Quilting Weekend in November

 

This last weekend there was lots to do, lots to see and lots to talk about. The first thing to report is that the beautiful red log cabin is ready for quilting and binding  and we have created our 'rules' for a quilt draw amongst ourselves that will allow us to win one of our beautiful quilts and donate some money to charity instead of the quilt if that is the most appropriate outcome.

We spent lots of time completing blocks for our dresden plate sampler and joining our pinwheels together for our pinwheel quilt.

 

There was lots of time to chat and have our 'board meeting' and we welcomed a new member Lian to our group.

Liz's blue and pink flowers are now complete and this quilt will be the first in our quilt draw for 2012 so keep tuned and we will publish the winner when it is drawn at our February weekend.

Then there was a show and tell time. Robyn had a quilt almost finished and I had much to show and tell about my quilting experiences whilst Elaine and I were in Canada and the USA. Here is the quilt top I completed as my project when I went with Marion to her quilting long weekend at Kennybunk Beach, Maine. I collected all the fabrics when I was travelling. They are all fall fabrics as a reminder of the fabulous fall colours we saw as we travelled.

I also demonstrated the twister blocks below that I learned to do at the quilt camp. Everyone is now very excited to be doing a green on green set of blocks for an extra quilt. This is a bit hard to demonstrate for our distance members but if you have a twister template and can follow the instructions below then please do so and send back your experiment including the little offcuts as well.

Fun with twisters

When I attended a quilt camp in Maine last month I learned how to use a Li'l Twister template to make this stunning table mat. At our last quilt weekend I showed those present how it is done so we are all making the starter block. This runner uses 12 x 5" squares of fabric ("charm squares") but we have decided to make blocks for a quilt using only 9 x 5" squares of fabric which will give us 12.5" unfinished blocks. So here are the instructions:

1. Make a 9-patch using 5" squares of fabric in any greens you can find (avoid Christmas fabrics). Add a border of cream (calico or tone on tone cream will be OK). Don't get hung up on the "green", anything that says green to you even if it has bits of other colours will work. Don't forget to use 1/4" seams everywhere.

 

2. Place the template at each point in the block making sure the crossed lines on the template line up with the joins in your fabrics. Draw around the template.

Make sure you draw around every point on the block, even the ones along the border edge.

3. Using sharp and pointy scissors cut out one row of pieces and arrange them just as they were above your block. This step will avoid confusion.

4. Twist each piece anticlockwise until it lines up along the edges of the cut squares. Join these squares with 1/4" seams.

5. Cut out the next row of squares and line them up as you did before. Then twist them anticlockwise and join them. You will notice that you will have small squares of fabric left on your original block. Be careful with these scraps and try not to cut into them as they will be used later in the border of our quilt.

6. Once you have all the pieces cut and joined as rows, sew the rows together to form your block. Remember, for our blocks you will only have 9 stars, not 12 stars as in these pictures.

Hints:

• Small prints work better than large prints.
• Put colours and textures together than contrast with those around them.
• Cut accurately and try not to cut into the left over scraps.
• Keep all scraps.

I have now written the instructions for this Square Dance block and linked it from the Instructions tab at the top of this page.