Cuddle Quilt Workshop: Ready for a mystery?

Our July guild meeting was a good chance to browse through items at our White Elephant Sale, visit with other quilters and eat cookies.

July guild meeting and White Elephant Sale.

A nice selection of fabrics from the sale.

We also enjoyed the show and tell - including this beautiful quilt found at a thrift store for $5.00!

Found at a thrift store for $5!

This is a soon-to-be completed bag for a gift.

We had our Brown Bag Quilt exchange, and we're past the half-way point on that project.  We'll return the brown bags to their owners in just a few months.  

Cuddle Quilt Workshop

We also heard about the Cuddle Quilt Workshop in August.  The details for that are:

Date:  Saturday, August 17

Place:  Cross of Christ Lutheran Church

           3204 Hixson Pike - next to Stuart Heights Baptist Church

           Park in the back for the easiest entry - no stairs!

Time:  9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Come join in the day devoted to piecing, layering and quilting cuddle quilts for the Chambliss Children's Home. We bring our sewing machines and basic sewing supplies, with a couple of irons and ironing boards, cutting boards and rotary cutters and rulers supplied. You are welcome to work on whatever you would like, and Sherry always comes up with some group projects we can all work on.  For this workshop, she's prepared a Mystery Quilt.  Here's what you need to bring to participate in the mystery quilt:

Pre-work for the Mystery Quilt:

1. From 18 different fabrics, and cutting from selvedge to selvedge, cut one strip 2 1/2" wide from each fabric.  This will result in a 36" x 36" quilt.  If you want to make a longer quilt, you'll need 24 different fabrics to make a 36" x 50" quilt.  A jelly roll can save you some time if you have one to donate to the cause.
2. Separate your strips into light and dark, 9 strips to each category.  Medium hues can go either way, so just separate out the obvious lights and darks, and then just divide the remaining medium hues into one or the other.  You'll just need to have 9 strips in each category.
3. Pair up a set of one light and one dark. Use the darkest darks to pair with the mediums that ended up in the "light" pile, and the lightest lights to go with the medium hues that ended up in the "dark" pile to have a nice contrast for each pair.
4. With each set of 2 contrasting strips, snip off the selvedges and cut each strip set into 4 pieces - (3) 11" pieces and (1) 6 1/2" piece.  After you have cut them, keep each set of contrasting strips together. Continue until all strip sets are cut.

Sherry will reveal what we are to do with these pieces at the workshop!

And finally, the next Choo Choo guild meeting is on August 19, with the program provided by Team Janet.  I'll send an update before that meeting with details.

White Elephant Sale in July

"Scrap Quilts" program at the June meeting.

Hey there, all Choo Choo Quilters! We will have a meeting in July after all!

Due a minor malfunction in my brain, I didn't assign a team for the July meeting.  In fact, I was somehow convinced that we didn't meet in July, but that just ain't true.  So, we will indeed have a meeting this Monday, July 15, at the usual time and place.  Our program will be a more informal thing, but here are some highlights:

• Sherry Reed will give us more specifics about our Cuddle Quilt Workshop, which will be held August 17.  We always manage to get tons of work done on cuddle quilts AND have a great time in the process, so you'll want to plan on being there.
• We will hold a White Elephant Sale.  Each and every person at the meeting is welcome to have a section of table space to display any quilting/sewing/craft items that you want to sell to others at the meeting.  Bring whatever you feel like moving out, and I'm sure you'll end up with other treasures from other members.
• We will also have time for any brief demos of gadgets, quick techniques, cool ideas that anyone wants to share.  If you have come upon some neat idea - share them with all your quilting buddies!

As usual, we will also have our Brown Bag Challenge exchange, show and tell, and refreshments.  Come and enjoy a low stress evening with the quilting babes.

Cristy, the Forgetful