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We had our annual Christmas party in early December and I forgot the pictures were on my camera! One of the first orders of business (after eating of course!) was the unveiling of the mystery quilts thaat we had worked on since June. You will recognize mine on the far right. I was amazed at how diverse they were!!
The next three pictures are also of the mystery quilts.
A few people brought things for show and tell. As usually, I didn't get names for most of them!
Well to start out, this is not my design wall but my sister's who is in the process of doing two quilts. The purple one is for an auction and the other just for fun. I happily contributed some of my strips for the purple quilt so she wouldn't have to sacrifice going to a quilt shop to buy more fabric!
Still some birds left from my visit to Florida. This is an Eastern Phoebe.
This is a Pine Warbler, one of many that were at the feeder each day.
This is a Tufted Titmouse.
This was a very pretty Blue Jay!
I decided to practice a panel One Block Wonder using this panel that I bought at Walmart. It was only $2/yard so the seven yards I needed only cost $14. The panel is 36 inches wide by 44 inches long!
Instead of my usual just cutting down the middle so I could manage the stacking, I cut it into quarters. I still had 101 hexagons when I finished cutting. I eliminated the ones that had the printing on them as well as the border of brown. The strips were 4 inches wide.
Setting them into something pleasing has been a real challenge as you can see below. Having that many hexies is just overwhelming! The only way I can judge the look is to take photos and adjust. I am far far from finished!
Managed to put the panel on the center of one of my design walls which was a serious mistake!! Here I am just throwing up the hexies as I get them done.
Added some more hexies but still on the left design wall. The hexies are held together in the middle with a thread as you sew the final top together in rows of half hexies.
Still on the left design wall but more hexies finished and an attempt made to arrange some.
Finally moved the panel to the middle and attempting to add more hexies and finding I like the very first arrangement with more of the blue the best. I have a feeling this is going to take a few days and lots of pictures before I get it where I like it. I think I have successful merged in the brown areas but having some difficulty with the blue. We shall see. Right now it is horizontal, but I think the final will be a vertical arrangement. However, I have found I have very little say in what happens before all is said and done!!
This is a Sherman Fox Squirrel, or a "monkey squirrel" as they are nicknamed and he is posing for me on my sister's feeder where he tried to deplete her supply of seeds.
How can you not like that face!
Here is a female Downy Woodpecker and a Pine Warbler looking on! It was a very cloudy rainy day.
This is a male Downy Woodpecker.
Red-bellied Woodpecker.
This is an Eastern Phoebe but taken in Ft. Fisher not down here in Florida.
Of course it wouldn't be complete without showing some of my latest project. These blocks were made from the leftovers of the backing of the Mystery Quilt. I really like the 4 patch posies and am trying different sets as I am supposed to teach a class on this in February.
I finished four blocks with their setting to see how they would look.
I decided to try them on point.
Here is the finished top which is about 42 x 60 and the fabric on the top and bottom is the remainder of that backing fabric. The repeat was 24 inches.
These were literally posies constructed from the remnants of hexagons -- pieces not big enough for the hexies. These blocks are 4 1/2 inches. If you look closely on the right hand side, you will see several blocks that contain 2 different pieces so they are 2 patches!! Think they look okay so another possibility! So I have now done, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 piece stack and whacks!!
I haven't been able to capture any really nice sunsets lately. This one was okay. This was taken down toward Ft. Fisher.
This was taken right at Ft. Fisher the same evening.
My husband carts his hibiscus back and forth each year. They seem to enjoy it more down here in NC than in NY!
Finally finished the sunflower quilt. I added an insert of yellow with the black binding. It is a little wonky in places but I do like it as I really like the image!
I finally finished our guild's mystery quilt as well spending the last few days quilting it. Now it just needs to be bound.
Because I used matching thread throughout, you really can't see the quilting very much but there is quite a bit. It does show a bit in the white. The quilting really straightened out this quilt!
I quilted around almost all the shapes in the ditch. I do all this freehand on my Juki.
My first step in machine quilting is to stabilize the whole thing by sewing in the ditch (with feed dogs engaged) around all the blocks and any other areas where I can straightline across the whole quilt. On this one, it was lines across the diagonal as well. I then fill in with freehand work.
We had 12 people in the class learning the steps to create a Morning Glory quilt that was designed by Roxanne; Roxanne is over in the left hand side of the photo in pink. Mary and Donna are working diligently in the foreground.
The class focused on the steps to turn a photo into a small art quilt with a minimum of applique and lots of painting with acrylics to emphasize the shading. We worked from a pattern she provided and it ended up being as she said "paint by numbers" except in my case, my lines were so faded, I finally gave up on them almost entirely and just did my own thing which was challenging as I didn't have the original picture to look at!!
Another classmate concentrating! I was really tired by the time I got home from this class .
Dena checking on another's piece.
My tablemate Sally who made the day much more fun than it would have been!! She laughed at all my comments!
This is my piece before I added any of the paints or stitching. You can barely see the lines where I am to paint so I improvised quite a bit rather than wondering across the room to look at Roxanne's original piece.
You will see how different everyone's pieces looks when you see mine. This one is Dena's.
This is Donna's. These two both show a lot of depth which mine doesn't. They haven't picked out their backgrounds yet either.
Being the compulsive person that I am about finishing things, I did the machine quilting and facing today as well as adding a hanging sleeve. I am relatively pleased even though it is a far cry from the original.
There will be less writing as I had the whole blog written, somehow hit the wrong key and erased the whole thing!! These first pictures are of many of the neonatal quilts turned in this month. You will recognize some of mine as I turned in 9 myself. We delivered over 350 this year to the unit.
The next two are by our very prolific Betty V. She recently returned from a trip to Newfoundland and we found that we both had a shared enthusiasm for a Canadian show called Republic of Doyle -- great show on Prime and Netflix.
These next two quilts were done from patterns designed by our own Michelle May!! They are wool applique.
This gorgeous top was done by Candy L despite the fact that she hasn't been able to return to her residence since Hurricane Florence hit in 2018. She hopes to be back in by Christmas.
These next three pieces were done by Donna B . The first two are totally painted. The blog she shares with her sister has a link on the left hand side of my blog
This gorgeous quilt was done by a relative newby quilter -- amazing. Can't imagine what she will be doing in a few years!
I really liked this pattern and it will be perfect to add to my list of 4-patch quilts for which I have a Pinterest board now!!
I missed a lot of the quilts and there was just too many this month (at least 25).
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