A Real Treat

Tonight my new mini group met at my house. What a treat! There were six of us, all from different backgrounds... all coming to quilting from different places. Some of us meeting for the first time. To me there is nothing better than a group of people with a common interest getting together and sharing their talents. It was absolutely wonderful!

Sharing talents we did.... Giovanna started us off with a snowflake piece she has designed that actually uses images of real snowflakes that have been digitized and that she has turned into applique. The piece has the white on white snowflakes on a background of deep blues. The 5 or 6 different blues are pulled together in a swirling pattern to give the effect of the wind blowing the snowflakes around. This is an original design that she drafted on the computer.

My friend Teri Lucas shared with us, her new machine quilting technique for spiral feathers. It was amazing to watch... she just sat down at my machine (which she never used before), pulled out a quilt sandwich and starting free motion quilting. Take a look:

Teri will be teaching this and other techniques at our local quilt shop, Quilt Cottage, in Mamaroneck, NY soon. You should head to Teri's blog and see some of her work, it is just gorgeous!




Mary Anne Ciccotelli shared her progress on her Generations Unite quilt. This quilt will have hand work from 4 generations in her family (her mother, herself, her daughter and grand-daughter) and she is using a pattern that her grand-mother used in many of her work. Wow can you imagine, having a quilt that represents 5 generations of your family, all tied together by a common interest... quilting. To me, a first generation quilter, that is simply mind-boggling. You can see pictures of the quilt in various stages on Mary Anne's blog.


Then Sandra Parrott helped me with a few artistic tips on a piece I am working on. It is a woven piece for my design workshop at Country Quilter. More on that in another post (New Challenge series of posts).

But the sadest news of the day was to learn that after 18 1/2 years, the Country Quilter will be closing it's doors in April. They will be continuing their online store, with patterns, notions, fabrics, etc... but the brick and mortor store itself will be no more. Oh, how I will miss these ladies.

OK... back to a more uplifting topic. We had a blast tonight. Thanks to Teri, Mary Anne, Giovanna, Carol and Anne. I can't wait until March 9th (too many of us will be out of town at the end of February, so we have pushed our monthly meeting back two weeks... whahh...)