Tuesday, April 08, 2014

We had a nice, chatty group of women today. 17 of us attended. I was gone last week so was pleasantly surprised to see that Betty K. had returned from her winter home in South Carolina. She had everyone at her end of the table making t-shirt necklaces. They were very simple to make and looked pretty darn nice. I can see that Agnes will be making a lot for the  church bazaar and that Betty and Sue will make a lot for the Apple Festival. Last week I attended a workshop with quilt artist Rayna Gilman at the Hudson Valley Studio Art workshop in Greenville. It was great fun! Rayna's technique is very improvisational. There are no rules, no right way or wrong way, no mistakes. You just cut, sew, cut again, look at it this direction and that direction, re-arrange the pieces and look again. Then when you like what you have you sew it all together. It was a ball! We had 12 women there from as far away as Alaska. Barbara M. and I were the only local people attending. Rayna really opened your eyes to all the possibilities of improvisation so I imagine I'll be bringing in some more of my artworks. I brought in the top I created at the workshop. I know that art quilts are not to everyone's taste but it's what I want to do so I'm going to try some more unusual things for the time being. I also brought in my retirement quilt: a scrap rainbow star hexagon. After I retired I went home and started making it. I think of rainbows as being good luck so this quilt is my wish to myself for good luck in my retirement. Tina, Jo-Anne, Cathy M., Joyce and I all attended the Empire quilt show in Shenendahowa on Sunday. We all bought a little something and Tina came in with a top for a baby quilt completed except for an outside border. She had bought some cute fabric with animals on it and has a friend who is having a baby so she went home and got busy. Our new member, Rosalind, brought in a newly made cro-hook so that Tina could teach her to make a cro-hook afghan. Cro-hooked afghans are double sided and very warm. Joyce is trying to catch up on all of our old projects so she made some tape measure bags. They're fun and easy and the tape measure closure makes it fun to open and close. Fran brought in some redwork magazines for Joyce to look at since Joyce finished her red quilt with 4 redwork blocks included. Our group is really great for sharing and for teaching each other new techniques. Agnes and Rosalind both brought in cakes today so we all went home happy and well fed.