Miriam is collecting blocks from the program she did a few months ago showing us how to stitch crazy blocks on printed foundation fabric. So far 17 blocks have been turned in and we need 3 more to make a veteran quilt. She plans to set them with black sashing between the blocks. Won't it be striking? 

Please remember to turn your block in at our October meeting, or if you would like to make a block, we still have some printed foundation fabric. The theme is "bright colors" and feel free to embellish it with black thread if you want to play with some of those fancy stitches on your machine, you know, the ones you never use.

Close-ups of untrimmed blocks. Aren't they great?

 

Fabric!

CSQ has been gifted with fabric to be used for making quilts for our veterans - lots of fabric!

The Moda fabric line is "UNION BLUES" by designer Barbara Brackman. The colors will make very nice quilts for our Veterans Quilt Project, which I'm calling V.Q.P. It's a lot of yardage - 35 pounds worth. Does anybody remember the formula for converting pounds to yardage? I'm guessing 70-100 yards! 

I see lots of sewing for V.Q.P.  -  maybe we can plan some 2-day workshops where we sew like crazy and perhaps we can get You-Know-Who to offer us an easy mystery quilt design.

I can see it being used for our block of the month (I'll make kits) and Karen and Julie are sure to come up with some good ideas for turning all this yardage into quilts!

Please bring your ideas (example or pattern) to the meetings and let's see how many quilts we can make from this donation! 

CSQ Upcoming program notes

The October Meeting is Tuesday, October 13 and the program is being presented by Marion Moody. She will be sharing her favorite quilting web sites. Bring your Shoo Fly blocks to turn in.

Future note: The November program will be Elsa Brooks and Estelle Porter sharing how to use neckties in quilts.

Julie and Karen do a great job of organizing our programs but they need our help too! Have you learned a new technique that you can share? Is there something that Please consider volunteering to provide a program. If each of use presented one program we could schedule about 3 years of programs!

Veteran's Quilt Project

Annie, our cyber CSQ member, donated this great quilt to our veterans in 2014 (one of many quilts she has sent from Vashon, WA). She also shared the pattern with us.

 

Annie saw an antique quilt made from this pattern and was inspired to draft it. She doesn't know the name of the pattern, so if someone does, please let us know, as we are calling it Annie's Star. We started the year off featuring this as our January Block of the Month, using leftover batiks from a raffle quilt we made for W.H.E.A.T.  - for the pattern and directions see the link here.

 

 

 

 

It's an easy pattern to cut and sew and offers all sorts of possible looks. Betsy made a veteran quilt in red and black, her trade-mark colors. You can see it by clicking on FLICKER at the lower right and scrolling through all the pictures.

 

The blocks each month are turned in, sewn together by a volunteer and the tops wait to take a turn on a volunteer's longarm. Vicki so generously quilted FORTY quilts last year, and this year we have another volunteer, Terry, who has jumped in to help, and I've lost track of how many she has done in a very short time. Thanks to both Vicki and Terry, for making our on-going project possible. The cost of batting and backing fabric is covered by donations to our club, as well as such things as the silent auction we had last month.

 

 

Guess which quilt had its turn on the longarm? If you guessed Annie's Star from our January blocks you would be correct. I saw Terry yesterday and she gave me this quilt, ready for a binding. The picture doesn't do it justice - see below for a close-up showing Terry's beautiful quilting!

 

 

 

All quilts are given to veterans receiving dialysis or out-patient chemo at  The V.A. McGuire Hospital in Richmond, VA. The need there is great and we welcome your quilts.

 

THANKS to EVERYONE for sewing and caring about our veterans!

 

I have some other very good news regarding our Veteran's Quilt Project, but I will save it for another post, in a few days.

 

Happy sewing on this much needed rainy day in Virginia.

 

 



Tuesday Sewing

REMINDER:  Tuesday, Sept 22 is a sewing day - 9 a.m. til 3 p.m.

Hanover County Parks & Rec has given us the use of the building on the 4th Tuesday of each month.
 
As always, bring your own project and supplies along with your lunch. (We have cutting mats, rulers, iron and ironing board, so you don't need to bring those.)

Please let me know if you are coming on Tuesday, by leaving a "comment" or emailing me - I don't want to be the only one there.

Enjoy this beautiful weather and happy sewing!

September meeting notes

We had a fun meeting last night. Carol gave us an excellent pressing lesson and then we had one of the most successful trash-to-treasure sales ever! We made a whopping $378.42!! Thanks to everyone who provided stuff to buy and to the buyers. All of the leftover fabric will go to Estelle for donation to her friend who knows all of the organizations around town who can use the fabric.

Other notes:

- Virginia Quilt Museum: Elsa is looking for volunteer docents for October 31. The exhibits are:

• Caryl Bryer Fallert Gentry's 30 Quilts for 30 Years
•  100 Years of Quilts: The Unger Family
•  Treasures of the Vault: Curator's Choice
•  Charlottesville Area Quilt Guilds

- The September block is the Shoo Fly block. You can make one or more to hand in or make them for yourself for a row quilt. For 1 row you would need 5 blocks with spaces to make the row 48" wide.

 

- Susan Ryan shared a letter that she received from McGuire VA Hospital thanking us for the quilts that we delivered earlier this year.

 

- Did you know that you can donate to your favorite charity every time you shop on Amazon? Just use the site http://smile.amazon.com/ . There you can select your charity and then shop as normal. Every time you shop a small percentage will be donated to your charity. Our two favorite charities are represented there: Virginia Quilt Museum and Western Hanover Emergency Action Team (WHEAT).

- Sewing Friday and Saturday is this weekend! Bring your machine and lunch and join us!

 

September Block of the Month

We have taken a summer break from making blocks, so it's time for us to get back to making blocks for our veteran quilts. I thought it would be nice to start off with a red/white/blue quilt, sure to please any veteran!

The block we will be making is an old favorite, Shoo Fly, #1645 in Block Base.

Cutting direction for 9" blocks - See diagram for color placement.

A - White - cut 3-7/8" squares, slice it on the diagonal*
A - Red - cut 3-7/8" squares, slice it on the diagonal*
B - White  - cut 3-1/2 squares
B - Blue -  cut 3-1/2" square

*Use any method you like for making Half Square Triangles.

FABRICS:  My white is probably not the same as your white - that's okay. Set together, they will all look fine.  A nice mix of reds and blues will give us the scrappy look we are going for. (prints and solids). 

NOTE: If anyone has extra blue and red fabric we could use it for the setting blocks.

Here is just one possibility of what we can make with our blocks: