Blog – Page 54 – Amherst Quilters Guild

May 22, 2012

Missed Monday

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Where did Monday go? Flew by with only laundry accomplished. Shouldn’t one get more done than that in a day? So what’s up with you? How does your garden grow? I’m into transplanting now, and taking the absolutely humungous Christmas cactus plants outdoors for the summer. I have one that came from a start my Nana gave me when I started my first apartment. It now is so large that I have to turn it on its side to get it through the door. That was in the fall when I brought it in for the winter. I’m going to take it outdoors today-if it has grown much over the winter, I’ll be in trouble. It weighs a ton-I know that from attempting to vacuum up the fallen blossoms behind the plant stand. I may have to call for reinforcements from next door to help […]

May 20, 2012

bloggers’ quilt festival

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I love surfing the internet for quilt “stuff”. You can find everything you’re looking for and more. So many quilters are getting into blogging these days-like us. There are even online quilt shows to visit, where you can vote for viewers choice, favorite baby quilt, favorite… just like a “real” show.You can’t fondle the fabric or visit the vendors (but you can follow their links to the online shops!), or chat with the other quilters, but you can look at a quilt for as long as you want without feeling that you’re holding up the traffic and you can zoom in for a close look. Here’s a link to a bloggers’ quilt festival for you. Enjoy it at your leisure, maybe we can aspire to doing something like this in the future. And be sure to visit our guild site and look at the photos […]

May 18, 2012

Baptist Fans

Hello all, ME again. I’ve wanted to try quilting the Baptist fan motif on a quilt of mine. I love this stitch pattern. It’s so old-fashioned looking (that’s a good thing in my book). Originally it was hand quilted with no marking. Amish quilters would just swing the arc of their lower arm and trace a mark with the needle tip. Once they got that line of stitching established they would just echo it several times using the needle length as a guide for spacing the arcs. Sounds easy enough when stitching by hand. However I want to do this by machine. I did quilt this once with my walking foot. I would trace around a template for the first arc and then used my walking foot’s spacer bar “thingie” to evenly space the echoes. What a pain in the patootie that was! Lots of maneuvering of the quilt top […]

May 17, 2012

It was worth it

Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Finished up reading the most recent issue of Quilters Newsletter (J/J 2012) and was very interested in the article about Robyne Melia’s crazy quilt. The photos are amazing. Robyne started embroidering the blocks for the quilt in 1992. She used a grandmother’s fan for the borders and heavily hand stitched each one. She said she planned to try historic embroidery designs from a book by Dorothy Bond Crazy Quilt Stitches. Well, as she progressed the quilt plan grew. She added a cross stitched horse as the center. Then she thought more pictorial blocks would be nice. Maybe a new stitch to learn. It eventually finished at 75″ square. After finishing the quilt in 1996 she entered it into a quilt show. Although she had no intention of selling it, she was required to put a price on it. She wanted viewers to understand and appreciate […]

May 16, 2012

gray days are great for quilting

Hello again, it’s ME. Just came in from running some errands. Having a bit of lunch, then have to get busy. It has stopped raining, but looks like it might start again. So…can’t mow the lawn, can’t weed the flower beds, probably could do a bit of transplanting but don’t want to, can’t weed-whack so what’s a girl to do? Why quilt a bit of course!! Lori and I got together last evening over dinner and planned our demo for guild night. We’re bringing the Accu-quilt machine to show any newbies how it works and explain this great resource we have for our members. It hasn’t gotten much use of late, so we’re hoping to re-generate interest in it. With the onset of quilters using die cutting machines like the Accu-quilt Go machine, perhaps there will be more interest. We, as the guild, own quite a few very useful dies […]

May 14, 2012

Make It Monday

Hello all, it’s ME again. The brownies were a hit yesterday. Very rich! About 1/2 of a regular brownie size and a bit of vanilla ice cream and you’re good to go. Definitely a keeper recipe. I’m going to write it up, and figure out how to start a recipe file. Oh! I’ll just send it to the file over at our website for now, and get to the file here eventually. Finished my first block for Loosey Goosey. Not real happy with the slight hole at the center, but I think when I take all the paper off the back, I’ll be able to fix it up with some steam. I’m leaving the papers on until I attach this block to something else. I’ve used all sorts of scraps with no regard for grain so I’m sure my block’s edges would get really wonky if I take the paper […]

May 12, 2012

Saturday chores

Hello everyone, it’s ME. I don’t know why Saturday still is the day I do a lot of the typical household chores. Now that I’m retired, I could do them any day I want. It must be programmed into my genes now after all those years. I was elected to bring the dessert to the Mother’s Day get together tomorrow. by request, I am making a recipe from the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook Food from My Frontier. I am a sucker for cookbooks with big color photos, as this one is. She could give Paula Deen a run for her money as far as rich ingredients go, as well. Not every recipe has a pound of butter in it though. The dessert I am making is called Knock You Naked Brownies. I just took them out of the oven, and the bubbling caramel, chocolate chip gooiness (sp?) in the corners is […]

May 11, 2012

fabulous Friday

Good morning all, Mary Ellen here. Came across this article on my daily stroll around blogland. Love to read about youngsters getting into quilting, and this one didn’t learn it from a family member or friend. How could we as a guild reach out to young ones who would like to learn or, maybe like Chloe in the story, who don’t know yet that they would like to learn? Have you discovered Pinterest yet? It is really a fabulous site/group on the internet. On one of the pinboards for Quiltmaker magazine I found these quilts made from one of the patterns that Anita Grossman Solomon will be teaching at seminar. Found this there too. If the first plate said “quilt” it would be my thought exactly. Waaaaaaaaaay too much good stuff to spend hours looking at-so if you decide to explore pinterest, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m going […]

May 10, 2012

seminar spotting

Hello all, ME here. Did my weekly grocery run yesterday. Instead of going to the small Tops near me (where I can buy just the basics), I went to a Wegman’s. I’ve avoided Weggies lately, since I find I buy way too much “fun” but not “necessary” stuff when I shop there. I picked up 2 quilting magazines. (Which group do they fall into?) The first is the summer issue of Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks. Both of our seminar teachers for this fall have blocks featured in this issue. Beth Ferrier’s block is called Butterfly Dance-a lovely appliqued piece. Anita Grossman Solomon’s is called Ginger and Fred, an interesting and versatile pieced block. I’ll bet there is a quick trick for cutting it as well. Maybe she’ll share it at seminar. One of our future teachers, Bonnie Hunter for 2014, has a block in the issue too. Her block is called […]

May 10, 2012

the continuing war on scraps

Hello all, ME here. Just taking a lunch break before finishing up the binding on an eye spy quilt. What is an eye spy quilt? My definition is that an eye spy quilt is a quilt made of a simple pattern, featuring a collection of novelty fabrics in the blocks. I try not to repeat any fabrics, so for me they are also charm quilts (the original definition which is a quilt which doesn’t repeat any fabric). I also make sure that there is at least one image for every letter of the alphabet. There are lots of games that the recipient (usually a child) can play with their quilt. Since the blocks are made of many different fabrics, my eye spy quilts have a very scrappy look. I like to finish them off with a scrappy binding. Whenever I have a length of binding remaining after completing a “normal” […]