Like many quilters nationwide, a group of us from the Thumstall Quilt Guild got together to celebrate National Quilting Day on March 13 .    My husband asked me how the day started.  I had no idea – it’s always been a great excuse to get together with fellow quilters, work on some charity projects – and just plain have fun.

However, my curiosity was spiked so I went to the ‘net’ for the answer.  I found that in 1991, the National Quilting Association (NQA) designated the third Satrday in March as National Quilting Day.  It’s an opportunity to quilt with friends, work on service projects. quilt and  among other things – socialize .

We chose one of our favorite places to quilt – the Marcellus Library to celebrate the day.  The new facility has an all purpose room that is extremely well lit – fantastic for quilting!

The day was spent working on bibs for men and women at a local Alzheimer’s Association Daycare Program.

Bibs

By the time we’re done, we will have made 31.  These are so much better than the paper disposable ones that are normally used at health care facilities.  Our program chair came up with idea of adding a fabric yoke to a large towel. Easy to make and useful too. These should be relatively absorbent as well as comfortable for the patients.  We coordinated fabric from our own stash with the purchased towels.

To fill out the week Julie and I got together and cut fabric and assemble kits for the pieced sections of our guild’s 2011 raffle quilt.  Now we’ll each make two sections of the block to show when we distribute  the kits.

Ending out the week 4 of us got together for a full day of quilting and camaraderie.  I was able to finish the binding on two of my quilts for the quilt show’s silent auction and the challenge .   What a way to spend time- a whole day – just quilting and sharing stories.

In addition to quilting with friends, I was able to finish a quilt top for a Consortium project:  a quilt for an ALS patient..   (A family member of one of our Consortium members has just been diagnosed with the affliction also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease and she asked us to make quilts for the patients.)  I had been working on a disappearing 9-patch and thought this would be a perfect quilt for the project.

My plan for this week:

- prepare this quilt and my ‘Seasons’ quilt for quilting.  Let’s see how I do.

The snow is just about gone – This small pile, on my deck, really didn’t want to melt.  The entire weekend was gray, windy and cool -  two good days to spend inside quilting (as though there could be a day that wasn’t perfect for quilting!)  It’s really unusual for me to have a ‘full’ day to quilt – let alone two!

So to work I went and finished two table runners  that I had started Monday at the quilt-in at the Marcellus Library. Now I just have to hand sew the binding.    I like to finish the quilt  binding  on road trips.  We’ll be traveling to North Carolina at the end of April  and I’ll have my projects lined up to take with me.

I decided to finish up one of my UFOs while I was at it.  This is a table runner that I made two years ago at our annual Watson retreat.  It’s now quilted and the binding is attached.  Another ‘road trip’ project ready to go.

In addition I was able to quilt Delectable Mountains and the challenge for the guild’s quilt show is sandwiched and partially quilted.

All in all not a bad weekend!

This quilt is the challenge project  for Thumbstall Quilt Guild’s biennial quilt show in July. The challenge is to use this bright colored focus fabric and blocks that contain only squares. Other elements that could be used are setting triangles and embellishments.

I struggled with the coordinating fabrics for this quilt because I normally choose  earth tones and ‘Thimleberries’ type fabrics – not brights for my quilts. However, I think I came up with the perfect fabrics to compliment the focus fabric – off-white and white on white.

These toned down the focus fabrics and I think the finished mini-quilt (it measures 18″ square) looks as those it’s full of brilliant gems.

Well it’s finally done.  I put the final border on the Delectable Mountains quilt tonight.  Those triangles really took a lot of patience to complete.  Unfortunately I had to unsew t and resew  – All those points!

I definitely would sew the half-square triangles by the using Sew and Cut.  The BellaOnline website shows how easy this method is:

With a pencil and ruler, draw a line on the wrong side of the light color square.  With right sides together, layer the lighter square on the darker square and stitch a 1/4″ seam on BOTH SIDES of the drawn line.  Cut apart on the drawn line and press seam allowances toward the darker fabric.  Trim points and you are done. You now have two half-square triangles that measure 2-1/2″ on all sides.  They will measure 2″ when sewn into the block and then into the quilt.  This method lets you avoid handling the bias edges, therefore yielding half-square triangles that are more accurate in size.

This week I’ll be spending time quilting:  Delectable Mountains, the Challenge and  Silent Auction pieces for the guild’s biennial quilt show.