The Gentlemen Quilters From Tulsa

Monday afternoon I had a great time in workshop taught by Gary Wasson and Joe Galusha, aka The Gentlemen Quilters from Tulsa, OK.  We all COMPLETED a wallhanging using their EZ Circles technique.  While not an entirely new technique to me, they do use a slightly different method to achieve PERFECT circles with no sewing (3 different type glues were used).

Step one

Ready to apply to background fabric

The wallhangings required 4 circle blocks which took an hour or less to make

Three of them were sliced to make this 9-patch

 And  about 2 to 2 1/2 hours later we all had wallhangings made.

In the evening Gary and Joe gave a wonderful trunkshow which you can view here

I hope you enjoy!

Workshop

I had a wonderful time Monday teaching a workshop for my guild..The Little Balkan's Quilt Guild. The girls made some BEAUTIFUL projects. Two of them were completely FINISHED! The others soon will be and I hope they all enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

Here are some pictures Tom took during the day.

I enjoyed presenting a trunk show that evening and again on Tuesday to the Joplin Town and Country Guild. I'd like to just curl up in the recliner and do some handwork today, but it's chicken and noodle dinner time at church again so I need to get busy and bake some apple dumplings to take over and work this afternoon.

Maybe tomorrow I can veg and quilt.

Busy Week

I had a wonderful day yesterday teaching my silk flower and tulle floral wallhangings in a workshop for our guild. I'll share more pictures later but here's a glimpse of the wonderful projects the participants made





You might find this article in today's Pittsburg paper interesting. There are two major inaccuracies. My son, Michael is a non-commissioned officer, not an officer in the Army (he would want me to correct that) and of course I made him quilted Purple Heart wall hangings, not knitted ones. LOL. I don't knit.


Now we are off to Joplin.

My Student

Next month I'm going to be teaching a workshop for my guild on wall hangings made from silk flowers and tulle. Tom thought he wanted to see if he could make one, so Monday he began a project.

Here he is pressing his fabric for the background, borders and backing.


Sewing his background and borders. He really likes my little Featherweight.



Selecting the flowers to use

And arranging them

Layered with tulle and batting and ready to quilt

This was a busy week for us, so he wasn't able to start quilting until Wednesday

He finished the quilting yesterday

I bound it for him this morning (that's his least favorite part of the quilting process and I've convinced him there is no shame in letting someone else do it for you).

Didn't it turn out nice?

It's a Christmas present for his mother. Hope she doesn't read this before she gets it!

Tom thinks if he can do this, then anyone can. Hope the students next month feel the same.

Here's a link to projects made by people I've taught in the past

And some of the many I've made

Lots of Eye Candy!

Two very busy days just passed. Yesterday after church in the morning, I spent most of the afternoon and evening cooking and baking. I'm program chair for our quilt guild this year and I decided it would be both fun and economical to cook the meal for the workshop I had scheduled for today. I've now instructed my husband that the next time I plan so many things to do in a single day he is to remind me I'm nearly 63 and on oxygen 24/7. He doesn't seem to think he'd be all that successful and he's probably right. Still...........

I made a huge pot of what my family calls "stew", but what is actually a beef-vegetable soup. After I started that simmering, I made dough for butter semmel dinner rolls to go along with the soup. Then I had to make a big batch of pie crusts to put in the freezer, since I'll be baking four pies on Wednesday for our church's monthly chicken and noodle dinner.

After that was done it was time to stop and get my fabric and supplies ready for today's workshop. Then I stirred up dough for the cinnamon rolls that would raise over night. Remember I promised the guild I'd bake them for every workshop as an inducement to get people to enroll.

Then I baked 5 dozen dinner rolls. And got more supplies ready for today. Okay..I also took a break and watched Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters and later the first episode of the new season of Big Love. That was over at midnight and then I had to form the cinnamon rolls and put them in the pans to continue raising. Got up at 6 to bake them this morning.

I'll probably do it all again sometime, but not tomorrow!

Now on to the fun stuff you'd rather hear about (as opposed to my whining about being tired).

We are fortunate as a quilt guild to have lots of very talented members. One of them is Jan Campbell. She is also one of our most productive quilters. I sometimes think I get quite a bit done, but Jan just leaves me in the dust! When I started working on my programs for this year I was happy when she offered to conduct a Stack 'n Whack workshop and give a trunk show.

I have no idea how many quilts Jan has made over the years, nor even how many Stack 'n Whack ones. All I know is A LOT! And she is also one of our most generous quilters, donating lots of her work to community quilts and other worthwhile causes.

The workshop was so much fun. We had twelve members and it is always so amazing to see the unique talents and tastes individuals bring with them.

Here's some of the promised eye candy from the beautiful blocks made today:

First the only picture I got of Jan as she instructs one the participants Ida was first to get a block completed

Myldred Phyllis Marie Norma This is the interesting fabric Elma chose to work with

And look at her cool blocks! Theresa cut up Laurel Burch panels..who would have thought to use panels?

Hazel
Ida block #2

Phyllis block #2

Shirley

Stephanie made slightly smaller blocks

One of the very cool blocks..or block segments from Theresa's Laurel Burch panels. She thought you couldn't use it because of the letters. I think it will be one of the neatest blocks in her quilt! What do you think?

Stacia

Marie block #2

Stephanie block #2

I didn't make the same blocks as everyone else. You always have to have one oddball in every group, right? I purchased the fabric below last fall with the idea of making a One Block Wonder quilt. When I asked my husband if he wanted me to use it to make regular Stack 'n Whack blocks or the OBW, he voted for the later, so that is what I worked on today.

Because it will be sewed together in rows of half hexagons to avoid Y-seams, it's necessary to make all the blocks and decide on their arrangement before sewing any together. So I just laid the blocks I had done on the table to get a feel for how the quilt might develop. I think it has possibilities.

And here's another I started a long, long time ago. It was a small piece of fabric I picked up in the remnant bin. I did sew the blocks together using Y-seam contruction. If I ever get it finished it will be a wall hanging.

Jan's trunk show was wonderful. It was hard to get good pictures but you can see more of her quilts and other pics taken today at the workshop in one of my Photobucket albums.

This is one of my favorites among her Stack 'n Whacks. It's called "Bills Babes". And she made it for her father. The first picture shows only a quarter section of the quilt.

Hey. I'm thinking that blouse Hazel has on would make great Stack 'n Whack blocks!

And here's a closeup in which you can hopefully see the border fabric which was used to make the blocks. Isn't it great?

She ended her trunk show with this amazing antique postage stamp quilt. Hopefully if you click on it, it will enlarge enough for you to get some idea of the fantastic work. The hand quilting is superb and the quilt itself is in perfect condition..made in the 1920's.

Aren't quilters just the most fascinating bunch to spend a day with? I'm glad I didn't have to pick a favorite from the blocks made because it would be an impossible task. They were all wonderful!

Trunk Show

Working on some more Christmas table runners today.. a great stashbusting process. While I do that here's some eye candy. Our guild historian shared some pictures from our meeting this month. Enjoy!

A couple pics of some of the Mariner's Compass wallhangings made in Cynthia's workshop. Various degrees of completion but all of them GORGEOUS!

The following pics are from Cynthia's trunk show.

Check out the size of the English paper pieced Grandmother's Flower Garden.

My quilt "Playin' With My Friends", made from Cynthia's pattern. It's the current BOM on her website.

The rest of these are all Cynthia's patterns and most can be found on her website .

Zig-Zag 9

Potluck Pinwheels

Whirl-A-Jig

Red Hot Leftovers

Scrap-O-Rama

Aren't trunk shows great?