FRIENDSHIP AT XMAS

Over this past Xmas break,

I pushed myself to try and finish a few quilting projects.

I was able to get three done.

In the mid and late 1990's I belonged to two different quilting groups,

one with my cousins,

 and one with a dynamic group of women that I had friended thru my son's sports teams.

A few of these woman had been quilting for years

and I was a newbie to the craft.

I learned a lot from them over the 5 or so years we quilted together.

This is one of two Xmas quilts I finally finished 20 years later.

They both needed tube casings for hanging display purposes

and I was able to go back into my stash and find fabric to work with.

I'm planning on giving this one as a gift next Xmas to my son and his new bride.

There were 8 women in this group,

one coming from as far away as Utah.

Each of us made Xmas themed blocks for the whole group,

including one for ourselves.

Then everyone put them together in different ways.

There were no two the same which I loved.

I wish I had pictures of the others to share.

I loved the challenge of arranging them into a pleasing and balanced design

because each of the blocks were a different scale.

These 3 close-ups were my favorite blocks in the quilt,

made by the three pros in the group.

But sadly after 20 years,

 I can't seem to remember who made which one.

All the quilting techniques were represented;

both hand and machine piecing & quilting,

hand turned applique,

blanket stitch applique,

yo-yos,

as well as many tradition patterns like Log Cabin, Bear Paw and Four & Nine Patches.

To put it all together I had to build several more pieces to fill in spaces.

I did some strip piecing and Gwen Marston trees,

and a couple other made up blocks.

I thoroughly enjoyed the process and the critical thinking involved in balancing the top.

Right up my alley.

Here are the gals in the group on the backside label.

I sent the piece out to be professionally basted and machine quilted

cuz I didn't want to mess it up,

but also because after the designing was done I had kind of lost interest in finishing it.

I wanted to move on to the next quilt design.

However,

I really enjoy putting on the binding edges

 and the meditative process of turning  and hand stitching them down.

1998-2003

Looks like it took me 5 years to put it all together and send it out for quilting

then back to me for the bound edges.

I know,

I'm really slow

and have too many projects going on at the same time,

as well as all the demos I have going on at school.

Currently I'm enrolled in 3 India Flint classes

and completely behind in each.

LOL