Uncategorized – Page 21 – Amherst Quilters Guild

July 17, 2015

Are you a cut up?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. We had our monthly guild meeting last evening. Committee chairs spoke about their groups, activities and how one can get involved if so desired. It is amazing to me how much we have going on in our guild. We can rightfully be proud of all of the charity work that gets made and given away with little, if any, fanfare. True giving from the heart (and hands). Lori R and I demonstrated our guild’s Accuquilt machine. It is available for any of our members to use whenever the BNHV is open. You can find documents of what dies we own at our guild’s web page. Some of our members were not aware we owned the machine, and some of our long time members had not seen how easy it is to operate. In today’s e-mail I got a link to a video where a shop […]

July 15, 2015

boutis

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Do you recognize that term “boutis”? I thought it was a French term for whole cloth quilts, but apparently in the French quilter’s mind there’s more to it than that. The link I’m including I found in my Pinterest feed today. It’s completely in French, but the pictures are absolutely gorgeous. This quilter (blogger) has some wonderful things to share. If you have Google translator you can do that for yourself, but the pictures alone are worth “a thousand words”. Get ready for beautiful images. Click here.

June 28, 2015

Be a quitter

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’ve mentioned here before that many of the ideas for my blog entries come from other bloggers. I subscribe to quite a few blogs and receive daily or weekly updates from many of them. Leah Day, a phenomenal quilter, who wrote the 365 free motion designs blog, is one of them. She has added a few new threads to her blogging posts. Today her post was titled “You have permission to quit”. After listening to what she had to say in her youtube post, it got me thinking about some of the UFO’s I have accumulated. I can think of 2 that are unfinished because I do not like them anymore. One was so poorly written by the designer that every step of the way requires some sort of correction. Her math calculations were atrocious, and you can just imagine how that irks me, the […]

June 25, 2015

free motion quilting

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I apologize for the faulty links that WordPress has posted from me. I’m not sure what is going on there, but definitely it’s not what I want it to do. Ain’t computers just grand?! I’ve been looking around the web at free motion quilting tutorials of late. I will be teaching an intro class to FMQ myself this summer and am interested in what other teachers are doing. I also am becoming a bit of an online student at Craftsy, Craft Daily and a few other sites. I find that learning and listening in my jammies with my beverage of choice suits my style these days. I came across this blurb for a book/class on bobbin quilting by Michele Scott which is intriguing. That girl has an attitude! I’ve seen her work online and a few pieces at a national show, and she is very […]

June 19, 2015

Blog-chatting perks – we have a winner!

Hi everyone, I am so bummed I had to miss the meeting again!! It seems that un-planned things always happen on Thursday, the Guild night?? yeah…last night was unexpected family shuffle as some were battling a little stomach bug that baby is giving everyone these days (but me! – grandma is immune! ) Oh well – maybe in July I will just take a day off when Guild night comes, ha ha! In the meantime – using my coffee break here at work to quickly draw a winner of a surprise I promised, as I promised!! So…what is the prize?? Maybe you guessed it already, but yes – it’s a BOOK! Book we talked about – IRICH CHAIN QUILTS, Contemporary Twist on Classic Design. We had 8 guild members comment (so now we know what they are up to!), each got a number assigned in order of comments appearing – THANK […]

June 17, 2015

Are they done?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Although that title could be about quilt projects, it’s actually about the maple helicopters, whirligigs, schizocarps or whatever you call them. It seems that this year’s crop is at least twice the size of a usual spring. Every garden bed needs another cleaning from them, both those just dry and dead and those that are starting to sprout. The pathways are loaded too–I’ve got work to do before the mulch can go down. In the middle of summer I love those lush maples, but now I hate them. And I haven’t even mentioned cleaning the gutters and the flat roof!! I’ve been enjoying a new quilt book that just arrived. The Farmer’s Wife sampler (this is the 2nd book-using 30’s fabrics this time) is a project that intrigues me. I haven’t been enticed in the past to do any of the block compilation type quilts-Dear […]

June 5, 2015

proven benefits of crafting

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. If someone asked you, “why do you quilt?”. what would your answer be? I’m betting it wouldn’t be that it increases dopamine levels in your brain, or that it helps to prevent premature cognitive decline. But quilting (and crafting) does have proven health benefits. Have a look. Click here. Now go make something!

May 23, 2015

Needle Knowledge

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I know it’s a busy weekend for all of us, so I’ll keep this short. When I teach classes I am frequently asked questions about the needles I suggest. I usually will list the needle requirement for my classes as a microtex or sharp needle in a size 80/12 or 90/14, depending on what we will be sewing together. I used to buy all types of needles when they went on sale, but now have settled in to generally just using a sharp. (I have so many “quilting” needles that I could probably build things with them. I never buy universals anymore, and am making an effort to use up the ones I have. Maybe I’ll sell the rest at our upcoming guild garage sale! There’s a thought. (BTW did you know that your old sewing machine needles can be used as nails for hanging […]

May 9, 2015

Things mom taught me

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Many of us inherited our love of quilting and all things fabric from our moms. Our moms are often the best cheerleaders for our quilting efforts. My mom was my first sewing teacher. I was allowed to use the “real” machine when I was a little girl and never had to use “junk” fabric because I was just learning. If there wasn’t money to purchase good fabric for my projects, I learned to wait and save, rather than to buy fabric that wasn’t of good quality. In the days when the standard for well made clothes was clothing made by a dressmaker or tailor, I learned that you wanted your project to look “handmade, not homemade.” I think maybe the perfectionist streak I have came from my mom and great-grandma. Neither worried about the scars to my psyche that would result from picking out stitches […]

May 8, 2015

what are you up to?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Have you been busy at the sewing machine lately? Or have you been out in the garden? Or maybe neither or both? I’ve been doing a bit of both. In January I set a couple of quilting goals for myself. Of course there is the usual one to finish more of my UFO’s. In addition I set a couple related to getting out of my quilting comfort zone to try some new things. One is to use more orange in my quilts. Whenever I see quilts with orange in them, whether in shops, or quilt shows, or magazines, I always admire them. But I find that I seldom make orange quilts, except around Halloween. So far this year I’ve made 2 that took me a little more into the oranges. Another one of my goals is to get away from always using white or cream […]