Northwest Suburban Quilters Guild, 2017 visit

It was just over two years since I last paid a visit to the Northwest Suburban Quilters Guild at the Rolling Meadows Community Center. You can read about that trip here.

I made the short journey north on Thursday afternoon and checked in to my hotel before heading out to dinner with three of the guild members. After a great meal we drove over to the venue and set up all my stuff.

In some respects not a lot has changed since that last trip… they are still wonderful group of happy quilters who smile on demand,on both sides of the aisle…They make lots of quilts for philanthropic causes,and have some beautiful show and tell.

There were little quilts,and big quilts!

This was a block of the month program of winter houses, set with snow men and snowflake blocks.This next quilt was a long time in the making. I think the maker said she started it thirty years ago. It’s a cross stitch design that she hand quilted!Sharon described this as her purple Dear Jane quilt. You know that means that she made more than one…There was a beautiful, finished Allietare quilt,  Bonnie Hunter’s 2015 mystery quilt. I didn’t notice everything there is to see on this cheerful farm quilt until I looked at the photo again just now.It’s centered around the panel in the middle but those chickens around the edge are just too much fun! The maker is giving it to a friend’s new baby. You know it’s going to be a well received gift.

I gave my Lessons Learned While Quilting lecture. I updated it last week and I am very happy with the changes I made. It’s still the same lecture with the same message but I do like to keep it up to date. The journey continues and I try to keep learning!

Can you believe I didn’t even have the dream of writing a machine quilting book two years ago and now it’s published and everything?

Friday morning I headed to the Elk Grove Library for a Steps to Successful Free Motion Quilting class. We start with everyone gathered around my sewing machine. Here’s a little glimpse of what I see from my seat!The challenge is always to make sure everybody is still smiling at the end of the day.

The ladies were good sports and doodled and stitched for six hours.Everyone went home committed to practice!

We had a complete change of pace on Saturday with a Folk Art Stitching class.

We started with some basic chain stitch,
adding other stitches and embellishments after lunch.It was a lovely sociable class. Students went home with traced designs and lots of beautiful hand dyed threads to continue their stitching fun.

Today’s featured image is a photograph of some of the unique Bali panels I stock for sale. I get them from Judy Gula of Artistic Artifacts who imports them direct from Indonesia. They can be framed and admired as they come. Embellished and included in a quilt, the possibilities are endless!

I drove home tired but happy after my two and a bit days with the quilters. Steve was back from his trip to England and was installing the screen doors while his laundry was tumbling in the dryer!

So we are both back home, at least this week… My fabrics have arrived for my new project. I’m looking forward to stitching on my machine. First I need to clear up. Again!!