April 2014 – Amherst Quilters Guild

April 25, 2014

a quilt I will never make

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Every now and then I run across a quilt that I know I would never ever make. And here’s a clip featuring one of them. I like the original name for it: Insanity! I know that many traditionalists will absolutely love this quilt; we have a separate category in our guild shows for quilts of this type. I appreciate the workmanship, the precision, the patience but as I said…Insanity! click here

April 24, 2014

more morning thoughts

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Lovely sunny spring morning. Shh! don’t jinx it! Here in WNY we’re still in the “anything could happen” stage of weather. Was thinking about going out to get new sneakers today and came across this in my inbox. Love it! All of you zentangling ladies might like it too. click here Lovely idea here for coloring stitchery blocks. She has a free BOM quilt available too. click here Same woman’s site-great idea for a mother’s day gift, either the gift itself or its wrap. click here If you have an upcoming graduation or wedding for a social media junkie, then this hashtag block might be just what you need for the quilt you are going to make. (Don’t we always make quilts for those occasions?) click here

April 20, 2014

Rabittat

Happy Easter! Mary Ellen here. Perusing the internet for springy, Eastery,” bunnyish” things today as I enjoy my morning coffee. Found the picture above, the inspiration for this post, at Pinterest. The work looked a bit familiar so I chased down the originator of the stitching. Sometimes for no particular reason I like to go to Barnes and Noble and just browse for a few hours. I will often spend a bit of time in the children’s book section, especially enjoying those books that are richly illustrated. I think that is where I knew of this stitcher’s work. Perhaps you will recognize her style too. This is a link to a very short film about her work, with links to her own blog posts about the stages of the construction of Rabittat. click here. What beautiful work she does-and amazing to me-all by hand! Have a beautiful Easter everyone!

April 18, 2014

musing #2

It’s M.E. back again, I think I might be on my way to “Queen of the World” status! Any one out there also in the running?

April 18, 2014

musings…

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’ve been cleaning up a bit in the sewing room, adding larger and larger pieces to the scraps (because I have found someone to give them to who provides a good life for them…they actually end up in quilts). I’ve decided I may have an issue with the amount of fabric I have. Seriously am trying to cut back on new purchases. Maybe you can relate to this. Am I a hoarder or a collector or just way behind on my “to do” list of quilts?

April 16, 2014

Virtual visit to our quilt show

Hi everyone, well – WE DID IT! Show was wonderful, colorful, full of visitors, old and new friends, demos and shopping…well done Amherst Guild!! Special thanks go to our two show co-chairs – Kelly and Kit for all the hard work, as well as all and any committee chairs, volunteers and last minute, impromptu helpers – ALL together made yet another wonderful quilt show! I am almost sad that we need to wait for two years now! Ha, ha! Did you take lots of photos? If you want me to share them here, please, please email them to me and I will! Here are some of mine: we had our first participation of many members of new, WNY Modern Quilt Guild – thank you to all who entered their quilts! Our former president and friend Betty Lerner came to visit! Our hand-quilting experts at work: Cheryl’s quilt […]

April 11, 2014

This is it!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here! This is quilt show weekend here in Amherst. Hoping to see you out at the village from 10-4 today, tomorrow and/or Sunday. The quilt auction is at 3:00 Sunday afternoon. Saw them all at the preview party last night, and as always there are so many gorgeous quilts! Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village 3755 Tonawanda Creek Road (corner of New Road and Tonawanda Creek) Amherst, NY 716-689-1440 See you there! Come up and introduce yourself. I’ll be at the seminar table all day, each day.

April 9, 2014

It’s here, it’s here…

…both – spring and OUR QUILT SHOW!! Monday and Tuesday was a lot of work but as always, we pulled it off and our Quilt Show, that started like this… …went to this!! And these are just few quick ones I took as we finished yesterday – not the best photos, I know but rest assured, more is coming! 🙂 Now we all know that pictures are NEVER nearly as good as seeing quilts “live”, so for all of you non-members, readers of this blog even remotely local – come this weekend to see it all! Over 200 quilts, in an amazing variety of styles and sizes – from several beautiful antique quilts to nice display of modern quilts and everything in between! First time this year, we have a Modern Quilt category and quite a display of quilts from local, new WNY Modern Quilt Guild! In addition, over a […]

April 8, 2014

more of this and that

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It’s getting more spring like every morning. Daffodils are up in the garden about 4″. Still no sign of life in the hellebores though, and they’re usually the first ones. Crazy winter this year. Bonnie Hunter (our seminar teacher this fall) is on the road again. Here’s a link to her post with a slide show of a Boxy Stars class she taught over the weekend. She’ll be teaching that class for us too. It’s always fun to see the same project in all the different color choices in a class. Maybe you’ll get an idea for that fabric bundle that’s been sitting in your stash for so long. click here. Do you enjoy sewing bags and purses? Are you a fan of Nancy Zieman? If you answered yes to both, then you may want to take part in her upcoming live webcast. Info here. […]

April 4, 2014

odds and ends

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I know we have quite a few Kim Diehl fans in our bunch. This slideshow came in my e-mail today from The Quilt Show (the Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims adventure). Even with my lowly free membership I still get good things to watch and try out. Here’s a link (click here) to a slideshow of Kim Diehl’s quilts staged in her own home. Wow, I’m jealous of such lovely surroundings! Kim is doing some workshops and an evening trunk show for the shop Material Rewards in Dansville, NY. It’s not far from here, certainly close enough for a road trip if you love Kim’s work. Our seminar brochure is at the printers and will be ready for members to pick up when you visit our guild’s quilt show next weekend (April 11-13,2014). I’ve also sent the information to our webmaster, so it will be […]