Guild Christmas party gift exchange.....

I belong to the Raintree Quilter's Guild in Indiana. Every year at our December meeting we have a gift exchange. Around September everyone is given a fat quarter of the same fabric. Each person who chooses to, makes a gift using that fat quarter and whatever other fabrics they want and then brings it to the December meeting where we exchange them! I'm always amazed a the creativeness of each person and the variety of gift items! I wish I could show them all individually, but there were too many. Here is a selection of the runners and small hangings that were brought in.
Three more runners.

Another one

A beautiful redwork square.

Holly with a bow

Two placemats!

I believe the Santa hanging is for holding cards and a nice table topper.

One of our art quilters made this....very interesting!

I made this little runner.

A wreath and a mug with pockets inside and out for pencils!

Snowman pillow

Snowmen wall hanging.

Several small items: A small bag (which I won!), a snowman door hanger, a flower for on a chair back, a paperback book carrier, and another zip purse,

More small items: another type of purse, pillowcase, the chair back thing again, a notebook cover, a purse and Kleenex holder.

This was one of my favorites.....a beautifully done crazy quilt heart on a hanging.

Another art quilter offering....a framed window with a collage.

Four coasters

Another shot of the mug pencil holder, a small table mat with candle, and a kitchen set!

This was the most unique gift and so clever! A "Quilter's Sampler".........

.....and inside little quilt fabric "bonbons" (stacks of small fabric squares). Is that clever, or what?

A fancy zip bag with decoration

Some of the small items again.

The pillowcase.

We also have a pitch-in meal and draw the winning ticket for the raffle quilt for the year. A very nice way to spend an evening with clever, quilting friends!

Christmas quilt tops finished....finally!

I finally got my two Christmas lap quilt tops finished! I sewed the borders on last night. This one is the Lover's Knot pattern. I didn't set it on-point like Eleanor Burns does. Too much trouble and I like it like this.
A close-up of the middle

A corner shot to crop for a banner.

The other Christmas lap quilt top is that same 9-patch/rail fence combination I used on my big bed quilt. I know it is a bit "gaudy", but I like it :-) I thought the candy stripe red and green prints were a fun touch. It looks better when you see it for real. I have enough of those 9-patch blocks to make another one! I may try a different setting for the next one.

A shot of the middle.

A corner shot.

Now for the hard part....the quilting. I'm going to try to machine quilt the 9-patch myself across the diagonals of the 9-patch squares. I'm not very good at this, but on a small quilt, I think I can handle it. The Lover's Knot, I may have someone else quilt for me on a long-arm machine.

Des Moines, Iowa Quilt show link.....

This is a link to the photos I took at the Iowa Quilt Show. here
It was a great show, with lots of added exhibits: Game Board Quilts, Men and the Art of Quiltmaking, and the Des Moines, Iowa guild quilt show. We also saw an exhibit of old crazy quilts: here.

Quilts from Wabash Prison....

(Click on any photo to make it larger)

In an earlier post, I mentioned the wonderful magazine article done about the inmates at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility (Carlisle, Indiana) in the PLUS unit who are quilters. These men create quilts.....as many as 30 a month....to be given to homeless people, service families, and other service type projects. They also made a quilt that won a 3rd place ribbon at the Indiana State Fair this year.....with 3-D pigs on it for the theme "Year of the Pigs". I tried to find a photo on-line but was unable to find one.These quilts are ones that were brought to Evansville to show to the Kairos team, who will be going into Wabash for a Kairos weekend in a few weeks. My husband brought them home and stretched them out on our living room floor....best I could do! They are stunning. Especially considering the lack of tools and materials that most of us quilters take for granted!
These guys have a great feel for color and pattern in my opinion! They are mostly self-taught and have only a few sewing machines to use and have to use children's safety scissors to cut the fabric. All of their quilts are tied.
I just love this cat quilt! The black squares are a satiny fabric....wonderful feeling quilt.

Some of our local quilters were able to put them in touch with a southern Indiana company that has lots of home decorator fabrics that are thrown away.....so now they are providing them to the prisoners to make sturdy quilts for homeless people. Most of us quilters only want 100% cotton fabrics, but these guys make do with whatever they are given and make beautiful and functional quilts. I imagine they feel pretty good when you are sleeping under a bridge somewhere! Isn't the color and pattern of this one wonderful?

A close up.....it reminded me a lot of men's neckties or suits.

How about this pattern? Lots of folded 3-d triangles!

A close up to give a better idea.

This would be a typical quilt for a homeless person.

Another...love the big cat fabric in the corners.

An interesting pattern....simple but effective.

I thought this one was pretty amazing considering their lack of training! The stars are of a red satiny fabric....sort of like neck ties again...and really looked nice!

They need lots of supplies....mostly batting, sewing machine needles, pins, and of course fabric! If you have anything you wanted to donate or know of any supplier that would donate anything, I'd love to hear from you!

For any of you reading this who are local to Evansville, IN, the Kairos Prison ministry is always looking for Chocolate Chip cookie bakers. Each Kairos weekend....there are 2 a year in every Indiana prison....requires about 50,000 HOMEMADE cookies! That's a lot of cookies!

The coming Kairos weekend is Oct. 21-24. If you have any interest in making cookies, contact me for the recipe and instructions. mvfreeman2@gmail.com

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"......

I must be getting in the Christmas mood....I have two ideas for Christmas lap quilts I want to make. This one is the Lover's Knot pattern. It requires making 2 different blocks....switching the colors, as shown in the photo. When all put together it forms the red and green x's as shown in these two layouts. I've only made 4 blocks to make sure I liked the fabrics.
It should be fun to make and not very hard. Although I promptly started out by cutting my "logs" the wrong sizes....too large luckily, rather than too small! Another reason to test a pattern before cutting lots of fabric!
The other Christmas quilt will be like the big 9-patch in my header photo, but I haven't got enough different fabrics to start pairing up 6" squares yet. I just bought some pre-cut ones on Ebay, so can't wait to get them! I'm also going to the Des Moines, Iowa quilt show next week, so I maybe be looking for Christmas fabric there!

Flip and Sew Runner variation 2010.....

I first learned to make a "Flip N Sew" runner in a workshop a couple years ago. I have made lots of them since...they make great gifts and I have two of my own. For this one, I tried something a little bit different....I added the row of squares running down the center and really like how it turned out. I put a tutorial in my blog on the Flip and Sew here The only difference in this one is that I used a 9-patch in the center and then replaced the 2 1/2 x 8" piece with a strip made from a 2 1/2" square sewed to a 6" strip (making an 8" piece)

I like how it turned out and will have to try another one! This one is a Christmas gift :-)

I found a lovely line of fabrics (that I don't know the name of)..... the fabric on the back and the black and white floral fabric came from the same line. The rest were just red and black fat quarters that I picked up at several different places.

Getting some things finished finally....

I've recently gotten two quilts back from having them machine quilted, and am busy sewing the binding on both. Linda did a beautiful job of creating flowers and leaves on my Lilac Time quilt.
Hard to get a photo of, but here it shows one flower and the squiggle in the stripped border. I love it! I've got the binding sewn to the front, now I just have to hand sew it to the back. I already added a hanging sleeve with the binding, because I know I'm going to put this one in our next quilt show :-)
Will show the quilting on the big 9-patch as soon as I get some decent photos. I took some tonight, and they came out too dark. Will wait for daylight and try again. Flash distorts the color. I have also finished a table runner I want to take photos of.