Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Use Your Words

Use Your Words. How many times have you said or heard that phrase? I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Kaja and Ann's Ad Hoc Improv Quilts, which led me to Audrey's Quilty Folk, which reminded me that I have yet to use a particular stack of fabric. 

A stack of fabric that took a while to collect. A stack of fabric with words. Now, I'm an English teacher. Words have been a big part of my life--be it teaching how to use them, how to write them, how to read them or to understand them. Words are important to me.

Hmm, maybe it's time to use my words. My word fabric. But not today. Today, and all of this week, I'm working on our guild quilt show. It's less than a week away! So there's lots of work to do. I'll take pictures and use my words. In the meantime, here's an SQI from 2015 that is about using your words. I hope you enjoy.

And where there's inspiration....there must be quilts!

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration

Sunday Quilt Inspiration is becoming more and more difficult lately as it's a struggle to think of anything new. I thought I'd take a look at a few of my older posts in the hopes that I'd come up with something. Then it occurred to me that there are a couple of posts that I could "rerun." This is one that I especially like. Anything in blue is my update from today. I hope you are inspired.

Let's take a look at a few inspiring quilts, shall we?  These come from two of my favorite quilting blogs. They are not the only blogs I visit, of course, but some that I visit often and like very much.  Why not go by and say hello after checking out the inspiring part of this post?

From Carla at Grace and Favor, who is a grandma and quilter we have a couple of darling quilt. It seems that Grace and Favor is no longer active. However, the pieces that Carla put up are still worth taking a look at. Her work is awesome and, yes, inspiring.

Take a close look at Carla's perfect points.....I'm a bit jealous!

For fun a grandchild's mug rug for hot cocoa and cookies.  Now there's a grandma who is inspiring!

Birds on a Wire definitely is worth going to her blog to see.  You need to check out the little clothes hanging beside the quilts.  This is one of my favorites of her quilts....yes, inspiring!

Another fun project: a scrap bucket made of scraps.  I have to make one of these for the studio.  I probably won't use matching scraps since I don't have any, but there are some unused blocks around somewhere........ 

Amber's blog, A Little Bit Biased, is a recent find for me, and I spent perhaps a bit too much time reading her posts and ogling her quilts during the Thanksgiving holidays.  She definitely has lots of talent for both writing and quilting. Today she has renamed her blog Gigi's Thimble and she sells patterns for the beautiful quilts that she designs.

As her header indicates, Amber is also the owner of Gigi's Timble Quilt Patterns.  If you're considering purchasing a pattern, visit her site for some fresh takes on old favorites and for a few surprises also.  Her patterns can also be found on Etsy.

I hope you're inspired to get to your sewing rooms and pull some fabrics out!  I love that feeling of pulling fabrics and getting started on a new project.  Don't you?  Hmm, which color gets to be first this time?

Cotton Quilters Guild February Meeting

On Monday last the Cotton Quilters met at our usual time and place for a very unusual surprise. I had my friend and fellow-blogger from Quilts and Dogs blog visit with us and present her fabric exploration theory. Wow! She's awesome. 

She has played with fabric more than anyone I've ever met. I can't remember all the ways she colors and works with fabric. Let's see--dyeing, discoloring, discharging, bleach, rusting and using natural materials, such as flowers, fruit and veggies, wood and mud. She also showed some of her quilts.

We easily spent an hour ohh-ing and ahh-ing over her work, but despite how interesting it all was, we had to have a regular meeting.

So two of our members showed us how to make the next blocks for our BOM. Somehow I remembered to have everyone show off their blocks from last month. I wish my blocks were as pretty. The colors are a bit muddy and I'm thinking of making new ones. We'll see if I can pull that off AFTER I make the ones for February.

Cathedral Windows

a four patch of the monkey wrench block

And then we had a show and tell!

If this last one looks familiar, it's because you've seen it before here. I quilted it for Mrs. Bertha back around the holidays. She wanted to show it off to the guild before taking it home to bind and then give to its new owner. What an eventful meeting!

September Cotton Quilters' Guild Meeting

My gray, yellow and red version

I had great plans for writing about our September meeting, which we delayed by a week because of the Labor Day holiday. Then the computer mishap and the resulting week of limping along to finish a church project, followed by another week or so of geek repairs. 

Now that we're beyond all of that, I've looked over my pictures from the meeting and think I may remember some of that day which now seems so long ago. 

Mary C's Christmas version

I asked everyone to bring in their blocks or quilt tops from our row quilt. Each month I presented a new block and participants went home to make five or six (their preference) versions of the block using their color choices. 

When the time came, I showed them my almost completed quilt. My quilt is one month ahead of theirs so that I'd have examples to share.  It stills needs a binding, but I had finished the quilting and trimmed off the rough edges. That means it's ready for binding and label any time now.

Pam's colorful version

Wanting to build on what Marty Mason, of Marty's Fiber Musings, presented last month (my blog article is here), I showed them how I use improv to sew scraps together to form blocks or "chunks" of fabric. Since my quilt is not quite as long as I wanted, I added about 15 inches of improv fabric to the bottom of the quilt. My thinking is that this part will be tucked under the mattress so it won't show very much. 

 Finally we got to show and share, but I missed most of the photo opportunities since I plopped myself down to enjoy it all and forgot to take pictures. I managed to get three quilts but can't remember who the makers are. I'll leave you with the pictures and thank you for coming by.