Over the years, I have shown you pictures of the various quilts my guild has made for the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale. The 2018 sale quilt is in the frame and being hand quilted. I finally remembered to take my camera along and took some pictures to show you. Rhoda and Kathy coordinated the making of this quilt. Guild members either appliqued the basket blocks or sewed the 16 patch blocks.
The pattern is a variation of Victoria's Garden designed by Victoria Hurst. I'm showing this side so the baskets are right side up. More quilting has been on the top and a row of baskets has already been rolled under. That top row is about completed and probably has been rolled under by now.
Here is a close up picture of a section. I forgot to take a picture of an individual quilted basket block, sorry.
I appliqued several baskets, I don't know if this is one of mine or not, doesn't matter. Marie did most of the embroidery. Rhoda did the button embellishment. We are making progress and the quilting should be completed in plenty of time for the September sale. Linking to Slow Stitching Sunday, Oh Scrap!, Show & Tell With Bambi.
Today I'm showing you a different project I sewed at the Jane Stickle Retreat several weeks ago. The 2014 Row By Row quilt from Yoder Department Store makes a great gift. The row comes in the 4 seasons and this is the Summer Row.
Last spring, summer, sometime this year anyway, I mentioned that I had been embroidering with Perl cotton thread and how I liked the way it glided through the fabric. My friend Elaine mentioned that she wanted me to try some cotton thread she likes to use. At the Jane Stickle retreat, she pulled out a box with spools of 12 weight thread. This is the equivalent of 2 strands of regular embroidery thread. She asked me if I had brought an embroidery project along, uh no, I hadn't.
Saturday morning I took a break and went over to Yoder's to show my friend Nancy some of the projects I had been working on. While there I browsed in the embroidery section and found a preprint panel of flowers designed by Darlene Zimmerman. I thought it was very pretty. I haven't done any preprint embroidery in years so I bought the panel. There are 8 blocks so I will have some interesting embroidery ahead of me. I used Elaine's thread and embroidered 2 of the tulips. I liked the thread and had my DIL order a box for me after I returned home.
The thread has arrived and here it is!
The box isn't completely full but this will give me a good start on colors. I know preprinted embroidered blocks are not a popular project anymore but I still enjoy working with them. And it simplifies my life too by not having to decide which colors to use. I'm still in control of which shade of color. Linking to Slow Sunday Stitching, Esther's Wednesday WOW!.
Another project that made progress at the Jane Stickle Retreat, were the Star Dance blocks. The center is now sewn and ready for applique. I didn't set the blocks the way the pattern said with a straight set. I personally like blocks set on point. At this stage, she measures 43 1/2" by 53 1/2". I'm planning on doing the applique with machine stitching, a new learning experience for me! Hopefully I will have the applique pieces prepped and ready to go for my guild's retreat the first weekend in March, 2018. A fun fact about this quilt is that all the stars have been made from fabrics in my stash, the striped border too! While at the retreat, I also sewed the border on my mammoth 4-patch quilt (no picture). He measures 124" by 125". I need to finish piecing the backing and then off to the long arm quilter he will go. I'll take a picture after the binding is attached. Linking to Finished Or Not Friday,Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Finish It Up Friday, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap!, LoveLaughQuilt, Show & Tell Monday with Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, BOM'S Away, Quilts My Way, UFO Challenge
The farmer and I have been doing alternate traveling. We're finally both at home for awhile. I returned Sunday from the Jane Stickle Quilt Retreat held at the Farmstead Inn in Shipshewana, Indiana. Normally when I post about the retreat, I show you everything I've worked on. I'm not that organized this year. The suitcases are put away but the projects are not unpacked yet. I can show you this large churn dash crib quilt I pieced. The fabrics have traveled to several retreats but were never sewn. It measures approximately 48" x 54". I didn't have a pattern, just figured it out on my own. Easy, Peasy!
At the January 2018 guild meeting, I'm demonstrating spiral quilting. This is such an easy technique, hey if I can do it, so can others. Anyway, I decided I needed to get a crib quilt pieced and ready to go. Now I just need to get the layers together and I'll be ready to quilt!
