No pictures just some diversions...

In order to get a bit more organized with my posts, I am offering some diversions for a bit.  I had a scare last month and it took a bit of the wind out of my sails, but I'm back now and just about ready to post a few more tantalizing tidbits. 

In the meantime, if you are looking for an interesting site with plenty of ideas that delve into the "What if..." realm and you are ready to take a step outside the traditional, visit my friend Vicki's site and look around.  She does a wonderful job explaining her techniques and showing the results of her experiments.  She was away for a bit, but is back now.  

You could also pop by my friend Upstatelisa.  A source of creative ideas, she is being featured as a special guest on 3 Creative Studios. 

You could even cross the Atlantic and visit with Nicolette to see what she is up to.  My goodness she is already thinking about Christmas.   Yes, yes I know it is only two and a half months away.

As for me, I'm busy trying to make sense of the bits and pieces that I have on my worktable for the Tangled Textiles challenge that is due this Friday.  I'd best be off so I can get it done.

Some robins are round

My Guild had its first meeting of the year earlier this month (we break during the summer) and I've volunteered to organize a Round Robin.  Okay I hear some of you out there saying what the heck is a Round Robin.  Read on...

Gather a group of quilting friends together.  Four to Six makes a nice size group.  Each person starts out by making a block; in our case a 12-1/2 inch unfinished block.  Here is the one that I'm going to use.  Let's see what becomes of it.

One of our members, Janet, has her block ready to go too.  You can see it on her blog.   

When your block is done, it's passed to the next person in the group, you receive someone else's block and each person now adds a border to the block that they received.  Instructions for the kind of border to be added are predetermined.  You usually allow a month for the construction of a border, before it's passed on to the next person.   This continues till each person in the group has added a border.  The owner now gets their block back, except it's no longer a block but rather a quilt top. 

A good resource for borders is Pieced Borders:  The Complete Resource, by Judy Martin and Marsha McCloskey.

I'm adding some additional fabric to the box that it's going into, along with some chocolate (read that as motivation) and a disposable camera so that the members in my group can take pictures of the progression.

We'll see what borders, I can come up with and will post "sneak peeks" at the ones that I'm working on.

Till the next post, keep stitching!

Some finishes and beginnings

In my last post, I was off to a retreat.  Now I'm back and although it's been a few days, I thought I'd better show you some of the things that I finished before I ship them off. 

First there were five Christmas table runners that I started last September but didn't quite get finished in time for Christmas 2010.  We've all been there, right?  They were made with a Jelly Roll from a pattern by Tivoli Quilt Creations.

Then I made some little bags using up some Moda charm squares. 

The pattern is from the Moda Bake Shop and can be found here.  I used four different charm packs; Oasis, Summer Breeze, Antique Fair, and Collections for a Cause - Faith.  The pouches took so few charms that I have plenty left over to make other items.

Oh and then there was the retreat block.  When four of the blocks were put together and placed on point, they looked like this.

However, when several were placed on a design wall, look what happened.

Some said it looks like propellors and others like rooster tails.  I was not the fortunate one to win the blocks.
The balance of the time was spent visiting and cajoling with fellow retreatees (is there such a word?).  The retreat ended just in time to get organized for our Guild's first meeting of the 2011/2012 year.

Till the next time remember, Creative minds are rarely tidy.