Colorful cube classes

I am treating myself to a relaxing boat trip at the end of next week but we all know work comes before play so this week I did two classes on colorful cubes and what fun it was.  I had the nicest groups of ladies in both classes and I can hardly wait to see the end results as every new combination of colors seems to be prettier than the first.

For some the class seemed too intense and they felt it should have been a 2 day course or at least calls for an all-night quilt session (I am more than willing to do this, ladies!!) but others felt they heard just enough to allow them to finish at home.  Hard to please everyone but I do try.

 

And then there was the occasional hick-up with a strip being sewn the wrong way around leading to a gaping hole when joined or getting confused with the values and having cubes not quite looking like cubes. Getting used to the triangle ruler also caused a couple of giggles but this too is knowledge gained that no-one can take away from you.  Any mistake is a valuable lesson learnt.  

When show time is over

After completing a quilt I will neatly fold it and put it away until our next quarterly guild meeting for Show and Tell.

However the moment the meeting is done, these go to the linen closet and become useful articles.  With us having had our meeting yesterday and me changing linen on Sundays, my two latest quilts were put to good use and both were Bargello’s.

Our bedrooms are rather neutral so every time I put a different color quilt on the bed it would change the color scheme of the room and I rather like that.  Never a dull week in any of our bedrooms!!

The red, blue and yellow quilt was from a course I did through Quilt University and on friend Karin’s suggestion I made the strips wider and not the suggested 1½” as the instructions said.  The wider strips worked much easier.  This quilt is a standard double bed size and landed on my daughter’s bed.

The scrappy Bargello on our bed was designed by one of our local guild members and teacher, Iessie Steenberg, and it was heaps of fun to make as you simply took another fat quarter once you ran out of fabric from the previous one – just try and stick to your original color selection.

Isn't it great to have a hobby that can be put to good practical use afterwards?

Our first quarterly meeting of 2011

We started the year officially with a meeting of our guild getting inspired by all the quilts on display.  I just love these as there is always something different to see.

As usual no lack of food and I often have to remind myself that this is a quilt meeting not a eating challenge but these ladies go through so much trouble with these divine snacks.

We also got to meet the new committee and with our National Festival being planned we have a rather busy time ahead of us.

Saturday group meeting

I am so fortunate to belong to more than one group.  This gives me the opportunity to meet so many nice like-minded friends.  On Saturday, being Valentine’s month I spent the afternoon with the Goue Drade (Golden Threads) group and we decided to do a little Valentine.

Most of the group dressed in red.  We thought of punishing those who forgot to make them pose in their underwear but they claimed that it would not be worth anything as they also didn’t have any red underwear on.

Needless to say the snacks of the day also had to be color coded and to top it off one quilter in the group, Rina van Straten added a small bottle of red wine for each of us.

A somewhat different but o so relaxed (once the alcohol hit the system) quilt meeting.

Getting serious

Karin consentrating

I’ve packed away ALL my projects as I seriously have to focus on my entry for a challenge quilt to be entered into our National Quilt Festival in July.  The quilt needs to be received by the organizers by 1 May and something tells me I’ve waited a little too long.  So friend Karin and I burnt a little midnight oil and while she worked on her Roll-Roll-Cotton-Boll mystery quilt, I cut, placed, ironed, folded, glued and sewn what seemed like millions of tiny appliqué shapes.  Karin too has to finish her challenge but she’s waiting for the cricket world cup to start and then plans to move her sewing to the TV and get this little obstacle fixed quick-quick.

But you know the saying about ‘all work and no play………’ so we made very sure to balance life with a little party in between.

The poor men who are stuck with us merrily go along with all.  Karin’s husband is the slightly bald one with the striped blue shirt…… ha-ha!!!

Hearts for Bitter and Sweet

Our guild used to give a single flower to those members who experienced Bitter or Sweet during the term.  Unfortunately some of these members were (due to these circumstance) not able to attend the quarterly meetings and by the time the flower got to them, it would be dead.  This year the guild decided that we have to replace the flowers with a fabric heart and all members were asked to make at least one heart.

These are my hearts and I had rather fun working on these small projects but made just such a big mess as I would when working on a large quilt.  I had to make more than one heart seeing that I belong to more than one group in our guild.