Show And Share At Bonnie Hunter Class.

After lunch we did show and share at the Bonnie Hunter Class.  Here is me, mom and Bonnie Hunter with Mom's Orca Bay Quilt.

Mom and Bonnie.

 

What fun this class was.  So much talent in the group.
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Bonnie Hunter Class......YES!!

If you have never taken a class from Bonnie Hunter it is certainly something that you need to add to your bucket list.  She is such a wonderful genuine person and truly wants you to quilt, quilt, quilt!

So here we go.  First almost all of us Bee girls were able to go to the class.  Here is mom getting started.

Bonnie teaching us "the sweet spot" for our quarter inch seam.  Who  knew you can't trust your machine.  Boy did it make a difference in my seams.

Here is part of my stack.  I'm making the red and black version for me and using my red, white and blue to make a Quilt of Valor as a leader/ender project. 

Here is Gina concentrating hard. 

Sue working her magic on her scrappy version also.

Christine is concentrating on her piecing.

Susan having a blast with her scrappy version.  And believe me it was fun as Susan doesn't do scrappy well as she likes to control what is in the quilt.....but I have to say she did wonderful with this pattern.   

Here Bonnie is showing some more ladies the leader/ender trick. 

And here I am working away on my blocks.

 And here with Bonnie.

Suzanne being her little worker bee self on her Quilt of Valor.

We all had a great time in the class and stayed over for the guild meeting and Bonnie's truck show and lecture.

Happy Quilting,

Shelia

More Retreat Fun.

Suzanne, my roomie, took the Crazy Quilting class.  She is already a very accomplished embroiderer but wanted to learn some new techniques.  When I visited her classroom I was in awe of the workmanship of these ladies.

Maybe someday I will be able to do something like these quilts.  so much handwork.

And look at this pincushion little guy  Isn't he cute!

Heading home from retreat and now back to reality.......work....until Thursday when we head to Clinton SC to take a class with Bonnie Hunter!!!!
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

My Retreat Class

My class at the retreat is called Cotton Candy Pinwheels.  You know I love pink quilts but I decided to do this quilt in Christmas colored fabrics.  But it sure is pretty in pink.

 This is Duane (Dawn) Walker my instructor.

My first block almost completed.

And now I've learned to do yo yo's.  I think this is going to be a pretty quilt.

 Here I've got two blocks and laid them out with my green sashing and gold corner stones.  Yep I think I like it.

 One of our students Courtney has this cute sting catcher and organizer which fit into a coffee cup.

Here is another sample that Daune had made with Christmas fabric.  I really know my quilt will be pretty now.

Retreat is fun to learn new techniques and spend time with other quilters.  Glad that I decided to come this year.
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Quilters Of South Carolina Fall Retreat!!

Suzanne and I finally made it to White Oaks and started our QSC Retreat.  This is going to be a great weekend.

We quickly got checked in and started to set up the District 1 booth.  Suzanne brought her South Carolina quilt and posters with projects that District 1 has done this past year.

Susan was also at retreat helping Marietta in her shop booth. 

 Here Susan and Marietta are watching QSC President Karen Kendo quilt on a quilt of valor.  Jennifer Kay of The Quilting Solution brought a longarm machine to the retreat.  She was able to get 9 quilts quilted for Quilts of Valor.  Our president Karen has made this her president's challenge this year. 

The Quilts Of Valor Booth at retreat.

Suzanne decided it was time to try out one of those swinging chairs White Oaks has in their lobby.

More retreat fun to come tomorrow.

Running Errands With My Honey

Today Roger and I have been playing catch up with tons of errands to run.  On the way home we saw this unique antique shop in Greenville that we had never been into and decided to stop and stroll through the shop.

The front window was so unique....as you can see chickens were housed in the front windows. 

The shop was huge....we went into so many rooms I think you could have gotten lost and no one would even know you were there.  Some rooms I refused to go into....just too weird looking. 

Hanging in one room I saw this unique blazing star quilt.  Hand quilted fans.  Beautiful.  This is as close as I could get with all the stuff around.

 Walking through the rooms we suddenly found ourselves outside again.  As we wondered through all of the yard statues, old hub caps and stuff we came upon another chicken coup.  Go figure.  I think this was really just a hoarders junk shop.  We were not the only people in there looking around, but I never saw anyone who actually worked there.

Oh well, another interesting day in the life of this quilter.
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Getting Ready For Quilter's Of South Carolina Retreat.

Today I am trying to get my things together for the QSC retreat this weekend.  But before I get to that I want to show a special gift I received from Suzanne's husband Vince.

It is a seam ripper.  He knows I love pink and he make the pink handle himself.  Isn't it beautiful!  Thanks for such special friends.

Now to preparing for retreat.

In looking at the class I will be taking "Cotton Candy Pinwheels" below, I decided that I did not want to make it in pink...

 

I also did not want to go buy fabric......so to my stash I went.  I pulled these fabrics from my stash.  When I saw the pinwheels and the poinsettia red fabric I thought of a Christmas quilt.

I decided to use the red poinsettia fabric as the pinwheels and piano key border, the green for sashing, the gold for corner stones in the sashing and border and the cream for the background and piano key border.  Thus my plan was set.

 

Next to see what I could cut prior to the class.  The instructor had said that we could cut our background fabric into 20- 14-inch blocks.  O.K. but when I looked at my fabric requirements I needed 6 1/2 yards of the cream fabric....dang!  I searched all through my stash and only had this 3 yard piece.  And I am not going to the fabric store!!  But I did have a bolt of Kona white.......I really wanted the muted cream background and not stark white.......so now what????

 

 So I decided to dye some of the fabric.  I cut 7 yards off of the bolt and went to work putting some rubberbands around different areas to add some texture.

 I then put the fabric in hot water in the bath tub, added some liquid fabric dye in yellow/gold and browns.

 

Then I steeped some tea bags and added the hot tea and bags to the bath.  Then I let it all steep in the tub for several hours.



 



Now this is what the fabric looks like after soaking, rinsing and drying.  It turned out a soft cream color.  A lot of trouble to just darken the fabric slightly, but I think it will be calmer in the quilt.

 

Here is a picture of my blocks cut 14 x 14. 

 

If you can tell the fabric is soft cream with hints of texture and faint yellow splotches from dropping in the additional colors.  It's not quite as dark cream as the original fabric I pulled from my stash but I think I am happy with this.

I better get back to work packing up my supplies now. 

Happy Quilting,

Shelia