Poor Man's Stack-and-Whack program

Our next Choo Choo Quilt Guild meeting will be Monday, February 17, 2014. The program will be Poor Man's Stack-and-Whack presented by Team Dawn.

The team will demonstrate a technique for using large scale prints to achieve an easy kaleidoscope effect for your quilt block. If you want to participate in the demonstration, bring the following supplies to the meeting:

Supplies:

• 1-1/2 to 2 yards of a large scale print. The ideal fabric would have several prominent colors, a regular repeat, and enough variation in the design to allow several different block designs. Bring 2-3 pieces of fabric and the team will help you choose which print will be best for this technique.
• Cutting mat
• Acrylic ruler
• Rotary cutter

Team Dawn will provide a sewing machine and an iron to demonstrate the piecing needed for this block. You will end up with your fabric cut at the meeting, and you'll be able to do the remainder of the piecing at home on your own machine.

Last Call for Cuddle Quilts!

If you have any completed cuddle quilts, please bring them to the February meeting! Nancy Allen will be collecting the quilts, and Sherry Reed will be making our annual donation to the Chambliss Center for Children later in the week. If you are unable to finish all your cuddle quilts before February 17, don't sweat! We'll be continuing our cuddle quilt donations for next year too, so we will accept contributions at any time.

And now... Show and Tell from our January Meeting!

As always, we had a wonderful collection of quilts, bags and clothing on display from the talented hands of our Choo Choo members. Here's proof:

A baby quilt made of hand embroidered doggie blocks.

And the neat envelope on the back to hold extra fabric
should they ever need it.

Our first completed quilt from our 2013 Brown Bag Challenge!

Our first completed quilt from our Brown Bag Challenge last year.
This was made for the Quilts of Valor program.

A red, white and blue sampler quilt.

A collection of handmade purses to be sold for charity.

And yes, you can make clothing to show off a precious collection of kimono fabrics...

Kimono pieces made into a shirt.

… or with a new collection of quilter's cottons.

A Rachel Clark vest pattern made with a new fabric collection by Blank Quilting.

Left: The end result of playing with strip piecing.
Right: More original design from Delores. She does good work!

A Christmas present from one of Cristy's son's students in Japan—
all hand pieced and quilted.

A baby quilt made for a client

A beautiful Christmas Sampler.

Made with fabrics collected on Nancy's Indonesian travels!

A colorful Sampler quilt.

Quilts of Valor quilt blocks exceed 500

Way to go, Choo Choo Quilters!
Our contribution of 45 Quilts of Valor quilt blocks pushed the total to over 500 blocks that our Tennessee representative will be taking with him to the national meeting in July.

Quilts of Valor 10th anniversary quilt blocks
made by members of the Choo Choo Quilters.

The pattern for this 10th Anniversary block is available as a Free PDF download here.

Quilts of Valor 10th Anniversary quilt block

Join the Choo Choo Quilters and contribute a block to the Quilts of Valor project. The 10th Anniversary block is shown below with assembly instructions. A downloadable PDF pattern is available on the QOV web site here.

Quilts of Valor 10th anniversary quilt block
8.5" square (unfinished),  8" finished size

Fabrics: Red, white or cream, blue
Cutting: four 2.5" squares BLUE, two 3" squares ALTERNATE BLUE, two 3" squares WHITE, four 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles RED.

Assembly: Use scant 1/4" seam allowance. Place white and blue 3" squares together right sides facing. Draw a diagonal line from corner to comer on the back of the two white squares. Stitch 1/4" seam on either side of the line. Cut the squares on the diagonal line and press open. Square up to 2.5". (You have made two 2.5" half square triangles.) Repeat for second set of squares. (For a total of 4 half square triangle units.)

Refer to the photo for color and unit placement. Sew the half square triangle units to the blue squares. Sew this unit to the red rectangle. Make 4 of these units. Assemble four units as shown in photo. The unfinished block (raw edge to raw edge) should be 8.5" square.

Guidelines:

• All blocks MUST be red, white or cream, and blue. You may mix these colors in any position. 
• Sign each block with your first name and state.
• Do not trim the blocks.
• Unfinished blocks (raw edge to raw edge) should be no smaller than 8.5" square. Adjust your seam allowances as necessary.

The Choo Choo Quilters will collect completed blocks at the June 17 guild meeting so they can be sent to Dennis Taylor, Region 8 Tennessee Coordinator, who will attend the Leadership Conference in Nebraska in July. However, blocks can be made through November 2013 in honor of the 10th Anniversary and given to a local Quilts of Valor Group Leader or an Official Under Our Wings quilt shop.

2013 is off to an excellent start!

The Choo Choo Quilters held their first meeting of the year on January 18th, and we had a big start to the year. Team Sherry started off the year with a program on Lasagna Quilts, with instructions for making one in several sizes. But even more impressively, they had an entire basket of jelly rolls ready for sewing. Everyone present was able to pick a jelly roll all ready for sewing.  We are to make up a cuddle quilt and bring it to the February meeting. Word on the street is that valuable prizes are involved!

Happy Birthday, Choo Choo Quilters!

And in honor of Choo Choo Quilters 21st birthday, we had extra special refreshments.  Not only did we have some delicious lasagna in honor of our program, we had a lovely birthday cake to celebrate! 

Our show and tell in January included some beautiful creations by our members. We had one quilt made from a program back around 1998 - a series of borders added to a central block of our own choosing.

Nancy brought a quilt she plans to donate to the Quilts of Valor program. According to their website, "The mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover all combat service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor."




Remember, Team Sherry is also providing the program for February, and we all have our homework to do!  Each of us is to sew up our jelly roll into a lasagna quilt and bring it to the meeting.  The winner of the Viewer's Choice Award will win fame, fortune and even a prize!  We'll see you at the meeting on Monday, February 18th.

A Quilting Program Triple Play

Cristy (left) and Rhonda demonstrate the 10-minute block.

The March program of the Choo Choo Quilters delighted meeting attendees with 3 quick and easy Make-It-Take-It projects.

Demonstrations were presented on Suzanne McNeill's 3-seam 10-Minute Block, a Sausage Pillowcase, and Vivian Ann Wright's (Mammaw's Thimble Quilt Shop) Potato Chip Block.

10-Minute Block
The assembly of this block consists of only 3 seams and a dimensional center diamond. Several options for block size, color placement and embellishment were given during the demonstration. Suzanne McNeill has written two books, 10-Minute Blocks, and 10-Minute Blocks 2, that offer instructions and several quilt patterns using the technique.

Members donated twelve 10-minute quilt blocks made during the demonstration to the guild's community service Cuddle Quilt project.

Left: 4 blocks were completed in about 11 minutes during the demonstration.

Sausage Pillowcase

Nancy shows a pillowcase with the sausgae method.

This clever assembly combines three coordinating fabrics to produce standard size pillowcase. With guidance from one of the program presenters who prepared pre-cut fabrics, attendees had the opportunity to create a pillowcase in about 15 minutes.

The pillowcase cuff, an accent trim and the body of the pillowcase are rolled up like a sausage (hence, the name) and with some easy sewing, the "sausage" is turned right side out to produce the pillowcase. Using a French seam eliminates the raw edges. It's like magic!

These pillowcases can be used for kids projects, gifts, cases for Quilts of Valor quilts, or other charity projects. Watch a video of the process here.

Rolling the fabrics into the sausage and pinning.

After sewing a seam, the sausage is turned right side out.

Potato Chip Block

Just like eating potato chips, once you make one of these blocks, you can't stop. In fact, the fabric cutting for these blocks is streamlined by stacking and cutting layers of two coordinating fabrics. Assembly line piecing makes for quick sewing and assembly. In no time—just like the bag of potato chips—your quilt top is finished. 

Potato Chip Block—you can't make just one!

Show and Tell