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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Another Birthday Quilt day

Today was another Amazing Quilt Babes birthday stitch day. Since it's been a while since I've explained how my stitch group does this, maybe I should explain it again!

There are 6 of us in the group. Usually in December, we set our calendar for the next year, planning a stitch day about every 6 weeks (none in the month of December). Then we draw names to see who gets which stitch day for their "birthday" gift. The birthday girl chooses the pattern, makes sure to bring instructions for everyone, and might even teach a new technique or review and old one for the day. She also brings everything already cut and ready to sew - it is susually "kitted" up in baggies for the subsets of the larger blocks. For example, today, we had log cabin block baggies, and flying geese baggies.

We begin the morning about 9 AM or so, and sew until lunch time. We all bring our own lunch; the birthday girl brings dessert. Today it was a Baskin Robbins chocolate mint ice cream pie! Then back to sewing again until we run out of parts or out of steam or out of time. Today we got all but 16 blocks completed, and about 1/3of the quilt sewn together.

This is what Ibby brought as the diagram to show how the log cabins were constructed. She was REALLY prepared! And we even got a new phrase to use when pieceing; as in "I've got a 1230 here". This means that one of the pieces in the baggie was cut at 12:30 at night, and probably was cut the wrong size.

Here's the group, once again in our usually places. The birthday girl is wearing RED.

Not bad for having several 1230s along the way, and numerous re-takes on some blocks that weren't sized quite right. Lesson learned for today? Check the size of the block as you go, instead of waiting until you have almost 100 of them done! LOL! It made for a lot of chatting as we unsewed some of our early pieces. This quilt pattern is Double Duty by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company, 78" X 78". Most of the fabrics used were from Jo Morton's line. It's a great fat quarter project, too, as it takes 6 Fats for the geese, 10 Fats of lights for the log cabins and 18 Fats of mediums and darks, plus yardage for the setting triangles, backing and binding.

Now, I've got to get the suitcases out and get them into the room for packing. I'll pack my gear until the NCAA basketball game starts in about an hour then, I'll be in front of the television rooting for our KU Jayhawks! Then back to packing, and hopefully to bed early. Out of here bright and early tomorrow morning for Asilomar, near Pacific Grove California. See you in a week with tales of circles, ovals, un-paper piecing, and wavy gravy (my term) from Dale Fleming's class!

8 comments:

Quilts And Pieces said...

WOW! Did that ever turn out beautiful! The colors are marvelous! Holly is home today for the day and she is so mad KU lost - she had them in her pool winning everything.

Anonymous said...

That is a gorgeous quilt! You all look so good, after a day of sewing :-)
Kathy B

Judy said...

Looks fabulous to me...even with the 1230's!

Lynn Dykstra said...

I like Miss Rosie's patterns--you have wonderful friends.

YankeeQuilter said...

What a great day...and a great quilt. Love teh colors.

bingo~bonnie said...

What an AWESOME group of friends you all are!!! I love the Birthday Stitch Day that you explained! Gee... now where do I find 4-5 friends that know how to quilt so I can talk them into doing the same? ;c)

I love the way this quilt looks!! Those two types of blocks go together beautifully - had never seen a LC set this way before TONIGHT! Can you believe I found the same pattern posted on another blog on the same night - go to:

http://quiltingbydarcie.blogspot.com/

and scroll down to her 2/27/07 entry! and close to the same colors! :)

Thanks for sharing "Double Duty" - I have to put that pattern on my wish list ;c)

Oh and I love your little "1230" - what a fun sense of humor you all have! :c) ~Bonnie in SE Texas

Andrea said...

That looks like a really intricate quilt!

Feeling Simply Quilty said...

That's a great testimony for a quilt guild. It's nice to hear the tribal thing with women is alive and well.