Five of us met at Janet's for a lovely evening in front of the fireplace with tea and cookies: Janet, Miriam, Harriet, Shannon, and Patricia
It was a big night for giveaways with Janet sharing lots of books from Jeanne Neptune's studio clean-up and Shannon bringing books and magazines from her studio move.
Show N Tell
Miriam has been busy with crochet hook, making an afghan for a baby. She also brought a delightful quilt top made with cute Paddington bears that she will be finishing up with pink flannel backing and giving to June at Plymouth. She is still working on a quilt top that requires 64 blocks. Once she makes all the blocks, she'll decide how they go together.
Harriet is freshly back from the Joe Cunningham quilt retreat on Hood Canal. She showed Joe's book on Men and Quiltmaking. Harriet brought an original quilt top that included bias tape on the borders. The second quilt top was a personal interpretation of Jacob's Ladder with lots of Kaffe Fassett fabric. Harriet brought a gorgeous collection of fabrics to the retreat. Working with Joe, she learned that ugly fabrics can also make great quilts.
Although she didn't bring them, Harriet has two more tops ready to quilt. She plans to learn how to use Janet's long-arm to finish them.
Patricia was also at the Joe Cunningham retreat and brought the top she made there. She freely admits that she didn't follow any of the instructions. Her breakthrough was making a completely different patchwork design along one edge. The quilt top includes part of a pink seersucker shirt from her mother.
Shannon was the third Piece Maker who went to the Joe Cunningham retreat. Shannon enjoyed working with Joe to resolve two different quilt tops that she brought to the meeting. Shannon's big news is that she's taking over Christopher's upstairs bedroom for her new sewing room, an upgrade from its current basement location.
Janet had jeans to give Miriam who can use them in her denim quilts or repair them as giveaways to the homeless. Janet showed us the sweetest little bag that a neighbor made and sold for $2 to raise money for charity. Janet also had a photo of a delightful I Spy quilt that an ex-coworker from PATH made and took to Vietnam. The big SHOW of the evening was the transformation of Janet's downstairs long-arm room. She and Kelly worked hard to re-work, organize and paint her workspace.
The evening ended with a short moment in Janet's second floor sewing room, cutting up a bolt of fabric that Miriam brought to share. There we saw the Darth Vader quilt that Janet’s husband Kelly is designing for a young family member.
