Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Progress is Good!!!

Joy has been working on the back for her Crumb quilt.  Working and working, until...

She decided that the "back" that she was working on really didn't want to be the back for this particular quilt.  In fact, it may want to be the FRONT of an entirely NEW quilt!!!

Here's what came together instead:


The only problem is that this back is about 26" too narrow for the Crumb quilt.  :o(

If YOU think that you have some "little, light" prints that would work with the assembled portion, please contact Joy.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Bag-making Success!

Ruth shared some pictures of a recent bag-making project and wow, did it turn out cute! This was the second bag she's made using instructions from a bag-making "class" the NT group held in 2013.

Our group enjoys sharing what we know with each other so sometimes we ask someone in the group to demo a technique, or in this case, teach their way of making a bag. The particular pattern is a "Britt Bag" aka Britt's go-to bag making process which allows for many possible variations.

But back to the bag!  Ruth and her granddaughter collaborated on this bag - with her granddaughter acting as "design consultant" while she was there for a visit.  This meant she chose the fabrics and decided where they should go and then Ruth did the sewing.  Since they didn't get the project finished during the visit, Ruth was so pleased to hear that her granddaughter declared herself VERY happy with the final result when it arrived in the mail.  Yay!


Didn't she choose some great fabrics? (click photos to enlarge)
  Love the two inner pockets -very handy

I bet this will get lots of love and use. Great job you two!

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Tuesday meeting = more eye candy

It's been a couple of quilt & fabric-filled days!

Monday's DOQ guild meeting involved a presentation by Kevin Womack on shibori fabric dyeing.  Wow, did he have some beautiful samples to show. Ruth - you would have LOVED this talk. I kept thinking how sorry I was she missed it.  I took a lot of notes because I suspect many of us will be itching to try out this technique at our next dye party.  I was too busy drooling over the fabric to take pictures. And yes, some fabric came home with me which may turn out to be the background for a new art quilt...

Tuesday we had the NT evening meeting at the library. Usually we meet at the end of the month but due to availability issues for the meeting space, we held it early.  Despite meeting this past Saturday, we still all managed to have new things to show!

It's a short meeting but we all managed to make a little headway on our projects. Here's what we were working on:


Joy brought her huge (and hugely awesome) crumb quilt. As you can see we have a lot of room to spread out.  :)   The crumb quilt has been a top for a couple of years and it's time to forge ahead and get it quilted and on the bed. During the meeting Joy finalized her a plan for a scrappy back. It will be a terrific quilt - one with lots of memories already in it as some of the scraps come from previous projects and friends' fabric leftovers.


Here's a bit of detail (don't forget you can click on the photos to enlarge)


Joy also brought two completed baby quilts. The mother requested the colors and Joy came through for her with very lovely and calming quilts. She was just working out one last detail - the addition of the babies' initials.


Carol - who stated there would be no more hand quilting in her future after she finished her UNC quilt was...wait for it.... hand quilting a new project! LOL  She decided she needed a new project to keep her hands busy during football game watching.  Her halloween quilt is the perfect solution.


Isn't it cute?


Margaret was working on a beautiful batik project - love these colors! At the rate she gets things done it may even be a completed top by the time the next monthly meeting rolls around. If not, it will be worth the wait!

I have some fabrics in similar colors set aside to be a quilt and this had me itching to get started on it.  But for now I'm being good and working on projects with a bit more pressing deadlines...


such as a quilt for a soon-to-arrive niece! This is from a pattern by Amanda Murphy, with a few changes. Hmm, have I EVER managed to follow a pattern without tweaking it? I doubt it. None of this is sewn together yet and I have a few more scrappy triangles to make, but I got a start on cutting out the background fabric.

That's all the news for now.  :)

Sunday, September 14, 2014

9/13/14 - NT Meeting at Margaret's


There were 14 members present at Saturday's meeting.  Thank you to Margaret for hosting.  Thanks to all those who brought food to share.

UPCOMING MEETINGS:
9/16 at the Library 6 pm
10/11 or 10/18 Work Day at Palmer's Grove Community Bldg. (hosted by Helena) or Cheryl B.'s Studio
10/28 at the Library 6 pm
11/8 or 11/15 Work Day at Palmer's Grove Community Bldg. (hosted by Helena) or Cheryl B.'s Studio
12/13 Holiday Party at Carol's (Correct me, if I'm wrong) 10 am
1/10 or 1/17 at Ruth's 10 am

SHOW AND TELL:
Joy brought her Dresden De-Lite (in progress)  It was inspired by a quilt seen on-line, but it's her own take on it.  (Sorry no picture captured of this one!)

Cheryl K. showed a photo of her Dad's 90th Birthday quilt (sorry also missed a pic of this quilt - it was very special!) and showed us the quilt that she has been working on for a friend. Cheryl is pleased with the quilting on this quilt and feels like it's her best work yet. Congrats Cheryl!
(click on any photos to enlarge them)



Linda took the 30's quilt off her bed, washed it and brought it since so many of us complained that we hadn't seen it finished.  Thanks, Linda!  Gayle did the quilting and Candy did the binding (what a good friend!).



**Remember:  Done is done. It doesn't matter how!!!

Linda was working on the binding of "Autumn's Regret."  She may even be finished with it by the time this posts. Hopefully we will get a picture next time!

Cheryl B. showed us the Churn Dash client restoration quilt she has been working on (no picture).  She told us about the quilt class that she did this summer for 3 of her piano students.  She taught them how to make a Wonky 9-Patch and she made one, too.  (I'm calling it Bedazzled because of the sparkly fabric.) Stokley the cat seems to approve!


Next she brought out the Whole Cloth quilt that she made with $5 fabric and quilted on her long-arm machine.  Gayle gave her a standing ovation.  It's beautiful!!!




Here's a close up


Margaret shared her Lesson Quilt (made to learn how to use the Creative Grids House Ruler.)  The batik fabrics all came from stash!  Using the accompanying book, she did a lesson and made 2 blocks, did another lesson and made 2 more blocks.  Continued in that fashion until the quilt top was complete.  This was so much more striking than captured in the photo.



**Britt asked for a lesson on the "flower block" at our upcoming Work Day.

Next Margaret brought out her Layer Cake quilt made from 4-Patch blocks and 10" squares cut in half.


Helena had a TELL...She made it to the meeting, again!!!  :o))

Britt brought her award-winning quilt, Vista, since Candy and Ella weren't able to make it to the quilt show.


(She also brought a strippy block for Margaret to add to her Bonnie Hunter class quilt project, Jamestown Landing).  Fabrics should be lighter than a paper bag according to Bonnie's instructions for background fabrics, but Britt is limiting hers to all white-on-white fabrics.)  She also announced the start of this blog for the group so we will have a record of all the terrific quilts the group makes.

Ruth had Show and Tell.  Hooray!!!  She showed off her completed "Britt Bag" started when the group had a bag making day following Britt's favorite "pattern"   (I use that term loosely as we had numerous spontaneous -and terrific- bag variations!)  Oops no picture, but it's wonderful.  She also had a TELL about her granddaughter's lime and turquoise bag that they worked on together this summer.  J. LOVES it!!! Unfortunately, Ruth misplaced the photo on her iPad. Hopefully we can share that at another time.

And, if that wasn't extraordinary enough, she also brought along her nearly completed Autumn Batik Jacket that she added couched embellishments to the front pieces with yarn she purchased at the Fayetteville Symposium.  She's aiming for completion by the end of the month.  You CAN do it!!!

Here's a bit of the terrific couching. And the colors in real life are sooo lovely - excuse the poor photos!


Ella also got bitten by Candy's "couching bug" and borrowed Candy's wall hanging to create one of her own done in purple and green.  At Dee Dee's urging, she added half-circles at the bottom of the piece.  (Nice call, Dee Dee!)


She also brought the Big Round Robin quilt top from her group in Texas.  They finished the top to wall hanging size, but Ella decided it was so fantastic she needed it to be bed sized and added a number of borders.  She warned that she was bringing it now because it's "too big to bring out of the house once it's quilted."  (We'll see... I might even have to go smuggle it out! Sooo gorgeous!)


Kirsten shared the picture of G.'s Dragon Quilt.  He loves it so much she couldn't get it away from him to bring for Show and Tell!  LOL  She also showed how far she's gotten on the quilting of her Dogwood Quilt. Kirsten said she looked at photos of real flowers, branches, and leaves for quilting inspiration, as well as how other quilters have quilted this pattern.


Check out the back to see some more of the quilting.


 Last, she brought out her blocks from her Smith Mountain Morning class with Bonnie Hunter done in reds and yellows.  (Garnet and Gold for FSU.)  This pattern used a Tri-Recs ruler. We can't wait to see it finished. Kirsten has each block kitted up and organized in baggies so that she can work on it when she has a spare minute to sew.


We welcomed Candy back from three months of travel (lucky gal!).  In sewing news, she had a TELL about "sausage" pillow cases.  Fast, fast, fast!  And, a TELL about the designer fabric that she DIDN'T buy on her Scandinavian trip this summer.  It was $36/meter ON SALE!!!  :o((  Talk about sticker shock.

Candy showed a quilt and had Margaret bring out her "twin" quilt top. Both were made from Paula Nadlestern fabrics that they bought during one of our yearly trips to Mary Jo's Cloth Store.  The quilts are the same, but different.  Gayle quilted Candy's quilt and Candy shared her disappointment with the scale of her $3/yard backing fabric from Fabric.com.  It can be a challenge to tell scale when buying online, but most of the group thought it was perfect!


And another TELL about the donation quilt that she is working on.  It's almost done, but not quite.  Maybe next time, Candy!

Gayle told us about her love affair with one of Sara's quilts.  It brought on a wave of book borrowing and then the realization that she was NEVER going to make one of these quilts.  It's a miniature Double Wedding Ring quilt that Sara ultimately gave to Gayle who finished it with hand quilting and bias binding.  Aren't quilting friends the best???   She shared it with us today, along with her applique quilt top from the book Beautiful Botanicals - she is now hand embroidering outlines along the shapes.  It really pops the appliques and her background fabric had many of us exclaiming over it (and hoping to track some down).




Dee Dee showed off the quilt that she (finally) made for HERSELF!!!  She pieced it 3 years ago and recently quilted it on Sara's long arm machine.  After making so many quilts to give away she ended up with a real beauty!


It's her Summer Quilt and she has also pieced her Winter Quilt.  (We ALL want the pattern!!!)  It's done in purple, blue, and green and is made from a pattern called Field Greens.


After all that show and tell we were hungry and headed to a table overflowing with yummy food. We won't torture you with all the goodies you missed if you weren't there.  ;)   Hopefully the feast for your eyes of quilty goodness is more than enough to satisfy you!  Please excuse the photo quality, next time we'll get a bit more high tech than a camera phone, lol.

Until next time...
Happy Quilting!



Welcome to the Nimble Thimbles' blog!  

The Nimble Thimbles are a group of quilters who enjoy getting together regularly to share our quilting obsession adventures. We love to celebrate, help and inspire each other - and consider the resulting accumulation of many UFOs a small price to pay! We've been meeting for about 8 fun-filled years and enjoy every minute of it. This blog is a record of our activities, friendship and the beautiful quilts that result. Check back for more info soon!