Last Quilt Guild Meeting and New Etsy Item

We had a great Quilt Guild Meeting earlier this month, as usual.  Our speaker was Gail Garber, a wonderful quilter, and one of the founders of Hawks Aloft, a raptor conservation group in New Mexico.  She gave a great presentation, but most of what she showed us was on overhead projector, so I don't have a lot of photos.

Took this shot of the group (albeit the backs of half our heads, about half were behind us) mostly for a memory since I am leaving in a few months,.

This was a quilt made by a group of her students, as a raffle to benefit Hawks Aloft.  I bought five raffle tickets for the December drawing...wish me luck!

Most of the quilts Gail makes are either geometrics or freeform with lots of flying geese like the one shown on the left.  She also, however, has some more realistic themes like the Navajo maiden on the right.

A week or so after the Guild Meeting I had to go into Cactus Quilts to get some template plastic, and saw this lovely quilt, so decided I would share it as well.

The template plastic is for my sunflower-bee ornaments, but I have also added a new item to the Etsy shop (to check out my shop, click on the LINK), a sunflower-bee potholder.

Projects Recently Finished

I am a slow quilter/embroiderer/seamstress.  Slow, slow, slow! :-)  But I finally get things done.  When our nephew and his wife announced they were headed to the wife's kids for Christmas and New Year and wouldn't be home till Jan 6th, I realized I could send their Christmas gift late.  I hadn't gotten it done in time to mail it before then.  Our nephew used to live in Alaska, and would send me pictures of bears he came across.  I've never met his wife (they live in CA) but had been told she loves owls.  So, this is the set of placemats I made:

The bear and owl are done with my own version of "thread painting"...a combo of applique and thread painting that I am enjoying lately.

Before Christmas also we heard that a dear friend back in Virginia had had another stroke (her third) and was in rehab.  I decided to make her a bed jacket.  It isn't much for someone who has done so much for us, but I wanted to send her something.  She loves Japanese motif since she lived there for several years, and I had some 5" squares with Asian designs on them, plus found some beautiful screen printed panels (the larger rectangle you see below is one) that I bought from etsy and wanted to use:

Quilt Documentation

Yesterday was the Quilt Documentation.  They do it twice a year, and I've missed the last two.  For my first documentation post click HERE.  The quilts are examined, described, their stories documented, and they are put on a national database.  A label is also attached to the quilt itself with it's computer database number, and the date it was documented.  It's wonderful to have a historical record!  They do it all over the country if you are interested in participating:

 This beautiful Double Wedding Ring quilt was made by one of my great-aunts (a sister to my great grandmother).  It had been purchased by my Mom to help defray medical expenses on another great-aunt who was very ill, and was given last year to my daughter who loved the quilt and asked her grandmother for it.

 It was photographed and examined and all the information will be placed in a national database.  The quilt was made approximately 1976-1979 (possibly a little earlier or later than that bracket of time) and cotton as well as synthetic fabrics were used, scraps I am sure owned by the maker from clothing items.  It is rose, brown & light blue with little touches of other colors on an off-white field.  The quilt was completely hand-pieced and hand-quilted.  It is treasured.

While there, a lady didn't have her camera with her to take pictures of her quilt so I offered to photograph it for her and send her the shots in an email.  She was very happy about my offer!  You aren't allowed generally to photograph the other quilts, unless you have permission like I did.  I saw many gorgeous quilts in the two hours I was there!



Theirs was also a family heirloom.

Also, here is my latest finish (just have to do the binding).  It's a wall hanging Christmas gift to my sis-in-law who loves baby ducks.  I posted this on my regular blog as well.  It's pieced and appliqued, with embroidery and fabric paint embellishments:

And a few of the "show and tell" items from the last Quilt Guild:

A beautiful top made by my friend Paulette...the picture can't do it justice.  It's really gorgeous!

This little girl made this quilt under the tutelage of her grandmother.  It will be entered into our Junior Division at the Quilt Show.  She was VERY cute showing it to all of us!

What I've been working on...

Christmas presents and blankets for two charities....

My offering for a Secret Santa gift at the Ladies church Christmas party...our theme was snowmen.

I based the table square I made off this line drawing I found on Pinterest.

This is an embroidered tea towel with crochet trim that I made for our daughter for Christmas.  Her kitchen is turquoise and red.

Fleece and flannel baby blankets for the Tohono O'Odham Children's Home.

One of the fleece  blankets (lined with the plaid shirt flannel on the back) made for the Homeless Veterans. My church donated tons of clothes, shoes, jackets, etc and also other blankets, some made and some bought.

The baby blanket I crocheted for the Children's Home (my church also donated clothing, diapers, etc)

The quilt square for the Christmas party at the Tucson Quilter's Guild last night..it isn't lying flat, sorry...we did a secret exchange, and I came home with a cute one with an owl on it!  The squares were also voted on, but mine didn't come in in the top four, unfortunately.

Here are a couple of photos from last night's party too...we had AMAZING food!  It was a potluck and I ate till I was miserable!!!!

These are all the exchange squares, up on the wall so we could vote on them.  Number 18 came in with first place. Number 1 came in second place, and I can't remember 3rd & 4th places.  Number 15 is the one I came home with.

While I'm at it, here are a couple of pictures from our church Ladies Christmas party:

You can see our snowman theme...the table square I made that is in the first photo of this series was for our secret gift exchange.

These wonderful crocheted snowmen were on each table, and happened to be the gift I won in the exchange!  Note the cute snowman toilet paper too...we all got one.