Birthday Celebrations!!

I just copied some information from two of our local shops on their upcoming Birthdays. I'll probably go to both, the Corn Wagon for sure, if you want to carpool let me know. We could even go to breakfast after on Nov 7th.


JUST SEW-
It’s Our Birthday!
Can you believe it’s been one year already? My, how time flies! Join us on Friday, October 23, to help us celebrate our 1st Birthday. The first 30 customers in the store will receive a birthday present from us! Come in and enjoy refreshments and enter our birthday drawing. See you there!


CORN WAGON’S 10TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION -
Saturday, November 7th.
Hard to believe that we have been in business 10 years. Thanks to you wonderful
customers that have kept us in business. It will be quite the celebration. Of course, we
will have our “FAT QUARTER FRENZY” beginning at 8:00 am for one hour our fat
quarters (any fat quarter in the store) are $1.25. Beginning at 9:00
am until 5;00 pm they will go to $1.99. Lots of other 10th birthday surprises going on
throughout the day. Be sure to join us for the fun and birthday cake (maybe cupcakes!)
Plan on joining us on November 7th.

October Tips

I was thinking about all of the great tricks people shared on Wednesday, and thought we should write them down. This is what I remember - let us know if there are any others.

1. Use those snappy hair clips (instead of pins) to hold your binding in place while you hand stitch the back.
2. Thread Heaven helps your thread not tangle up and break when you're hand sewing.
3. After you sew blocks into rows, iron the seams of each row in opposite directions. For example, iron the seams of Row 1 to the right, Row 2 to the left, and Row 3 to the right. That way, when you are sewing the rows together, the seams will "lock" in place and ensure that your corners match exactly.
4. Use a Tailor Clapper (AKA block of wood) to help set creases as you iron them. You can actually use any piece of sanded hardwood.
   
5. When doing machine applique, sew through the quilt top and batting together. The batting helps to stabilize the stitches. This only works with the thin cotton batting; fluffy polyester batting will get caught in your feed dogs.
6. Instead of using safety pins to hold your layers together for quilting, try a temporary spray adhesive.
7. Alli remembered another one: Make a tube of fabric the same width as the quilt, and hand stitch it to the back for a rod pocket. Having a full tube will protect the quilt itself from any chemicals or whatever that might seep out of the rod. And making it the same width as the entire quilt will distribute the weight evenly so that the quilt doesn't begin to sag.
   

Anything else?

Ghost Cookies...

Hi girls...I came home today from Sam's and made some of these "ghost" cookies.  I thought I would share them because I thought they came out quite cute.  I copied the idea from Martha Stewart...I'm definitely not creative enough to come up with them on my own.  They were fast and easy but unfortunately not low fat like Sam's banana bread.  All it is is Nutter Butter cookies dipped in melted white chocolate chips and then mini chocolate chips for the eyes.  I know they aren't quilting related but  I thought I would share them just in case you feel the desire to make them.  And don't they look so cute all wrapped up?  Have a good day!

Christmas Wreath Pillow

Our next project is a Christmas Wreath Pillow. This pattern makes a 20" square pillow. Here is a list of materials needed to make one pillow.

1/4 yard green for wreath
1/4 yard cream for background
1/4 yard medium bow color
1/4 yard dark bow color
1/8 yard gold for first border
1/2 yard dark green for second border and backing
one 8 1/2" X 11" fabric printer sheet for photo transfer(optional)
20" Pillow form
22" square of lightweight batting or fleece
22" square of muslin

Don't feel pressure to make a pillow. I personally will be taking this block and creating a table runner. Others have thought of making it into a wall hanging or table topper. Be creative, but remember your material list will change depending on your needs.
We will meet on Nov. 4th to start this project. We would like to finish the wreath block that day. Contact me if you need a cutting list.

Happy Material Hunting To You All!!

Happy Howl-oween!

Linda's

Jewelia's

Alli's

Teresa's

Sam's

I forgot to mention - that Banana Bread was low fat. So now you can feel good about yourself, if you ate 5 pieces like I did.

October Meeting

We will be meeting this Wednesday, October 14th at 9:30 a.m. at Sam's house.

Be sure to bring your Happy Jack wall hanging (in whatever state of completion). We'll help you get it finished, and then we'll take pictures of them all for our blog.

Jewelia is also going to share some ideas for our next project.

See you there!

BC Quilters By-laws (AKA "How It Works")

That was such a fun meeting today - thanks so much for coming! I couldn't wait - I put together my top right after everyone left. I'm not the only obsessive one - it's only 3:30 and I know Linda and Alli have put theirs together, too.


Here is another copy of how the group works. Feel free to talk to anyone you know who might be interested. I'll try to keep the blog up to date so that anyone who wants to can take a peek and see whether they're interested.

1. Group members can keep up on Group projects via e-mails, the blog at battlecreekquilters.blogspot.com, friendly chats in the street, and quilt group meetings.
2. Leadership of the group will rotate through the membership, and will change at the beginning of each new project. This is a voluntary position (but we really love volunteers!)
3. Dates will be set for the completion of group projects at the beginning of a project, and group members will have their assigned portions of the project completed by the due date - especially if you are participating in a swap.
4. Sometimes you can’t (or just don’t want to) participate in a particular project because of time constraints, illness or whatever - and that’s okay. But let’s commit as a group to participate in at least one (1) Humanitarian Aid project to be completed each year.
5. The Law of the Harvest: Members who choose not to contribute to a particular project will not receive any blocks, fabric, etc. in return for that project.
6. Quilt members who opt out of a particular project are welcome (and even encouraged) to come to the meeting anyway, have a natter, and enjoy the treats.
7. Good quality fabric should be used when making blocks/projects to swap. Quality quilting fabric can be found at specialty stores such as American Quilting, Broadbent’s, and The Quilter’s Cottage.
8. Care should be taken in the completion of each project. Always do your best, but keep in mind that we’re all learning - so we won’t fret over a lost point or a pucker here and there!
9. We may have a few rules to help keep us organized, but this is a friendly group, and we’re all friends. Let’s just have some fun!

Happy Jack!

Good morning! I'm so excited for our first meeting tomorrow and for our first project, Happy Jack!


As a reminder, here are the fabric requirements:

(2) 6 1/2 inch squares of black
(2) 6 1/2 inch squares of orange
(20) 5 1/2inch squares black
(12) 5 1/2inch squares orange
1/3 yard black print fabric (mouth, nose, eyes)
1/6 yard green fabric (stem)
1 1/8 yard fabric for the back
1/4 yard fabric for the binding

Wednesday, you should bring:

Two 1/4 yard cuts of orange fabric
Three 1/4 yard cuts of black fabric (that's different from what I told most of you)
rotary cutter, ruler, and mat if you have them
sewing machine, if you feel like it

So here's the plan for our meeting:

1. Cut out our squares and swap fabric
2. Talk about basic quilting techniques (fabric, thread, seam allowances, needles, yada yada)
3. Sew our half-square triangles
4. Maybe get started chaining together some of our squares
5. Talk about what kinds of projects we want to do, how committed we want to be, and whatever else seems important.
6. Eat treats. Or maybe eat treats first.
   

Please feel free to bring your kids. We'll send them all down to the toy room and hope for the best.

P.S. I'll add you all as writers to the blog. Go ahead and add posts, comments, links, or whatever else you think we should read.

P.P.S. If you want to do the easy method of half-square triangle piecing, cut your larger squares to 6 1/2 inch. If you've already cut them to 6 inches, no worries - you'll just piece them together the traditional way.