Easy Street Sees Progress!

Tonight I sewed with Kathy and we got on Skype and sewed with Barb and Kathy too!  So much more fun...Kathy worked on her clue and Barb on Christmas gifts.

 My flying geese went from this to this tonight!

 So here are all the mystery parts and I am all caught up, whew!  I am really enjoying how easy it is to keep up this time around.  Bonnie knew we needed an easy mystery and I can't even tell you how much easier this seems than Orca Bay (which by the way was worth it!).

 And Kathy got her clue three done tonight too!  She was in Mass all last week so didn't get in any sewing, but hopefully will now have a chance to get caught up this week!  I am really impressed with her.  The last Bonnie mystery she attempted was Orange Crush and while she helped, really I made two Orange Crushes! So this time she is doing it all on her own and pretty much keeping up!

 No pictures yet, but Kathy's niece Megan is doing her first mystery ever and she just finished clue two!  Whoot whoot.  Here in Arizona in addition to the three of us, my quilting friends BJ, Ros, Jacki, Becky, Kathy and Barb are making this quilt too.  That is nine of us that I know of!  Bonnie rocks our world!!!

 In other news, my amazing daughter Hannah graduated from UW-Oshkosh this morning from the School of Business in Accounting!  The bad news is, at the last minute, I was unable to be there....here she is with her younger brother Mac.

 The good news is the folks at UWO live streamed the graduation, so Kathy, Randy and I sat in front of the computer and saw Hannah coming to her seat, heard the speeches and got pictures and video of her getting her diploma!  I couldn't be prouder of her if I tried.  Congratulations Hannah--Oh the Places You Will Go!

She already has a job lined up when she finishes the intern job she has now, but she is planning on studying like mad to pass her CPA before she starts that job in July.  Crossing my fingers she passes, sounds like one heck of a battery of tests!  Whoot, Whoot.

We had a challenge at PHXMQG which met today...to make disappearing nine FOUR patch blocks to donate to Erin for Hurricane Sandy survivors.  Here is a smattering of them, we had almost 30 total!  I made more tonight the top two blocks on the left were the colors I did tonight.  Will be sending them out on Monday.  And on to the next challenge which is drawstring backpacks for kids in crisis.  

See other people's progress on Easy Street at Quiltville.  I finally accidentally learned how to embed a link in here!  WHOOT WHOOT!

PHXMQG Meeting was Today!

We had our PHXMQG meeting today, and 24 people were there.  It was a great bunch, a mix of friends and friends yet to be made!  I won this cool pattern which I really love!  Polka dots always make me smile.  Can't wait to try it out...thanks go to Jona who got some freebies at Quilt Market to give away as door prizes.  I have never heard of this designer, so I will be checking her out!

 LOVE it even more when I see the quilting in this picture.  Seriously amazing!  Pictures borrowed from Patty Young.

 Here is our whole group except for me and Alyssa who were snapping photos!  Oh and Gina who left before we took the picture.  A very diverse group of talented quilters!

 Here is BJ with her quilt.  It is bright as always.  I can't recall the pattern name, but BJ told me we all bought it together recently.  I need to go find it...cute!  BJ and Jacki drove up early and we went to 35th Ave. on our side of town, to the Good Egg (AAA had to come because someone (and it wasn't Ros who was out of town, lol) forgot her keys in the car's ignition!) then we went to SAS for a quick stop.  And I mean quick, we were out of there in a flash, grabbed some drinks and hit this meeting.  I haven't taken pictures of my purchases yet!

 It made my day that they were both there and that they seem to be planning to join the PHXMQG!  That will be so awesome...they are both fun to hang around and put up with me with style.

I had asked on the PHXMQG blog if anyone wanted to make disappearing nine patches to give to Erin to make quilts and send on to the Hurricane survivors.  Bonnie met the challenge with these seven blocks (to add to my six) and BJ cut some out so on December 1st I will be mailing them out!  

Our meeting was a good one, we did tons of planning and brainstorming for the next year.  If you want to check out that blog www.phoenixmodernquiltguild.com/2012/11/november-meeting-minutes.html to see what we are up to!  If you are in the Phoenix area, consider coming to our next meeting and seeing if the group is for you!

A Little Bit of Sewing

 I made some disappearing nine patch blocks to donate to Hurricane Sandy folks.  Hoping some other sewers I know will also make a few and I can mail out a box of them to Erin over at  My Patchwork Life.  She plans to sew them up. get them quilted and send them on.  I want to help her at least a little bit.  http://vesuviusmama.blogspot.com/2012/11/taking-action-wanna-help.html for the specific post with a tutorial on how to make these fun and easy blocks. 

I did sew up another hexi flower in the car on the way up to see my sister (and way back) yesterday.  No Packer game this week, so I plan to be at my machine all day tomorrow!  

Today we had a family party...it was Megan (Kathy's niece) and her daughter Ayla's birthday party.  They had it at the park..it was a bit chilly today (I don't get to say that often in Arizona) and Ayla liked her big girl quilt we gave her.  Megan was equally tickled with the fabric and quilt book we gave her.  

Disappearing Nine Patch Tutoring Session

So I wanted to play around with some fat quarters and do a disappearing nine patch since one of my online groups has been talking about them. They are doing a swap, but I am not planning to participate since I am trying to use my stash fabrics (though I am going nuts to buy more fabric) and I don't have the right black and white fabric for the swap. Anyway, Kathy decided she wanted me to do the cutting and she would do the sewing...since usually it is just the opposite I agreed. She is pretty new to sewing and has a heck of time with a quarter inch seam allowance. So we worked on trying to get her to line up the fabric differently so that she would not shrink her blocks thread by thread. We made progress, but I think my next machine needs a better quarter inch foot. I have a hard time with this one too, but Kathy's seams are bigger than mine no matter how hard we tried to line her up differently. Oh well, practice makes perfect. Here are the pictures from our sewing evening two nights ago...we plan to pillowcase and tie this quilt for a doll quilt for some lucky little girl. There is a great tutorial online on another blog that shows you just how to make this easy and fun block. I love it and need to make some more with this.