the Show and tell qults

We had the show and tell for last years blocks, and although not that many people brought their quilts to Show, they were beautiful!

Cheryl had a finished quilt!  Hooray!  We all love getting a big quilt like this completed and ready to use

The arrangement of blocks was really nice, and I liked the outer borders she chose, 

Karen's quilt was gorgeous too.  I love the borders she made for the medallion area.

It sort of looked like stained glass with the sun from the windows shining through the fabric.

Linda ( I hope I have your name right) had done a variety of projects with the blocks from the Sticks and Stones blocks from the previous year.

First, a lovely single bed quilt.  The light colored zig-zag setting really created a quilt that will be lovely to use, and the straight line quilting she did was so effective!

 

A few more blocks became a dresser runner, again with some lovely quilting,  --- look at that border pattern!

and there were still enough blocks for some throw pillows for on the bed or in a sidechair,

Betty's sample with the Jo morton fabrics was also a finished quilt.  She emphasized the golds and greens,

and she also brought her sampler using moda fabrics, mostly from the Little Black Dress groupings,

absolutely stunning,  and ready to use too.
It was so nice to see the quilts.  And incidentally, there were lots of us in the audience to appreciate them.   
I look forward to seeing what else people do with their blocks, even if it's not a "finished" project.  A sampler quilt is a big undertaking, and I know that we all work at different rates,    I have a few samplers from the past few years that I have yet to sew the borders on, and yes, I still have a couple of stacks of blocks waiting to decide what to become...

(a rare selfie, Michelle)

Enjoy your day, and happy stitching!

Sticks and Stones Show and Tell

On Saturday it was exciting to see all the sampler projects that people brought to show each other.  Last year's Sampler blocks used a colorway that included grays, taupes, browns and charcoal, as well as light colored neutrals.

 Karen used a lovely feather design fabric for the sashing, and sewed stars for between the blocks, and smaller blocks to use around the edge in the setting triangles for a beautiful allover look.

 I loved the cobblestone like borders and setting triangles on this one.

 It will be interesting to see what gets quilted in those alternate squares..

 This sampler from the batiks colorway from a couple of years ago had a stained glass look to it.

 Verna also brought her 30 block king size top using the topsy turvy setting,

 I was sorry to see it get folded up,

 This was the first totally finished project that we saw.  Dianne used a light colored border, and it was all-0ver quilted with Baptist fans,

 Another finished one!  Very impressive!

 Beautiful quilting, and done on a home sewing machine!

 This was the third totally finished quilt, and again, quilted on a home sewing machine,

 You need to see some closeups of the beautiful motifs in the setting triangles and outer borders,

 Sheila made her quilt pretty zingy with her fabric choice for the sashing and inner border-- that diagonal stripe is great,

 what a difference you can make just by the addition of a narrow little strip of fabric:

 Another gorgeous quilt that uses a light colored border.  (I might have to re-think my plan for using a dark border....)

 I love what she did with the arrangement of the sub-unit s in that square on the lower right...

 It was refreshing to see this black white and lime green quilt!  Love everything about it!

 She also had her sticks and stones quilt, using a two-sided sashing

 I like the way the blocks seem to float on the light background:

Thank you again to all of you who brought your projects.  I was inspired.

Saturday Surprise Sampler starts soon!

We have a new round of our Saturday surprise sampler program starting in a week from today.

We had a lot of people wondering what the colors are going to be this year,

The fabrics we will be using are all from Andover. They include chambrays and fabrics designed by Jo Morton.   You can find out more about Jo Morton here. She often uses inspiration and patterns of prints from the 1800s.
this is the Charleston group,( photo from her website)

So this is a sneak peek at some of the upcoming combinations.

These aren't all of the fabrics but will add the others into the hoop display as they arrive in the store, most likely in September.

This is my chart of the fabrics.

To give the blocks a bit of a twist this year, I've decided to make them all repeating patterns reminiscent of the sort you might see on intricate tiled floors, 

photo from victorian tile restoration

each kit can be sewn into one twelve inch finished block, or left as four smaller blocks that finish at six inches.  This will give you lots more options for how you set the blocks!  I can't even imagine all the possibilities that people will come up with!


Hope you have fun sewing this year!