September Meeting

The Sassies met at Mozelle's house on September 13, which incidentally was the four-month anniversary of my kidney transplant. I'm doing really well, and I feel great. I am very blessed to have received this gift of renewed life.

We had 12 members present, and here are their pictures (except mine; I forgot to have someone snap me).  As you can see, everyone was hard at work. Mary Ann was our hostess for the evening, and she is shown standing in front of the blocks that were pieced for that night's project. The block consisted of a square with small triangles sewn to opposite corners. When the blocks are arranged in the proper orientation, you get the effect of a star.

Here is Diane Baker. You can't read the sign on the bulletin board behind her, but it's a picture of fabric and scissors and it reads "Fabric Slut"

Diane Purcell and Susan

 Essie taking a break.

 Debbie, Mozelle and Meg cutting squares and arranging the blocks.

 Joyce busy sewing.

 Marcia was doing hand work.

 Mary Ann supervising the night's project.

 Sylvia, Debbie and part of Mozelle, as welll as the back of Susan's and Diane P's heads.

Mary Ann provided the snacks as well as the project, and the coconut bread was to die for, as were the lemon-flavored cupcakes. Thank you, Mary Ann!

We had only one birthday, and that was new/returning member Sharon. Unfortunately, she was not able to make it. Sharon, don't be too shy to ask for your birthday fat quarters when you come to the next meeting.

SHOW AND TELL

I am amazed at the productivity and creativity that shows up, month after month.

Diane Baker first showed us a framed piece of art that her granddaughter Kindsay drew when she was 8 years old.

Diane then translated that drawing into fabric, and made a quilt of it. The picture does not do it justice, but she included all the details, including the jewelry on the little girls, the lady bugs flying above the tree, and a bird flying in the distance. Notice the wonderfully expressive face of the sun! The chains of the swings are actual chains with tiny links!



Essie made a delightful little baby quilt, which she finished with prairie points. They add a lot of color and texture, and I'm sury the lucky baby will enjoy playing with the prairie points.



This is another of Essie's quilt. She's so productive with her time and energy! This one forms multiple secondary patterns, depending on which colors you focus on. I love the bright colors! Pink and black are so "in" just now.

And this is the back of the pink and black quilt. Essie pieced the back together, thereby making good use of pieces that were otherwise too small for backing.



Meg had lots of show and tell because she decided a couple of weeks ago to complete some of her UFO's. When you finish a UFO, do you call it a FO?

This newly finished quilt is one that Meg calls her "ugly fabric" quilt. None of us thought the fabrics were ugly! It was agreed, however, that it is more of a man's quilt. I believe this is one of several she is planning on giving away to nieces and nephews at her upcoming family reunion.

 This one, another possible reunion giveaway, is from a pattern called "Sliced Twice, Isn't It Nice." The reds and greens would sort of make it look like a Christmas theme, but the blue fabrics add some punch and take it out of the seasonal category.

This, of course, is a drunkard's path quilt. Kind of a funny quilt for a teetotaler to make, don't you think? And how would a recipient feel about getting one? "Are you trying to tell me something?"

And another drunkard's path, this one with a white background.

After she made the large white drunkard's path, Meg had enough blocks to make this small quilt. I told her that little quilt would be suitable as a gift for a little drunkard--hint hint! But she didn't agree!

Here Meg is shown holding up the table runner made from some fabric that Estela found at a garage sale. It was a striped fabric and Susan had found a pattern for cutting striped fabric in such a way that you get the effect of parallel lines that meet at a point. Susan has made several of these runners and showed us how they are cut, but of course none of us remembered how to do it, so we asked Susan to cut as many as she could from the garage sale fabric and she was gracious enough to do it. I want to say that we got maybe six or seven runners out of it, plus some small hexagonal place mats, also shown below.

Marcia, not to be outdone by sister Meg, had two beautiful quilts to show.  This one is a courthouse steps quilt, which she made from a bag of strips that she bought at our recent auction. Way to go, Marcia; that's really recyling/reusing/repurposing.

I believe this is a donation quilt that Marcia made. The tartan plaids add a lot of pizzazz to this little quilt.

In July, a group of us got together at Meg's house on a Saturday morning to do some fabric dying. Sylvia used her hand-dyed fabrics to make this stunning stained glass quilt. The colors are strikingly rich. The mottling of the dyes makes it look just like stained glass that has light shining from behind it, doesn't it?

Joyce made this bright quilt with all the hot new colors--black, pink, and lime green. I love the piano key border. It takes some pretty precise piecing to make one of those borders and have it lie straight. Joyce quilted this herself.

Good show, ladies! Looking forward to next month's show and tell!

August 2012 Meeting

I missed this meeting, so Lola Jordan was kind enough to take the pictures for me. I'm afraid that because I was not there I am not able to add any comments about the quilts. Here goes!

A paper pieced New York Beauty-style quilt, in absolutely stunning colors!

Beautiful Dresden Plate quilt.

Back of the Dresden Plate Quilt

Looks like Marcia's been really busy. From the pictures I received, it looks as if only two people had show and tell. Can that be true? We usually have so many lovely quilts to look at! I love the blue and yellow drunkard's path variation. Of course, Mozelle would say "that figures!"

Returning member Sharon Hemsley brought show and tell also! Glad she kept quilting even though she wasn't able to join us for a few months. Welcome back, Sharon!

This cake is absolutely fantastic! That took a lot of work, and I'm sure it was as delicious as it looks. Sorry I didn't make it to that meeting! Debbie was the August hostess--thank you for bringing the goodies!

July 2012 Meeting



The NW Arkansas Sassy Quilters met on July 12 at Mozelle's house. Everyone except Cyndi was present. In honor of Independence Day, Diane Purcell gave a little "trunk showing" of her collection of patriotic quilts.

MINI TRUNK SHOW

This last quilt that Diane brought was given to her. We guessed at the name of the pattern--Orange Peel? Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? Neither one.  Both the Orange Peel and Robbing Peter have the "curved" patches, but neither Orange Peel nor Robbing Peter have the four patch in the center. Give up? I'm posting the name of the block at the bottom of this page, just to tease you.

GROUP PROJECT

In keeping with the theme of Independence Day, Diane P brought paper piecing patterns and a good selection of red, white and blue fabrics for the Sassies to use in making blocks to be sewn into a donation quilt. Paper piecing takes a little getting used to, so some of the Sassies who had done it before teamed up with Sassies who weren't as familiar with it, and together they learned from each other. No one finished a complete block, so everyone took the block home to complete. Please remember to bring it back when it's finished so we'll have enough.  Here's a picture of the pattern that Diane brought.

Here's a picture of just a few of the red, white and blue fabrics that Diane P brought for the Sassies to use.

SHOW AND TELL

After we sewed on the paper pieced blocks for about 30 minutes, we went back for snacks and show and tell, which is always a favorite with everyone.

Estela's Sampler Quilt (queen sized) and one of two pillow shams she made to go with it.

New member Marcia Gilbreath made this baby quilt using a variation of the "stack and whack" quilt pattern. Multiple prints of the same print of fabric were cut into 4 squares, then the squares were rotated in different directions before being sewn back together. It's the rotation of the squares that gives each block a unique look.

This is Marcia's "round robin" that was done for her by her quilt group in Texas. She made the center block using applique and machine sewing, then her friends added rows around the central panel.

This is also Marcia's quilt, but this one is a "row robin," in which each quilter in the group makes a row in the same theme and color palette. This quilt used 30's style fabrics in pastel prints--they work really well for the kinds of patterns used--nosegay, Sunbonnets, butterflies, flowers, etc.

 

Marcia made this White House Steps quilts using fabric that her sister Meg gave her. Of course, Meg had made quilts for her other siblings, but Marcia had to make her own!

Marcia's and Meg's mom loved the Snail's Trail (or Monkey Wrench) pattern. Meg has it painted on her sewing room floor. Marcia's mom made this quilt for Marcia, who loved it so much that it wore out. So Marcia took it apart, salvaged the blocks made by mom, and pieced it into a new quilt, which she loves just as much!

 Meg finished this little wall hanging which she had started several years ago. It's a Christmas star pattern using log cabin blocks.

Unlike the very traditional Christmas Star shown above, this quilt looks more like an art quilt, with its random arrangement of triangles and bright colors that just pop out of the white background. Meg saw a picture of this quilt in a magazine, designed the pattern, and pieced it. The binding is a striped fabric that picks up on the colors of the triangles.

Susan (peeking around from behind, at the top) shows off this gorgeous red and white pieced stars quilt. The white starts pop out easily, but look carefully and you can see red starts surrounded by white stars.

 Notice the woven fabric bucket or basket that Susan made. It's got a drawstring cord that's used to close it.

 Susan is shown holding up a "lovey" for some lucky kid. She took a teddy bear, cut it in two between the arms and the legs, then attached the opposite corners of a fleece square to the top and to the feet. It's meant for the child to cover herself with the fleece square, while cuddling with the teddy's head, and having the teddy's feet down by the child's feet. How clever is that!?!

 Joyce made this yellow and turquoise Delectable Mountains quilt, and told us that some of the fabric she used in it was very thin, so she had to back it with a second fabric to give it the body that it needed to go with the other fabrics. Very clever way to solve a problem!

 Essie made this quilt using a muted palette. For some of the blue (may look gray in this picture), she used a chambray fabric, which she said was all she could find that would go with the other colors. But who doesn't enjoy the fun of searching for just the right fabric to go others that you've already got?

Diane P took some blocks embroidered by her mom and pieced them into this table runner. The theme of the runner is birds, butterflies, and flowers. Diane noticed that the fabric she used for sashing and borders in this runner is the same pattern (but in green) as the fabric that Essie used in her quilt shown above!

DONATION QUILTS

One of Essie's donation quilts has been quilted and bound by Meg, so it's ready to stay with Mozelle, who is keeping all the donation quilts until it's time to select our recipients.

This is Sheila's donation quilt, which she turned in to Meg for quilting. This one was made using one of the jelly roll strip sets that we cut up last year.


THIS MONTH'S BIRTHDAYS
This month the birthday girls were Diane Baker and Joyce Snodgrass. Here they've just received their birthday baskets of fat quarters. It's great to get new fabric!

And the name of Diane's red and white quilt? It's a variation on the Melon Patch! Here's a picture of a quilt I found on the internet bearing that name. Note that the curved patches (which are called melon seeds) are set diagonally, and are connected through a four patch, just like Diane's quilt.

Below is a picture of an Orange Peel Quilt (sorry for the poor image quality). The curved patches are arranged diagonally, but there are no connecting four patches.

Below is a picture of a Robbing Peter to Pay Paul quilt. Note that the curved shapes are bi-color and are set vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally, and there are no connecting four patches. A Robbing Peter quilt looks more like a cathedral windows quilt.