Have you played with Dianne Hire?

Teresa shows an example of a quilt
she made using a technique
in one of Dianne S. Hire's books.

As the author or editor of several quilting books that include such titles as, Quilters Playtime:  Games for Quilters, Vivacious Curvy Quilts and Oxymorons: Absurdly Logical Quilts, you can imagine that Dianne S. Hire has a unique take on designing and making quilts. At the Choo Choo Quilters April guild meeting, the program entitled "Playtime for Quilters" was centered around the work of this award-winning fiber artist, author, instructor and international exhibitor.

Several guild members took Dianne's classes during Chattanooga QuiltWeek while some had read and worked through the concepts in her books. The Dianne Hire groupies from Team 2 showed and talked about projects they had done. Other guild members brought examples of this quiltmaking style and showed them during Show and Tell.

Teresa Kitchell made several small wall quilts following the exercises from one of Dianne's books. Sherry Baldwin showed her quilt top that illustrated free-form curved piecing. Notice that both the "blocks" and the sashing strips are curvy. Ideas for using curved piecing in your quilts can be found in the Vivacious Curvy Quilts book.

An example of free-form curves.

Sherry gave a demonstration on cutting free-form curves for patchwork: drawing gentle curved lines with a chalk marker and free-form cutting on the chalk marks—without the use of an acrylic rotary cutting ruler.

Sherry demonstrated free-form curves.

Two techniques that Dianne uses are called "Tic-Tac-Toe" and "Hopscotch." Other games that quilters can play are reminiscent of fun, childhood activities such as "Musical Chairs," "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and "Tiddly Winks." What quilter wouldn't enjoy playing those—especially with fabric??

Teresa shows examples of other Playtime Games for Quilters.

If you haven't explored quiltmaking with Dianne, take a walk on the wild side of patchwork, pick up one of her books—or take a class—and try a technique.

Also at the April meeting was the next installment—or shall we say, "Clue"—for the Guild Mystery Challenge. If you are just starting the Challenge, or missed a clue, you can find information and clues here.

Finally, for next month's guild meeting, the program is about another playtime possibility. Sherry Reed and Team 1 will be showing an easy was to make something that resembles the Orange Peel block or the Cathedral Window. But we like to call it "Sherry's Round Thing."

What can your do with Circles? Find out at the May guild meeting.

April Choo Choo Meeting - Playtime for Quilters

This coming Monday, April 18, we will have our program presented by Sherry and the lovely and talented Team 2.  They will be showing the improvisational piecing techniques of Dianne Hire's Playtime for Quilters book.  These are fun, funky, inspiring ways to play with fabric and piecing—it can become addicting!  For a quick peek of Dianne Hire and her winning quilt from the Chattanooga AQS Show last year, look at this.  And if you have any projects, completed or not, using these techniques, please bring your work to show to the group!

Team 2 will also be leading a show and tell of new gadgets and notions, so everyone is encouraged to bring new gizmos you have found in your quilting adventures.  We're always on the lookout for new gadgets to make our quilting easier or more precise!

The 2016 Mystery Quilt is now up to Clue #4, so come and learn the next step of the process.  If you haven't started yet, there's still time to catch up, so join in the fun!  Previous steps are all under the tab "2016 Mystery Challenge" on this blog.

The meeting will include our usual show and tell, refreshments and our general gab fest with all your quilting friends. We hope to see you there!

Wool appliqué and a visit from Scott Fortunoff, President of Blank Quilting and StudioE Fabrics

Scott Fortunoff, President of Blank Quilting Corp.
and StudioE Fabrics, dropped in at the February
Choo Choo Quilters guild meeting.

At the February meeting—which happened to fall on Presidents Day this year—the Choo Choo Quilters were treated to a visit and a Q&A session with the President of Blank Quilting and StudioE Fabrics, Mr. Scott Fortunoff. As visitors to guild meetings go, this probably rates right up there with our visit from Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mabley in 2011. The Choo Choo Quilters are rubbing elbows with the upper echelon of the quilting world, aren't we??

Despite the cold, rainy weather, we had a packed room of guild members, friends and visitors who not only heard a wonderful program about wool appliqué Bed Rugs but also heard about the ins and outs of quilting fabric print production, designing fabric collections and other interesting tidbits about the global fabric manufacturing industry.

A little Choo Choo History
For all the visitors, our special guest for the evening, and all the new members who recently joined the Choo Choo quilt guild, Ginny, one of the guild's founding members gave an overview of the guild, our self-directed Team concept, our Community Service project and a short history about how the guild was started.

About 24 years ago, the Choo Choo Quilters was created as a spin-off to the Chattanooga Quilters guild—a day guild. For quilters with full-time day jobs, there was a need for a guild that met in the evening. The Choo Choo Quilters still maintains three of the founding members—Ginny, Vista and Cristy. The Choo Choo name comes from the Chattanooga Choo Choo, a Glenn Miller recording made famous in the early 1940s.

Snug as a bug under a wool Bed Rug
Garie presented an excellent program about wool appliqué bed rugs. She does everything by hand—the appliqué, joining the blocks and the quilting/stitching. In the example bed quilt she showed, the colors of the felted wool were very rich and bold and were set off against a black background. Although she did purchase a pattern, she chose to find other inspiration sources for the appliqué designs on her blocks.

Garie discusses wool bed rugs. This is her beautiful example.

Garie does a buttonhole stitch to secure the raw edge appliqué pieces. The blocks and sashing are joined by overlapping the pieces (there are no seam allowances).

Left: buttonhole appluqué. Right: two wool pieces are joined with hand stitching.

Here are close-ups of the blocks and other wool quilting projects for more inspiration. Felted wool and this raw-edge technique offers a variety of possibilities for projects.

Hand appliquéd blocks showing blanket stitching and hand quilting.

Wool appliqué projects.

Chatting with the President

Our second presentation of the evening was by Scott Fortunoff, the president of Blank Quilting and StudioE Fabrics, manufacturers of cotton quilting fabrics. One of our guild members, Veronica, is a fabric rep for these companies and she invited Scott to visit the guild. So there you go... ask and you shall receive. 

Scott gives an overview of the company's structure. 

Scott began with an overview of the Jaftex company which is comprised of several fabric companies: Blank Quilting, StudioE Fabrics and Henry Glass (providing quilting fabrics to the quilt shop market), and AE Nathan and Fabric Editions (selling to mostly chain stores). After giving an overview of the company's structure, he showed fabric yardage with images commemorating the 85th anniversary of the company. Ya know, you can do that sort of thing when your family owns a fabric company.

Scott points out images commemorating 85 years of the company's history.

Guild members asked questions about fabric printing, comparing quilt shop fabrics with fabrics found in chain stores, how designs and colors are selected, and trends in the industry. Scott encouraged guild members to check out all the websites for free patterns. "The patterns are one of the ways our companies support the quilt shops," he said, "and to offer inspiration to quilters using our fabrics." 

In addition to his Show and Tell, Scott brought red, white and blue fat quarters (in honor of Presidents Day) from the companies' fabric lines for the meeting attendees.

Show and Tell

The evening abounded in items for Show and Tell. Here are projects made by our talented guild members.

Garie's star quilt quilted by hand.

Becky's apple core quilt. She made the blocks are big enough to "handle the curves."

Ginny's birthday block quilt.

Betty's latest, inspired by the top from our guild's

2013 Brown Bag Challenge project.

Betty has quilted it by hand.

Disappearing 9-patch by Becky.

Theresa's owl quilt (left) and Janice's "grow with me" quilt.

Delores (left) showed a stunning black and white quilt and the only remaining
memory of a plant she once had. Pam's first T-shirt quilt (right).

The companion pillow to a quilt Sherry made for her husband, and
a light-up Christmas tree made from pre-cut fabric strips.

A pinwheel quilt with a twisted ribbon border made by Nancy.

Vista showed a wall hanging that hung in the Chattanooga Aquarium exhibit (left),
and surface design blocks made from a Blank Quilting fabric line called Rock Candy.

Guild members also showed Quilts of Valor quilts and cuddle quilts.

Red, white and blue QOV quilt.

Thank You
Thanks to Veronica, Garie and their team for coordinating the programs this month, and to our visitor and guest presenter, Scott Fortunoff.

"Pardon me, boys..." who will be joining us at the next Choo Choo Quilters guild meeting? You just never know.