scrappy bits...

Rain, rain, rain...got to love it! We have had a really dry end of summer so the past few days have filled the water barrels and cleared the air. All good.
It also gave me time to work on my crab tree quilt (Leaders and Enders, by Bonnie Hunter.)
Once the stack of 9-patches was made the trees went together pretty quickly...as quickly as 1-1/2 inch squares can that is! I used a variety of yellow to orange cornerstones, 25 different greens for the trees, 24 browns for the trunks, three different beige fabrics for the setting triangles, maroon for the sashing, double pink for the inner-border, and pink and maroon plaid for the outer-border. I think I am safe in calling this a scrap quilt....Needless to say we are finding 9-patches under every chair and in every corner or the house...Brownie even seems to think she can pull them out of the quilt-top - yikes! I better get those last two borders on soon so I can quilt it and keep those blocks safe....

A quick thank-you to the American Quilters Society for naming my blog the quilting blog of the week! My first reaction was "wow, they really like me!" Then I remembered it was a random drawing and it became "wow, I'm really lucky!" What-ever...it is all good!

Speaking of drawings...I am closing in on a couple of milestones (number of posts and number of followers and number of clean square feet in my sewing room) so watch for a drawing soon....

New things...

Usually I stay pretty traditional but when my friend Margaret (SCQuiltaddict) offered to show me how use inks on fabric I remembered my goal to try new things this year....

Margaret has been working with a local artist, Jefferey Callahan, and with his permission we used some of his sketches. He does great southern scenes. Cool...even I can color inside the lines!

It think the goal was for them to find out what they need to teach the totally artistically challenged and I sure fit the bill. For instance...shading...there is no shading in quilt piecing! At least not in my quilts! So I learned a lot and I think Maggie learned that maybe there are some folks out there that could a lesson or two (or a book!) before tackling this!
I was surprised how much fun I had with the project...time flew. Still need to piece some borders but that is something I can do with no stress! (ok, maybe just a little...but in a good way!) then some thread-painting (duh, there is real I-am-trying-new-stuff-stress there!) Good thing is it is a small enough project that I can work on without having try and stand or walk too much right now.
And a quick report on my guild's donation quilt...we drew last weekend at Arts in the Heart (booth photo above) so Cora Lee's Orchard is going to her new home. We raised over $3,000 for Camp Rainbow, a Camp for Children with Cancer. Our next quilt, Vintage Southern, is being quilted this week. So we need to start another one...takes almost a year to get them done!

Short vacation

My DH and I had big plans for this week. We booked a cabin in North Carolina, made reservations for a horseback trek, and mapped out several antique stores. Well....

We had made a stop at a Diner in South Carolina along the way and their star specialty of onion sausage tasted really good but....need I say more? I only ever got to see the cabin....and only vaguely remember that!

OK, maybe not that bad but we did come back early. My big excitement was a brief stop at a roadside stand to buy bags of apples and a pumpkin (and almost perfect pumpkin!) The apple orchards around Hendersonville are really nice. We did stop quickly there and I got to gimp around one antique store in town that had some really nice quilts...can you believe I was too worn out to even buy one? You know I was hurting!
Anyway, I am doing better today and plan to put in my hours at our guild booth at the local arts show. We are selling tickets for our donation quilt and trying to find or create new quilters.

Do you belong to a guild? Do you find that sometimes you love it and other times you wonder why you bother? I am sort of in the latter phase right now...sometime it just reminds me of the scene from Galaxy Quest when they land on a moon and see the wounded alien miner....(yes, I am a geek and only geeks will get the reference!)

Ironing board blues....

Been playing in fabric a lot since Bonnie's lecture last week. Not getting a whole lot accomplished other than cutting up lots of scraps and "organizing" them. I now have a lot of 1-1/2 inch strips and squares so started a tree quilt from Bonnie's Leaders and Enders book. Several of the folks in my guild are going to make this quilt so I may have a chance to trade scraps and make it even scrappier!
A delayed thanks to Kate at Empty Field for the fabric she sent me! She had a contest to name her new featherweight...and it just looked like an Elvis to me. She agreed and now I have some fabric to introduce to the stash!

Today I am ironing backings...loads of backings. No need to go to the gym as my arms and back are getting workout! I love using a solid piece backing but it is so heavy to get from the washer to the dryer and across the ironing board....I need to finish the one for our donation quilt and maybe one other before my DH complains about having the ironing basket so full and realizes it is all fabric (with maybe one shirt of his at the bottom!)
The second backing is for a birthday quilt several of us made for my friend Paula. OK it isn't really a quilt yet...we did get the top done in time! The pumplins and the leave are just so autumn. The pattern was from a magazine out this past summer...

Blogger is being difficult with posting photos today so guess I better just get back to the ironing....

Bonnie's Trunkshow

My guild was lucky to have Bonnie Hunter (one of our members from long ago!) present her trunk show at our Fall combined meeting. We may have set a record for attendance at this one! We have about 100 members and about 65 were on hand for the meeting...not bad!
Bonnie gave an inspiring talk on how she goes about planning her quilts and using her scraps.And as always it was fun to see her quilts in person...and she brings a lot of quilts!
We also asked members to bring quilts that were from Bonnie's books, website or just inspired by her scrap system.Show and tell was a lot of fun...
enough so that folks didn't complain about lunch being late! And that my friends is saying something!