UFO...

... Before switching to a donation quilt:

Lisa was amazed that all the pieces were still intact:

Let the pinning begin:

The picture of organization:

Lisa used the design floor to assess how far she got before abandoning this gorgeous Broken Star project made from her DH's old shirts:

Since Britt opted out, I brought my die cutter to work on the triangles for our Swap Quilt, so she would be with us in spirit:

With pieces all cut and labeled, Tiffany is ready to sew:

Lois is the picture of productivity today, as she moves on to her 3rd project:

Lisa is making more diamonds from her carefully preserved strip sets:

And...

The main reason this was released as a Design Floor Friday post:

I used the open floor space to test out several layouts for my H2H project, including this one (using the 20 full blocks I've made) which would require choosing an alternate block or background fabric:

Set like Sarah's instructions, I would need to make more blocks:

Finally, this 32 block option needing a few more "logs" added:

It was good to see what I'm up against and over the course of the last few weeks, I've worked on finishing those blocks and squaring up the ones that have been brought up to size.  I'm getting close to being able to choose a layout based on the requirement of my chosen charity.

Looking forward...

This event was not without stress, as it felt strange to be in a group of people after so many months of "self-isolation", but I'm excited to see these friends again in another couple of weeks.  YOU can look forward to another update sometime after then.  There may even be a few more quilting friends working away that day, as we move toward a return to "normal."

Until next time...

Go SEW!!!

The Guest Blogger(s) - Vol. 11 - Connie SEW(s) Blue

Welcome to another edition of The Guest Blogger(s)!!  As April draws to a close, Connie popped in with a surprise post.  She has been working on a BIG project and didn't know if she would manage a TABLE SCRAPS Challenge project this month.

Connie came through with the following...

April had me very busy finishing several quilts for the R.C. Durr team of Comfort Quilts. This group celebrated its 7 year anniversary in February. The quilts had been primarily donated to the Cincinnati Ronald McDonald House before the pandemic,  to a local hospice and to several nursing homes. When RMD House stopped taking quilts for safety reasons, our fearless leaders found other outlets for the hundreds of childrens' quilts that began accumulating. A large pediatric office connected to the area's hospital is now taking quilts for distribution to clients as deemed appropriate by the office staff. The photo of our coordinator's trunk shows 142 quilts that were brought to a park. About 25 plus quilters were able to gather outdoors with social distancing while sharing a wide variety of quilts.

My Tablescrap project was going to be 4 blocks from Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Crystals. 

Progress on this was "scrapped" when I had a squirrel run rampant through my quilting room. I saw Alycia of Quilty Girl post a picture of her placemats as well as several others. Then, I remembered participating with Carole of From My Carolina Home in last year's placemats challenge. I wondered if our Comfort Quilts sponsoring agency, a senior's center, would want placemats for it's nutrition program. And, off I went to scramble through my blue scraps! I assembled two for use as examples.

These were shared at the Monday gathering. Plans were made to bring finished placemats to the May meeting. One member of the group has already sent me an email sharing that she pulled out orphan blocks and has some placemats finished! As Sandra at Musings of a Menopausal Melon would say, DrEAMi!

So, I again thank you for your inspiration. Please feel free to share this story.

Connie

What a great program...

Thank you for sharing this wonderful post with us, Connie!  Your local senior center is sure to be pleased by your support.  I'm happy to inform my readers about such opportunities for bringing comfort and cheer to others.

Share the quilty love for Connie's project in the comments below.  I know that you enjoyed seeing Connie's placemats as much as I did!  Thanks again, Connie!

Link Party Reminder...

My technical difficulties allowed extra time for YOU to add your project!  The April TABLE SCRAPS Link Party will end tomorrow, Friday, April 30th at 11:59 PM (EDT).  There's still time to join in the fun!

Until next time...

This is a place(mat) for QUILTS!!!

Wonderful Wednesday - Quilt Guild for the Win(s)

Welcome to another edition of Wonderful Wednesday!!  Today I'm here to share the contents of the TWO Guild prizes that I won in recent months.  I mentioned them and showed a photo, but you never got to see the nitty gritty of the contents.

Last month, I won the Bernina World of Sewing door prize:

Here's a better look at the contents:

Beautiful cork and coordinating fabrics...

... Along with a cork tassel to complete a fun project:

The accompanying gift certificate required a shopping trip...

... Which I finally braved after last week's Quilt Bee meeting:

That gift certificate went toward the purchase of the two items in the foreground of the photo below:

Yay!  Fancy new snips to try a different design and an adjustable "hump jumper" which turned out to be even better than the one that I had originally hoped to purchase.

Thank you to Sona @ Bernina World of Sewing for your support of Durham Orange Quilt Guild!  It was a pleasure to be back in your beautiful store.  The staff couldn't have been any more helpful and made for a pleasant shopping experience.

That was wonderful and oh-SEW-good, but back at the December Guild meeting...

I won the Membership Basket from among the members who prepaid their 2021 dues:

While I shared the contents of the basket with LeeAnn @ Not Afraid of Color shortly after my win, I never got around to showing YOU...

Until now.

Let's have a little explore, shall we???  In the basket, I found the following items...

A selection of quilt magazines:

Some journals and a variety of storage containers:

A few notions, including the pack of needles that I made use of recently when I managed to bend the one in my "piecing" machine:

Several yards of batiks on cardboard "mini bolts" for easy storage:

Pins, a magnetic pin holder, and a fun selection of precut fabrics, along with some fancy thread and a bottle of scent-free Best Press:

Sorry this is taking SEW long, but the basket was chock full of sewing items that I thought you might want see...

... Like a collection of Judy Niemeyer paper piecing patterns:

Spooky Halloween fun with a pattern, buttons, thread...

... And a darling little spider quilt hanger, too:

Sticky stuff that I've already used in a number of projects:

Templates, rulers, a needle holder, a notions holder, and (lucky me!) a replacement for my favorite seam ripper which has been getting a workout lately:

A selection of embellishments...

... Along with Cable Cuffs, a pack of quilt greeting cards, and of course the basket, which I plan to use for storing MORE fabric scraps:

Thank you to Ella K. for putting together such a fabulous prize basket.  It was filled with a wonderful selection of usable quilting items!  I'm enjoying pulling out something new with each project that needs "a little something", whether that means some sticky stuff to hold down an applique for stitching, an errant line of quilting that needs removing with a sharp new seam ripper, or if I want a challenging new project to stretch my skills as a quilt maker, it's ALL in the basket!!

Until next time...

SEW lucky!!!

Sew Some Love Sunday - Pineapple Pieces - A Spring 2021 (Ravelry) UFO Club Finish

Welcome to this week's edition of Sew Some Love Sunday!!  I'm here to report my first UFO Club finish of the Spring session.  This quilt was loaded on the longarm several weeks ago:

Once I started quilting...

... It didn't take very long to finish:

I shared it at the first in-person Weekly Quilt Group in many months:

Since this was a group quilt which I assembled, Candy served as my "Finishing Fairy".  She presented me with the completed quilt at last week's in-person meeting:

Thank you to Candy for the assist (and for originally suggesting the project to our group!)  Thanks also to members who contributed blocks to this Pineapple Pieces Project charity quilt to benefit Brenner Children's Hospital and other organizations local to Pineapple Fabrics in Archdale, North Carolina.  This quilt is sure to provide a bit of comfort to the child who receives it! The following members provided blocks for this quilt: Candy, Maggie (2), Ella, Ruth B., Joy (2), Britt, Ruth S., Deborah, Cheryl K., and our dear Joanna, who is no longer with us.

Here's a blog post from around the time that our blocks were collected last summer.  As it turns out, the day that I had hoped to deliver the quilt (3/31/21) was the final day of the program.  Since we would be delivering a completed quilt, I was told that it should pose no problem for it to be delivered at a later date.  I'm happy to report that the quilt was delivered earlier in the week when several members of my Bee went on a Pineapple shopping spree:

 This post shares a slide show of many of the quilts received by Pineapple Fabrics.  A new Sewing It Forward project will be announced soon.

Until next time...

Finish MORE!!!