Quilt-a-Long – Page 3 – Amherst Quilters Guild

Anyone who wishes to join in makes the blocks chosen by the moderator, following the announced rules. Completed projects are shared at a guild meeting “show and share”.

July 14, 2012

I’m back!

Hello everybody, it’s ME. The month of July has really gotten away from me. I’ve been busy with lots of odds and ends-have no big deal to report on. No fabulous vacation, or beautiful new room in my house. I have been in the garden quite a bit-mostly dragging a sprinkler around on a regular rotation schedule, and trying to keep up with the weeds. The ground is so hard that weeding is really a chore; usually my beds are nice and loose and the weeds come right out. Not this year. Getting set for a mulching and painting blitz outdoors next week-will have a young helper working with me with a strong back. I’ll be playing the “sidewalk superintendent” as my dad used to call it. I did finally get my next Lucy Goosey block done today. Will post a photo soon. Chose cool colors (blues and greens)-can’t imagine […]

July 1, 2012

the goose is back

Good morning all, it’s ME. Can you believe it’s the first of July already? Wow! It’s time for the next Lucy Goosey star block. This one can be made to look very different dependent on your color placements. I’ve given you a few extra block skeletons so you can get out your crayons and experiment a bit before cutting your fabrics. Have fun with it. Remember you can jump in to this quilt-a-long whenever you want. If you haven’t done the other blocks you can skip them and start here, or go back in our archives and get the patterns to catch up. Not many rules for this project. Just have fun. Here’s the next pattern: lucy goosey #3-solstice

June 24, 2012

catching up

Hello everyone, Mary Ellen back again. Well this week kind of got away from me–haven’t posted in a while. I’m sure you all have had weeks like that too. Didn’t have much time to sit over my coffee and mull all the world’s problems, coming up with my solutions. “If I ruled the world,…” So what’s new everyone? I’ve been playing with my 60 degree triangle rulers this week. I have had the 8 1/2″ one for a long time–you know the one that makes that popular runner from a striped fabric. I have the larger one now also–it’s 12 1/2″ tall– and am exploring what it can do. Of course one could just repeat the tricks the smaller ruler will do, but I’m trying to find some others as well. I’m doing demos on this ruler this week and want to have some new things to share. Have you […]

June 20, 2012

antique quilt patterns

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I have admired antique quilts for years. Our family has a few, and I own two. One was made for me before I was born, and sadly I must admit that is enough to make it antique. It’s a very simple polka dot quilt. My great-grandmother had set herself a goal to make a quilt for each of her great-grandchildren. Mine is the last one she finished. The second is an Iris applique quilt that the same great-grandmother made for my mom to celebrate her 16th birthday. In our family quilts were used, not saved. Sadly this iris quilt is in bad shape. The edges are so tattered that there is no saving them-and there are irises appliqued all along the edges. The center of the quilt is a large iris medallion. I have been searching for the pattern and designer of this quilt for […]

June 19, 2012

sew and tell Friday

Hello all, ME back again. A while ago I shared how Marija and I have decided to make sure that posts go up regularly by giving ourselves assignments. My assigned day is Friday and I was looking for a catchy name for it. Came across this name (above) at another blogger’s site. This morning I listened to another podcast from Pat Sloan. (If you haven’t tried them yet, I still encourage you to give it a whirl. They’re free and can be listened to on your phone or mp3 whenever you wish, or via your computer. Gotta be better than listening to regular talk radio!) When the dog and I returned home from our walk, I went to her website to see what she had up for today. It’s an interview with a quilter I had never heard of–and will be going back to visit again and again. Here’s a […]

June 18, 2012

bits and bobbles

Hello all, Mary Ellen back again. Hope you had a great weekend. Fathers’ Day was super for all of you? Another excuse, if you need one, for getting together with all the family. Perhaps not quite as fussy a day as the celebrations in May for moms. Dads are more BBQ, boats and beer than cake, curls and champagne–at least mine anyway. Wrote last week about Liberty cottons coming out with quilting weight fabrics-to be released here in the US in the fall. Lets nominate a local shop and all start lobbying for the shop to carry Liberty. What do you think? I found the Liberty boards at Pinterest this morning. Some gorgeous projects to be found there, and inspiration for all fabrics, not just Liberty. The various fabric flower uses of Liberty are very pretty, I think. Do you own a dresden plate template? Maybe you purchased the Darlene […]

June 2, 2012

Lucy photo op

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Finished my second Lucy Goosey block yesterday. Here it is. Going for the scrappy palette, hoping I’ll make a dent in the contents of the scrap bins without making a tacky looking quilt. So far (just two) the blocks look nice together. Keeping my fingers crossed. Remember to bring your completed blocks to our meeting show and shares, or send the photos directly to our webmeister, Don Dee. Just let him know that they’re for the Loosey Goosey album. TTFN.

June 1, 2012

Lucy Goosey block 2

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It’s the first of June and time for me to post the next block in our Quilt-a-Long. Even if you chose not to make the first block, you are welcome to jump in and join us anywhere along the journey through our 6 star blocks. (If you want to go back and get the first pattern, look in the sidebar for the category menu and go to Loosey Goosey). I hope I am greeting some visitors who found out about us at Pine Grove yesterday. If so–welcome! to all of you. This is not a personal blog-it is the blog for the Amherst Museum Quilters’ Guild. I hope you’ll join us for Lucy (new spelling on purpose) Goosey and keep coming back to read my musings on anything and everything that might cross my mind. I try to keep it to quilty topics, but there […]

May 23, 2012

This and That

Hello all, ME here. Spent some time exploring Pinterest this morning. Here are a few of my best quilty finds. I don’t know if I’m too old for these scrap necklaces or not. Hmm…they look cute against the plain white T shirt. Definitely could be an idea to do with kiddoes. Love this girly quilt. The dress mannequin and the parasols are the best! If I spy this pattern somewhere I’ll have to have it. What a great pieced border too. This quilt (Dec 6, 2011 post) is gorgeous. The fussy placement of the flowers in the clamshells is especially nice. I certainly admire the patience of some quilters–my patience is used for other things. I won’t ever be making a quilt like this but I sure do like it! Here’s a very cool dresden fan block. Love how you can make it look very circular or more octagonal. I […]

May 16, 2012

gray days are great for quilting

Hello again, it’s ME. Just came in from running some errands. Having a bit of lunch, then have to get busy. It has stopped raining, but looks like it might start again. So…can’t mow the lawn, can’t weed the flower beds, probably could do a bit of transplanting but don’t want to, can’t weed-whack so what’s a girl to do? Why quilt a bit of course!! Lori and I got together last evening over dinner and planned our demo for guild night. We’re bringing the Accu-quilt machine to show any newbies how it works and explain this great resource we have for our members. It hasn’t gotten much use of late, so we’re hoping to re-generate interest in it. With the onset of quilters using die cutting machines like the Accu-quilt Go machine, perhaps there will be more interest. We, as the guild, own quite a few very useful dies […]