The New Year is in the Bag!

The Shasta Lily Quilt Guild met yesterday, and I led a workshop to make an easy/peasy Fat Quarter Bag.  We were all so glad to see each other, it's amazing we got anything done for the chatter in the room.  I think fun was had by all, and most of us came away if not finished, with at least the confidence to complete the project.  There were some dynamite combinations.  It also looks great with the lining turned out to make the handle casings.  Delores was working on her third bag, and hers was a Monet Beauty, with piecing AND pockets.  Excellent work, all of you!

The Shasta Guild now has a website too, it's great!  No more searching thru my messy desk for the last newsletter to tell me where to go or what I need when I get there!  Thanks, Wendy!  My friends can go to http://www.shastalily.org/ to check it out.  The Guild is off and running in 2011, we have such great plans!

For all my followers (all 8 of you) I promise to post to my blog more often this year, now that I can remember how to log in.

First Saturday - June 2010

Yesterday was First Saturday at Tater Patch Quilts, Merrill Oregon.  It's a monthly party to find out what's new in the shop and the quilt world.  We drive from Weed and Mt. Shasta (~70 miles), but it's well worth it.  We laugh, admire and sometimes buy new fabrics and tools, and spend a day with 80 or so of our closest friends (even if you don't know all their names).

The Show and Tell portion of the meeting is always so inspirational, it buoys my spirit and energizes me.  I think that's my favorite part of any gathering of quilters.  I had been in kind of a funk as far as inspiration for a couple of weeks.  I want to make two small auction quilts for my two guilds upcoming events, but I couldn't quite get with it.  Yesterday at First Saturday, I found the missing inspiration for the Shasta Lily Guild silent auction piece for the Labor Day quilt show, and the Flying Geese Quilt Guild  bi-annual auction event that is happening soon.   I got all the fabric I need and will cut them out today, sew them together tomorrow at Quilters by the Lake, and get ready to prepare the applique part.  I will tell more about this project later in the month when I have something to show you.

Anyway, sometimes it takes outside stimulus to get you back on track and I am charged up again.  What is your "trigger" to inspire you on new projects?  I really want to know.

Guild Retreat is spelled FUN!

I have been missing in action for two days.  Here is why.  Our Shasta Lily Quilt Guild held a two day retreat this week and finally, I was able to attend both days.  Like day camp for quilters.  We all brought our own projects and got lots done.  Some of my To Do items got knocked off my May list, hooray!

I put buttons on a baby sweater I just finished...now I have a gift for the next baby shower I go to.  I am in the process of making the matching socks before I box it up.  I like to knit at night when I am relaxing, it keeps my hands limber.







I finished the pillowcases I wanted to make.  The main fabric is a map of France, this may be the only way I get to travel to that country.  I actually chose it because I like the colors and it matches my new sheets.  The map is the bonus.  Thanks Joanna Figueroa from Fig Tree for such beautiful fabric.

I also finished making the top for the EQZ block exchange from 2004(?), my basket blocks.  The area with the white vertical strip will get a chunky stem,  and 3-D flowers and leaves once the quilt is quilted.  This was my stretch toward asymmetrical.  I plan to machine quilt it so I can show it at the Labor Day quilt show up here in Mt. Shasta.  Helen C, I found your block in a bag in the box, it is featured in the upper right hand corner border.  I almost missed it, my sample block will go on the back for a label.  Thanks girls, I love it now!  I can't wait to finish it.


I also got some other little tasks accomplished, too numerous to mention here..Ahhh, such a sense of satisfaction.  Good times, good friends, and pizza, what could be better?