Faith, Folklore, and Friends

I love it when the quilts start coming together.  These new quilters have spent weeks working on blocks, but now, the blocks are coming together and look like real quilts!  Last night was fun as we worked on putting blocks together with sashing. We are already excited about next week. After enough blocks for four quilts have been made from my huge scrap bin, it is still more than half full.  Luckily, fabric scraps have no expiration date. This class was made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  Thank you!

Our quilting class met last night after being off last week for spring break.  We were ready to sew! After working for eight weeks making scrap squares, we started putting them together last night.  I love the look on their faces when the blocks start coming together, and their scrap squares start looking like a real quilt. Some will be ready to sash their blocks next week. This class is made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  Thanks!

We had a good night of making quilt blocks this week. Parsley wasn't able to come because of a meeting, but Sage, Rosemary,  Thyme, and I had a very productive and fun night. Every week we talk about different ways to use scrap blocks in quilts.  This quilt was planned around some fabulous batik fabric I found.  There is a batik scrap sewn across the middle of the block, with black and white scraps on both sides.  Then it is sashed with the same fabric, and it makes a good -looking quilt. It is backed with black and white polka-dot fabric. Cutting fabric into strings is a good way to use up some really ugly fabric.  I had some 3 Stooges fabric in black and white (what was I thinking?) that had been laying on the shelf a long time.  I cut it up to use in this quilt, and I think it looks just fine.  If you look closely, you might be able to see their heads. I don't throw any fabric away, not even the very ugly. This class is made poss...

 It was a cold, cold night, but we all came ready to sew some blocks!  It is such a pleasant sound to me, four sewing machines humming at the same time. The quilt above was made using 9 1/2 inch blocks, shown below.  One day last winter, I retreated to my sewing cave and made 84 of these blocks.  I used 42 of them in the quilt above. Has anyone noticed how much chicken fabric is in my blocks? I paired 24 of the remaining blocks with this blue and red fabric and made windmill blocks.  When you look at the quilt top, which windmill do you see first?  Is it the blue/red fabric, or the pieced block? It really doesn't matter, because both are pretty.  The blue/red windmills sorta jump out at me. We have completed three weeks and have lots of blocks made, but it seems to me this scrap pile hasn't changed any.  Actually, it seems a little bigger but we know that can't be possible.  Ah, so many potential quilts just layin...

I am privileged to teach another quilt class this winter.  During this one, we will make a string quilt using 6 1/2" paper squares.  I have four students, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, and they are already hard at work on the first night.  We don't worry about being neat when we are paper piecing. We are going to sew the squares together to make a quilt like this or maybe like this. Trust me, these strings sewn together are going to turn into something beautiful, useful, and lasting.  I know it is going to be fun.  We are all so excited to get started! There probably won't be any dining on the dining table for the next twelve weeks, but we are totally okay with that. This class is made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  Thanks!