A Wee Bit of Quilt Content

There is a little bit of quilt content in this post. For real. Progress is being made on several fronts. But really, nothing to show you. Do you really want to see a pile of pieces stacked to the side of the sewing machine? Or the light table with the white applique background awaiting the pieces to be glued?

On Friday, I attended the November meeting of our small group. Remember in this post when I asked for a recipe? Well, the Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting that Nancy recommended was very well received. Excellent! Knitting accompanied me to this meeting not quilting, because a pair of Christmas socks is on the needles.

Saturday, was a meeting of Quilty Friends at my house. Deciding that the Hugs and Kisses BOM needed to get caught up, I spent the time prepping the pieces for the October block. The pieces were glued down and a pane of glass placed on top of it to press it flat while it dries.

Today, was another day in the sewing room while the washer and dryer did their thing in the next room. The pieces for the November block were cut out and half of them were prepped when the 'accident' happened. *sigh* I inadvertently brushed the tops of two fingers against the hot iron. All work stopped immediately. I couldn't even pick the iron up by the handle because it put the fingers too close to heat. I had to close up the sewing room.

This Takes the Cake

One of the small quilt groups that I belong to (and I am not going to name names no matter how much you beg) likes to make a donation quilt every year, enter it into the county fair and then donate it after the fair. The quilt this year is a cute child's quilt.

Warning: rant ahead!

But the quilt is definitely not show/fair worthy and I am speaking from a judge's standpoint. This quilt has quality problems. I volunteered to put on the binding that was made by another member. The binding was made from torn pieces commingled with cut pieces and they all were stretched out of shape when it was ironed -- not pressed. The whole binding was one ess-curve after another before I tamed it into submission.

The highly visible portions of the quilt should get it marked down:
• the green stem is visible under the applique. Someone was lazy and did not cut the stem to fit and tuck just the edges under the flowers like one should with applique, but just ran one long length and then slapped the flowers on top.
• the buttonhole stitching is sloppy; a zig-zag stitch would have worked much better.
• the appliques had no quilting so that when the quilt is turned over there are big puffy areas surrounded by dense quilting (and this was a long armer who did this).

So back to the binding. As I was putting the final stitches into the binding I kept wondering how I could get out of having my name associated with this quilt. I was embarrassed by the quality. Monday morning the quasi-leader (and I call her that because even though she is not the leader of the group she is the power behind the throne) came by my work place to pick up the quilt. She told me that only one quilt per group could be entered into the fair and so the other quilt (that was done by three members of the group) will be the group quilt and this quilt, the one that everyone (all 12 members) worked on will be entered under her and the leader's names since they did the majority of the work. Say what? They appliqued the floral strips, period.

On the one hand I was glad that I would not be associated with the quilt. On the other hand I felt like I, and the other 9 women, had been slapped in the face by being told that the two of them were the ones that did the most work.

I have been considering leaving this group because I have been unhappy with it for quite a while. This instance just sealed the decision.

Okay, rant over.

I wrote the rant above on Tuesday this past week. Yesterday I went to the fair. The quilt pictured above received an Honorable Mention and the other quilt garnered a Second Place. I am now wondering about the judge.

The Hot Season

Photo is from iStockPhoto

We are having the hot here too. But unlike lands to the east, we don't have the humidity. Although we did have high humidity last Saturday and the ends of my hair curled like a telephone cord which made me do a simplified hair style for the wedding I attended. Of course, it didn't really matter since it started to rain shortly after the (outdoor) ceremony finished.

The hot is making me alter my sewing plans. I usually attend a small quilt group called The Finishing Club every other Friday and this coming Friday is one of our meeting days. I usually take handwork, which right now is knitting if you can believe it, but I am going to stay home and sew up those Warm Window blinds. It REALLY needs to get done. I have all the measurements and materials, but have been procrastinating. With the arrival of the hot, even with our A/C on, the kitchen, guestroom and hallway are roasting. Those are the places with the clerestory windows. I can't wait any longer.

Sidebar: when I stand at the kitchen sink, the clerestory windows are behind and above me. When the ceiling fan is on, which is all the time in the summer, without coverings over the windows the light streaming through the moving fan blades acts like a strobe light in the sink. Very disorienting.

I was asked by my quilt guild, which likes to be called a League BTW, to be their official photographer at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Show in August. When I asked "why me?" the reply was that they liked the photos on my blog. Go figure. I get in free, though.

Speaking of the quilt show in August, it is the only time this year that the 2009 Hoffman Challenge will be seen in one place. That is because the curator of the Challenge is a local girl.

So now I am thinking of buying a new camera. I gave my old SLR film camera to TheKid a couple of years ago. I have been using a Kodak Easyshare 6.1MegaPx that is starting to show it's age in the quality of the photo. After doing some research I have narrowed down the cameras to a Nikon DSLR D60 or a Canon Rebel EOS. I am leaning heavily to the Nikon. Anybody have a favorite? I have even figured out a way to pay for it within my budget! Cashback rewards from a credit card AND some found money in the Great Colorado Payback. Pretty cool, huh?

Quilt of Valor

As a member of a small quilt group, The Material Girls, I coordinated an effort to make a quilt to contribute to the Quilt of Valor Foundation via Alycia. The members of the quilt group are, like most groups, of varying skills. A Disappearing 9-patch was the perfect solution. Or so I thought. I forgot about the hand piecers, and so those squares were re-enforced by machine. I ignored the various sizes of things when trimming the blocks in order to be able to get this done in time to hand off. One of our members does long arm quilting and volunteered to quilt it and used a star design on her Statler. I learned that explicit instructions must be given when working with neophytes.

All that said and done, it turned out well.

Saturday Quilty Friends

Stitching with friends is the best way to spend time, isn't it? That is how I spent my Saturday last weekend. Quilty Friend and I meet once a month alternating locations, her house or mine. Saturday we met at her house and look what she gave me! A treasure box of goodies that included a lot of homespun pieces, a red work hummingbird kit some blank recipe cards, a wonderful vintage red velvet turtle pincushion and three different sets of vintage cocktail napkins. You will see what I use the napkins for in a later post.

Aren't friends wonderful?

I spent the time working on Gail Pan's A Christmas Wish BOM blocks. And by doing all that stitching, I found out that my new glasses (6 weeks old) do not work for closeup stitching! O no! I had to put a pair of those magnifier cheapie glasses on in front of my normal bifocals just to see the stitches. Time to go back and complain, I guess, as this is just not right.

Let Them Eat Cake!

Cupcakes that is.

At the November meeting of our little quilt group, The Material Girls, the hostess had these kits made up for us. They contained all the makings of a high-fiber cupcake. She had her sewing machine set up for anyone who wanted to stitch it up by machine, but the majority did hand work. We worked in unison as she guided us through the steps.

My cupcake overflowed on the other side as the gathering stitches were pulled irregularly.

It's a cute little pincushion that I can add to my collection.