On Quilt Guilds

Since I frequent my local quilt shop and visit others when the chance presents itself, I know a lot of people in quilt guilds-I have even spoken at a couple about books that I co-authored. A guild is basically a group of quilters that get together, participate in fabric challenges, learn new quilty things, support favorite charitable efforts and show off their accomplishments – motivating them to actually finish some of their projects.

I can’t be in a guild – my tight schedule, commute time, young children, cost of sitters…but I have found the next best thing. I call it my online guild.

The RedThreadQuilters came into being as a group of quilting friendships that developed in another group working on One Hundred Good Wishes Quilts for our Chinese born daughters and granddaughters. Once we had amassed enough fabric to make a 517+ Good Wishes Quilt, Melinda was astute enough to realize that some of us just weren’t going to leave and we should go ahead and commit to being quilters in a spin-off ‘guild-like’ group.

We each support our own Charitable efforts and have worked together to donate quilts to homeless in Arizona, orphanages in China, and the Love Without Boundaries fund raising auction.

We do block exchanges, play online bingo for fabric wins, challenges, secret friend packages, birthday Fat Quarter bundles…and now we are starting our first mystery quilt authored by Melinda. Mystery Quilts are where you have general fabric purchasing guidelines but don’t know what your quilt will look like until you start putting it together.

Here it is, my step one results of that inaugural mystery quilt…


Photo 20 – Day 37

And just to keep the kids in the loop – here they each are showing off their kid size quilts – both made in ‘live’ mystery classes at the local quilt shop. J is carefully balancing her mustache...not really sure why...

Photo 21 – Day 37

Atten-hut!

Today’s pics highlight J. It was boot camp day at school today and that style is her style. The shirts are available in blue (her favorite color) and pink but she went camo as she thought it looked more like real boot camp. The dog tag is a previous award for perfect attendance.

In her elementary school boot camp refers to a prep program they do to get ready for the standardized testing in April. Teaching to the test…hmmm…I remember getting an old prior-year philosophy test in college. Rumor was the test didn’t change much so we could study from it. My friend and I both got As but our copy had been so dead-on, it felt like we had done something we shouldn’t have. Apparently we are off the guilt hook on that one, as teaching to the test seems to be an approved method.

Photo 18 –Day 36

Below we have one of J’s prized possessions. It’s her foam finger. She really, really wanted one for her birthday last fall – she got one. It is a fond memory – “Remember, when I got my foam finger? That was a great day.” I'm not sure why it is wearing the mandarin jacket – it usually does not get dressed. Just wanted to build it into a display, I guess.
Photo 19 – Day 36

Puttin on the Fritz...

Taking a step back here, today’s pictures are from a fine restaurant experience in Kansas City at Thanksgiving time. We had lunch at Fritz’s at Crown Center. A delightful train themed restaurant – the kids get engineer’s caps, you phone in the order and the food is brought to you by a train.

First off – the barely 7 yr old probably should not be placing the order. Even though we wrote it on a napkin for her to read, she ad-libbed – or something - because not only did a human walk out from the kitchen to verify, but we didn’t end up with all the food we intended to order, ah well…

Notice I referred to this as a fine restaurant experience and not a fine dining experience. Honestly – it was a fine diner quality burger and fries…well, the fry I tasted was good...there was only one since the grown-up’s fry order was part of what was lost in translation.

So, above we have J placing the order, below - after the train whistle sounded signalling a delivery - a train bringing the tray and the tray itself lowering to the table.

Photo 16 - Day 35

And tonight at gymnastics S passed Level 1 on Balance Beam and Vault. Vault was hard to get a picture of and beam she posed for after class (with two of her classmates spotting her). S at her gynastic finest...

Photo 17 - Day 35

Jelly Rolls and Bali-Pops

Jelly rolls in the baking world are wonderful things. In the quilting world, I find them a strange phenomenon. Moda fabrics make jelly rolls which are 2 /12” strips (WOF is about 42”) of 40 fabrics from a collection. I have never really bought into the concept. A collection of fabrics has a sameness about it …a good quilt needs contrast….so how can this work out? And even when there are some light and some dark, the split is not usually 50-50, so jelly roll quilts can often look like they have washed out spots or black holes.

I look at patterns for jelly rolls and while I have seen some I like, all collections of 40 2.5” strips won’t work in them…and the way jelly rolls are packaged, you really can’t even see what the fabrics are going to look like. You see an outside strip that seems like you'll like the fabrics and the top edge looks attractive. Then you unroll it and find what you are really stuck with. So how can you know if your quilt will look right?

Ah, yes, famous last words…Then I saw a Hoffman BaliPops (the Hoffman ‘jelly roll) and, of course, ‘needed’ one. Can’t see a 50/50 contrast mix in these can you? I selected each one of them during the shopping process and ended up with Strawberry Fields. I also needed a reason to pick up one of these collections. I selected the pattern Garden Beauty for it and it clearly says Jelly roll pattern.

Since the cover said it was a jelly roll quilt, I was determined I would not go outside my ‘pop’ in making all of these blocks. I don’t really see that I have enough contrast to make it through the whole quilt….I don’t really think I have enough greens…so I started with the ‘flower’ blocks and the rest will fall out however they fall out.

My first photo for the day…a couple of blocks from the in-progress BaliPop quilt.

My second photo for the day - Hannah the cat, coming up on her 17th birthday.

Photo 14 & 15 Day 34

A trip to the grocery...

The grocery store is always an adventure, and not in a good way...tonight came with a couple of new insights.

Fame...Last week at J's school program she gave one of the speeches...the only 1st grader to speak. She talked about being "part Chinese, part Georgian, part big sister and all J!" Tonight at the grocery a man came up to to us and said "Are you the buddha baby?" (her speech mentioned someone called her that as a baby). He was one of the several hundred at the auditorium last week and recognized her. She (and I, for that matter) was quite surprised. So write it down - Age 7y 2m is Js fifteen minutes.

Time...An important fact for the next story is that my younger daughter, S, is s-l-o-w moving. She has been painting her own nails since she was three because so painfully slow that she truly is meticulous...she does well on the balance beam because she enjoys the slower precision but the cartwheels elude her as you cannot do a slow cartwheel (try it, though, as the results are amusing). Well, tonight I got insight into her...I was trying to push the children along in the grocery store as they seemed to want to examine every product on the shelves and it's a school night.

Mom: Hurry up - I don't have all the time in the world...

S: I do in my world.

Today's photo - one of S's preK art projects.

Photo 13 - Day 33

Business Ethics....

I think that people should take an oath for their job...something about the level of ethics and responsibility they owe their clients. Most especially on my mind right now are the people who make and sell paint. Why do they make colors that have no business being in your rooms at home? And why doesn't the person mixing politely say - no one would like this color on walls, ma'am, perhaps you should come back when you are sober?



Instead, because of these lacking ethics, we have one ORANGE bathroom. Not orange, like I wanted, that would gently compliment the giant poppy shower curtain. I have ORANGE that LOVES giant poppies...it's screaming to be a GIANT POPPY.


7 yr old J wants to paint her room to have blue walls with red and yellow flames and black and purple robots but the ORANGE bathroom is too much for her.


New plan to tone it down, so in a few weeks you may see ORANGE and orange unplugged but for today you see the first of the painters to crash after a long hard day of painting.


Photo 12 - Day 32

A child's eye view...

I was at the local quilt store today - matching a fourth fabric to the three I had selected for an e-group mystery quilt. While these are not the most exciting outings for the girls they try and make the best of them. J was granted use of the camera while I shopped and here are the results...well, not all the results as she managed to take 71 pictures - thank goodness for the digital camera.

Here is a picture of one of the shop's fuzzy dogs with my original fabrics on the left and the yellow I am adding on the right.

And this one is a favorite from the quilt shop toy box - pizza!

Photos 10 & 11 - Day 31