Stack and Whack This is a technique first introduced by Bethany Reynolds probably 25 years ago more or less.  It is a short-cut method of creating kaladoscopic blocks by cutting and stacking fabrics after you have determined what the repeat is by looking along the selvedge of the fabric. The key to a successful quilt block is choosing fabrics that match the variation of the technique that you are using and whether you want to make a bold statement or something more subtle and calming.   Overall, the best fabrics have a repeat that is between 12 and 36 inches with a design ..read more

Another baby quilt of truly leftover fabrics.  It's not too bad!  I am trying to use up random baggies of 4 patches and 2 1/2 squares that were just sitting there as I always overachieve when cutting pieces for a quilt.  Needs borders, quilting and binding. The last of this patterned baby quilts for awhile!!  I picked up a bunch of random baby prints from quilt club and used them all! I was scheduled to show some ladies how to do "stack and whacks" and found a lovely piece of flowered fabric to play with for myself.  It was enough for 8 repeats so I made an 8 piec ..read more

  We presented two Quils of Valor at this meeting.  This was one of he veterans and he was obviously touched. This one was presented to a 99 year old woman who was a Navy nurse in WWII.  It was very touching and I was glad I had made a top for his cause (in my last blog). This was made for Habitat for Humanity, another group we support with quilts. There were lots of beautiful quilts at the meeting. This was a temperature quilt! She made this doll in a class. Neo-natal quilt for the unit at the hospital. For a cat lover! Loved this one! This was made as ..read more

I was inspired to make a Quilt of Valor quilt by our speaker and so picked up a couple of fat quarters of patriotic fabric as I have none.  I found a pattern on Facebook that I liked and that I thought would be appropriate.  This is the finished top.  I am going to let someone else do the quilting as it is pretty big and I wasn't comfortable with doing it. This is what the individual blocks looked like. The back of yet another Quilt as You Go. This is the front.  I added the green as the gold and brown started looking like Brownie uniform to me!! This is a block I d ..read more

Our members have obviously been very busy this last month as there were a lot of quilts for show and tell!   This was made as part of an exchange. As usual, I don't have the names of the people who made them but have tried to at least put their picture with the quilt! Loved these birds! This quilt and the next  one were done as a result of a class taught by one of our own! Made for a recently adopted dog! This quilt and the next one were Neonatal quits.  They didn't display the rest of them but there was a pretty good pile!  I had my two in that pi ..read more

Our speaker this month was Katherine Carter who lives here in Wilmington.  She is a super high energy person who primarily makes memory quilts for other people.  Her Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Katsbags.  She obviously gets lots of customers as she is booked out a year in advance and makes about 100 quilts a year!!  Her business is called Kat's Out of the Bag! This is just one of the quilts she has made. This is another one! A really fun part of the meeting was the showing of many of the Cape Fear River challenge quilts submitted by members.  The following ..read more

This is th e quilt from the Farmer's Wife 30s book.I felt like I have been machine quilting forever but it appears to be done with both quilts!  If I had the patience, I would have done some quilting in all those white spaces but didn't!  I like the colors in this one better than the purple one even though I don't usually enjoy working on my blue quilts even though it is one of my favorite colors! I only have to put borders and binding on the purple one and  binding on this one as I am not doing borders.  This one has 90 blocks and is smaller than the other one so I could ..read more

If you read my blog, you remember me doing these blocks around this time last year.  Well, I finally managed to get them put together this summer and have been working the last two weeks on getting the three sections machine quilted which I finally got done this week.  The quilt is currently about 110 x 100 in so pretty good sized.  After putting the three sections together, I will add a small border of purple and then call it quits!  This picture does not include all the blocks as I can't get far away from my too small design wall to get a complete shot! This is a rathe ..read more

Well, first I have to show you a piece of fabric I fell in love with and am pondering what to use it for!  The repeat is 36 inches which is very large for fabric like this and I only have a piece that is 40 x 108.  It was a gift from my sister, who, I might add, is a very bad influence on me!  I visited her in Florida last week and the first day, she suggested we visit a local quilt shop that was in its last week of going out of business!!  Everything was 75% off and even me, who has sworn off buying any more fabric, succumbed and bought a couple of smallish pieces of pur ..read more

Everyone seems to want larger quilts these days for "comfort" quilts so I added this sashing to make it about 56 x 78.  Now just to baste, machine quilt, add borders and bind.  I have used hand dyed fabrics for all the solids as i don't ever buy solids anymore.  Can't seem to find the picture of the fabric that this was made from. And here it is completed.  I like the grey/blue binding I put on it, matching the background of one set of blocks. I found some major yardage of more strip sets that were much lighter in color and decided I could do baby quilts with this color ..read more