Monday Morning Star Count 2014/6

I had another wonderful workshop this weekend.  My friend Laura from NYC Mod invited me to teach EPP to her local guild further out on Long Island.  It was a very comfortable intimate class, with just 13 quilters sitting at tables in her living room.  Most had done EPP before, and the rest caught on quickly.  We chatted and stitched, the time just flew by, but by the end, there were some completed units and we agreed that they will all have progress to show when I come visit their guild next month.

I love teaching, but when I get home I always want to just sit and SEW!  I did make progress on TQ#5-- one full diamond and most of a second.  Let me keep working and I'll have pics next week.
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Travel Quilt #5

I couldn't fit any more into my last post, but I needed to share this important quilting milestone-- I started Travel Quilt #5 on the train to the NYC Mod meeting last weekend.  (Well, I cut fabric and filled my sewing kit the night before, but I basted the first piece on the train).  #5?  Yes.

See, TQ#1 and #3 are finished (and well documented), TQ#2 is at the long armer's, and TQ#4 is a project I started when I was gathering ideas for Quilting on the Go, but it stalled when we chose to include other quilts.  The rest of the book projects, though mostly stitched while traveling, weren't numbered as such.

I came home from teaching last week full of so much positive creative energy.. I felt better than I have in months.  And I immediately had ideas for two new EPP quilts.  I was able to reign in my enthusiasm and only start one, but I jumped in with two feet and spend most of my free time last week working on it.  The idea was to make 1" hexies from Costas' old shirts.  I ironed, cut, basted, and then.. as I was piecing I realized two things:

1. I don't really like gingham and a quilt of all plaids may drive me insane.
2. Ralph Lauren shirts are beautifully made of high quality fabric, and a bitch to stitch through by hand.  

So no, this idea was out.   I still want to make a quilt from his shirts, but it will have to be by machine.  By this point though, I was emotionally invested in making a new EPP quilt, and the pattern was still filling my thoughts throughout the day.  So I just chose different fabric and started another. This will be TQ#5.

As I was on the train coming home from Manhattan after the guild meeting on Saturday, a family got on and was standing because there weren't many open seats.  I had my box open and was basting these hexies, and a little girl kept stealing glances at what I was doing.  The mother whispered to her to ask me about it, and I invited her to come sit on the seat next to me.  She was hesitant at first, but as soon as I asked if she made things, she dropped her guard and started telling me about the patterns of rainbow loom bracelets she could make.  I told her I made bracelets in elementary school too, but now I make quilts; blankets for the bed. I showed her how I basted and whipstitched the patches together and told her that I wrote a book about it that she could get from the library when she's older.  (She told me she was 6, btw)  I gave her mom my postcard so she'd see I wasn't just some crazy crafting lady on the train, I'm a legit quilting teacher!  I kept stitching as she watched and we chatted, and then she surprised me and asked if she could sew two hexagons together.  Umm, sure!
So on a bumpy train, somewhere between Queens and her stop, I taught a first grader how to sew.  And she loved it.  I let her keep the 3 hexies stitched together, and she asked if we could add blue ones next, but we ran out of time.  I showed her the picture of George sewing on my phone, and told her I was glad to have met her.  Her parents thanked me as they got off at their stop.  And all the way home, my heart was so full. 

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/5

What a wonderful week for EPP!
I did a whole bunch of stitching today, but hardly any on my own projects.  I taught 2 workshops this week, and I think I'll share pics and progress from those today instead.

First up, the Long Island Quilters' Society.  This guild was so welcoming and their meeting was very well run!  It's an old school traditional guild (of 90 quilters in attendance, only about 4 admitted to reading quilt blogs) and it was so nice to spend the day with them.  One visiting quilter, Margaret, came to show me the EPP she had been working on since coming to my event at the East Meadow library last August.  Check these out.  She made 60 degree diamond stars and embelleshed them for Christmas ornaments.  These are really nice, and much fancier than the one I tried to make..

She also had a STACK of 12-piece star units.. I think she's ready to stitch them together..

I taught the pillow workshop to a group of 35 women and they all seemed to have a good time.  Having such a big group helped me see where common problems arise-- many people have an inclination to want to baste with a running stitch and pull (as if you were making a yo-yo) instead of the back-stitch method I use.  They looked relieved when I said they could save time by taking less stitches.

After 2 hours, many of them were well on their way to new pillow projects.  One student even emailed me a pic of her progress later in the week.  I love emails like that!

I hope you don't mind lots of photos because we kind of had an EPP party at the NYC Metro Mod guild meeting on Saturday.   Lisa asked me to come and teach everyone how to do EPP (which wasn't really that hard of a job since about 50% of the guild EPPs already) and then we started working on a group project of 1" hexies.  At show and tell, there were lots and lots of EPP projects to share:

 Here are Bernadette's blue hexies (1").

 And Ivete's pink ones (3/4"):

 And going even smaller, Karen's 1/2" hexies.  She has twins, so I thought these may  be the beginnings of quilts for those two, but she said they will become pockets on a bag.  (A much more manageable project, I'm sure)

 This may look familiar, Helen with her blue and white strips:

 

Aleeda showed her progress on a pattern from Hexa-Go-Go.  Great colors!

 And the whole meeting, we all just sat back and stitched hexagons.  Some preferred to baste, others to join, but nearly everyone tried it and I even had a few converts~
(Of course some, like David in the back row, stitched his obligatory 8 hexies and then swore he'd never do it again.  Little does he know, this is going to become an ongoing project for the guild.. hehe)

 After 2 hours, 50 quilters were able to make the beginnings of over 5 stars.  This is just what I collected at the end of the meeting (plus a bag of basted-but-not-pieced hexies).  I know some people took theirs home to finish, so it will be fun to see how many we have in April.

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