Here are some cute small quilts that Theresa made. The alphabet blocks are embroidered in red pearl cotton.

I spent the past week on Mackinaw Island inside the Grand Hotel learning more about piecing and accuracy from the best instructor out there, Bonnie Hunter. I took 3 classes, Emerald City, Pumpkin Patch and Straights of Mackinaw, so basically I was in a seat in her class the whole week!

The biggest take away was that accuracy begins from the very moment you cut into the fabric. It’s when you check your seam allowance before you start sewing the first seams, and it’s about measuring to make sure your’ piecing measures what it should after you press it open.

Here are the blocks I finished from each class.

The Grand Hotel is an incredible place. The food was amazing and the service was top notch.

We also ate at the Gate House down the hill from the Grand Hotel which is owned by the same family. There we didn’t have to dress up for dinner but still enjoyed great meals. Since this was the first week the Grand was open the island was not as busy as in the summer. It was a trip well worth taking and I hope to go again sometime. Now I’m back home, back to work tomorrow and will be cooking, cleaning, no mints on the pillow and doing all things for myself again, but I will remember staying at The Grand Hotel. 😉

Happy Quilting

This was my first time at the Quilter 2 Quilter sale. I was going to share a table with Martha but we soon found out we brought too much for one table. I lucked out and there was one table left we could rent. Now all our goods would somehow make it on display.

I had spent a few days preparing for this. My legs and hands were killing me from standing and cutting fabrics. I even pressed my fabric so it would look nice, because fabric that has been folded up gets pretty wrinkled. My goal was to let go of items that I would never have time to use, complete, or I have used and no longer need.

If you quilt you also know that fabric is acquired from other sources that you cannot turn down but it doesn’t always have a place in your stash. Some of that had to be shared with others.

It was clearly a one persons trash is another treasure situation. I say trash lovingly because I really didn’t see any trash there but even at the end of the sale there was a vintage Singer sewing machine in cabinet that was left for anyone that wanted it. Her trash, but what a treasure!

There were customers waiting at the door. When they let everyone in it was a fabric frenzy. Around noon I had a moment to snap a few pics of the shoppers. Before the sale started we were allowed to shop. The bottom pic shows my booty from the sale. I sold probably 2/3rds of what I brought with me. It was great to know someone else would put the items to good use. I picked up some nice things that I actually needed. It was well worth doing. The only downside was even though I had a chair I didn’t sit much and my feet are paying the price for hours of standing. Neuropathy is no joke. Oh and the best part was seeing lots of people I know! Many of the guild came and people I knew from The Village Quilt Shop and some of my quilting clients came. I hope everyone found some great items to take home with them.

Jean had some help from the kids coloring crosses for this quilt. She chose variegated thread & Hobbs batting. This will be hung at the church. There is no pattern, Jean just whipped this up. 🙂

This is Cathy’s Woodland Animals quilt. The quilting design is Square Dance B2B, white thread & Hobbs White batting. It’s a cutie!

Due to a last minute cancellation, I’m joining my friend Gail on her guilds retreat this long weekend. I’ll be gone today until Sunday. I’ll be home on Monday if you want to schedule a drop off.

I’ll be working on my ‘Trophy Wife’ quilt this weekend. Here’s a photo of that pattern. It’s a Sharon Blackmore pattern from my Canadian Quilters Online Group.

Here are a few new masculine designs I’m adding to the collection.

Have a great weekend and enjoy opening day!

I think the block photos I’ve shown probably look like I could just press the issues out of these blocks but maybe I should have shown the back sides. There are seam allowances from 1/8″ to 1/2″ in width. I also found that the bobbin case (not knowing what the machine was) needed to be loosened up and or the top tension tightened. The bobbin thread is basically laying on the fabric and not knitted into the fabric.

I feel better now about taking these apart, they would not hold up well with the thread like that. Not knowing my grandmother, I think it would be a lot of fun to show her all the cool notions we have now for accuracy. Would she be happy I’m tearing her blocks apart? I have no idea.

Here’s what I do remember, she really didn’t like me walking on the edge of the stone flower box and would come out with a broom and scare us off it. She always had windmill cookies in a cracker tin. She had a mohair sofa. She wore an apron. The carpet was black with red & pink roses. I know it’s not much and I can’t be sure the memories are even mine. I hope she would like that I love to quilt and I sure got the love for sugar gene. I may have gotten her shape as well, hard to say when she wore a duster.

Last night I took out 6 more blocks while watching Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson in Highway Men on Netflix. Great movie!