I have to admit that I have NOT been in the mood to blog for the last few months.   I think that I may have overdone it during our travels and simply got a bit tired of writing them.

But, since we are in a new year, let’s try to catch up!!!

The last “quilty” post that I had was about my “Crea-8-tives” group that met back in November and showed the results of one of our challenges.   Well there were actually two projects due at that meeting, the second one being a gift for our yearly exchange.

This year we had all agreed to make a fabric book for each other and many of us struggled to come up with our ideas initially.   I did my usual trick and started out with too many ideas and just couldn’t set my mind on one in particular.  

Then, I had the opportunity to spend a day shop-sitting at my local quilt store and was able to spend some time thinking about what I wanted to do.  I enjoyed looking at the  book called “Sweet Tweets”…..

As I looked at it I started thinking about the little bird quilts that I had made for my mantel a few years ago……

…..and I was off!!!

I decided to steal the name of the book and a couple of the patterns, but challenged myself to actually draw all of the designs myself rather than tracing them or enlarging them with my copier.   This may not seem like much of a challenge, but it was a good one for me.

Once I got started making the book pages, I had SOOO much fun picking out the fabrics and doing the simple applique and thread work.

Here are the pages of my book…..

As I was making the pages, I kept reminding myself that I would need extra room on the left hand side of the page for the binnding.   But when I laid them out on my wall, I realized that half of the pages needed extra room on the RIGHT hand side…..sigh!!!

As usual, the results from the group were so much fun……

Denise made a book with quotes and things to remember, with topics ranging from Family to Football……

Ruhanna’s book featured all of the Neal Faamily Favorite Christmas recipes……

Cleo had us in stitches with her quilter’s license plates…..

 

Linda gave us the Sisterhood of Quilting……

Faye brought a bit of Christmas cheer…..

And, Brenda made a lovely book of quilter’s wisdom which is now happily residing in my studio!!!

Brenda and I have a “thing”going where I always get the gift that she made…..I LOVE it!!!!

 

Although it was two months ago, it was a wonderul night and lots of fun with special friends!!!!

OK…..one blog post down….maybe I can get a roll going!!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I finished (mostly) the hexie quilt that I was making as a challenge from my “Creative Group” (we really need to find a good name!!)!!!

It was good that the meeting was at my house because I was upstairs up until 25 minutes before the first guest arrived trying to get my project finished.  

We started our meeting with a lovely dinner, compliments of my sweet husband…..

Then came the fun….

Linda started us off with her miniature piece using 1 inch cut squares, resulting in 1/2 inch finished patches….wow.    Linda is fairly new to quilting so this was quite an accomplishment for her……

Denise was the next to show her TWO quilts, both working with small squares as well.  Her first was a reverse color wheel which was finished months ago.

 

She started a second one late in the game and was just putting on the binding when our meeting started…….

Deb wanted to work with some lower contrast pieces and has come up with this beautiful design.  Her embroidery is exquisite….cant wait to see it finished!!

Brenda had planned to do some crazy work using some old handkerchiefs from her Mom.  In the final analysis, she couldn’t bear to cut them up so at the last minute she opted for tumblers and crazy patchwork hearts.  I think that she is planning to add some beads to the top and bottom border…should be cute….

Ruhanna had already given her quilt away but brought photos and a cute story about her granddaughter being scared of thunderstorms.   Apparently the quilt arrived in the middle of a storm and now it is her Thunderstorm protector !!!

Faye started out with larger blocks of Dupioni silk and then found a 3-D butterfly from a class that she added with great effect.  We especially loved the wired antennae!!

Lastly, Cleo chose a piece that was monochromatic as her inspiration, however she got quickly bored with the one color so the palette expanded. She does gorgeous beading and is a wonderful teacher as well.    This piece is still a work in progress and we cant wait to see the finished project…..

We had a wonderful evening together….cant wait until the next meeting in November.   Our mandate for that meeting is to make prayer flags to share with each other!!