Quilt-In and My Ugly Quilt

Our guild did a "Quilt-In" on Saturday--I was one of the 6 teachers.  After teaching my 3 hour class in the morning, I had free sewing time in the afternoon and early evening.  It was wonderful!  As the weather is very hot and humid, being indoors with my Featherweight and my friends, was a great way to spend the day.

I taught Kisses and Hugs, also known on the internet as the Japanese X and + Scrappy Quilt.  It is really just an old Nancy Cabot pattern from the 1930's, made modern with bright colors.  Here are the blocks the 15 students made during the class:

 

They had fun, most learned a few quick tips they didn't know, which they can use on all their future quilts, and their blocks really could all go together.  Very scrappy, very bright.  This would make a great baby/kids quilt and it's pretty fast.  Here are 4 blocks Mechelle did after class, during her free time sewing:

During my free time sewing I made 8 additional blocks for my replication of the top I bought in Minneapolis, I wrote about that here.

On the left are the blocks I just made, on the right is what the quilt looks like with sashing and cornerstones.  They are about as different from one another as two quilts can be--I love both the old 1800's fabrics, and the new bright fabrics.  It's all good!

The Quilt-In did not get enough guild support to go on next year and that's a sad thing.  We had 37 people out of a guild of over 200.  And of those, at least 20 were on the committee or teachers.  Some people said $50 was too much.  Here's what we got for our $50:

Up to 7.5 hours of classes: two 3-hour classes morning and afternoon, and a 1.5 hour evening lecture/demo class. 
Light breakfast with fresh fruit, sweet rolls/cakes, orange juice/coffee/water
Time at lunch to go to the 3 area quilt shops that all provided discounts just for Quilt-In attendees, ranging from 15-25%
A great dinner catered from Carrabba's with a delicious salad and 3 decadent desserts
Each person present received 3 door prizes, with the top prizes being a brand new Rowenta iron and a large brand new Ott Light.  I got a new binder tool, a bottle of Retayne, and a $10 gift certificate to a local quilt shop. 
A notions grab bag that went to one lucky winner--filled with lots of notions people brought in, including a Sidewinder bobbin winder
A fat quarter basket filled with well over 40 fat quarters people brought in, that went to one winner.
Two people won sets of scrap blocks that people brought in, more than a dozen of each block. 
A day full of fun and friendship with like-minded quilter friends, old and new.

This was the second year for this event and we hoped it would really grow.  It's just too much work for so few participants. 

If you're involved in a group, try to support the events that are planned.  As co-chair of our upcoming quilt show, I know just how much work is involved in making a great event happen and how we have to beg for helpers to get all the jobs done.  And, after all, we are ALL just volunteers trying to provide a service for our quilters and our community.  Stepping down from my soapbox now...

A couple weeks ago I read a blog about a swap someone was doing with a few friends.  It sounded fun so I thought I could get a group together to do the same.  It involved making a 20.5" block, basically like a Log Cabin, then cutting it in quarters.  The group I read about was using very similar modern fabrics.  So I thought I better make a few first before going forward and used fabric from my scrap shoeboxes--totally scrappy.  Well, after spending more than 3 hours, more or less, to make 4 of these blocks, I declared this idea a "no go" and am now calling this the Ugly Quilt:

It was improved a bit with the addition of 1" finished black solid sashing.  But not by much.  This is going to be a practice machine quilting piece.  The plan at this point is to use four different free motion designs across the surface, to practice quilting and to finish this.  It's 44" square.  I hope quilting it, improves it yet again, I really don't think it can hurt it any.  And it saved me from starting yet another swap project...

Stay cool and let's quilt!

Barbara