Bed Turning, part two

The second bed in the bed turning had a variety of quilts made by or owned by guild members.  Let's take a look:

The dramatic two color quilt above looks like circles.  

This one looks like a Carpenter's Star.  It has a nice contrast.

This quilt started as a mystery, so a few of the colors were changed along the way as more of the mystery was revealed.  The result is subtle and pleasing.

The next few quilts were all made in the 1930's and 40's.  They are all real treasures, and have the characteristic greens, yellows, and soft pinks of that era.

Edyta's visit, part 2--Antique Inspirations

We had blog posts all ready to go after Edyta's visit last May and never posted them, so here goes!

We recently welcomed Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts for an afternoon of fun, fellowship, and quilts!  Edyta started with this charming little quilt made from leftovers.  This is a traditional tumbler pattern, but Edyta used her acrylic template from her pattern Lollipops to rotary cut the scraps.  What a great memory, and a beautiful quilt!

Edyta loves antique quilts, and shows here how she used a vintage find as inspiration for other quilts.  You can see the similarity between the first two quilts...

...but what if you change the design a little and use batiks in stead of reproduction cottons?

This sweet little quilt is a great Lone Star quilt for starters.  Add applique and your quilt becomes a unique wall warmer.

Edyta has exchanged a lot of strips with other quilters around the world, and finds that she gets a lot of variety this way.  When the strips weren't uniform in size, she came up with a solution of alternating the pieced diamonds with plain ones.

She also strips pieces together, then cuts out the diamond shapes.

This is the cover quilt of her book, Scrappy Fireworks quilts.  It's a more ambitious version of the small quilt above,  but also includes appliques.  The diamond pieced border makes this quilt unique.

And you can use the smallest pieces to make a fabulous quilt!

Edyta finds inspiration all around her, from museums to vintage shops.  A unique antique quilt was the jumping off point for this fabulous quilt, made in Edyta's fabrics.  This sampler quilt really creates a lot of excitement, and yet the blocks flow into one another.

This sweet quilt contains a lot of Edyta's favorite things.  She uses triangle papers to make her half square triangles, and her papers come in 1-1/2" and 2" sizes.  These are perfect for a triangle exchange if you want to get together with your friends and make any of Edyta's quilts from her book, Friendship Triangles.

Even Edyta gets to do English Paper Piecing--in her spare time!

Edyta Sitar visits Back Door Quilts part 1

Earlier in May, we had a wonderful visit from designer Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.  Edyta took  time out of her busy schedule to help us celebrate our 40th anniversary, bringing lots and lots of quilts for our viewing pleasure.  Here are pictures from that special day.

The room is all set up for our guests, and the quilts are spread out on an antique iron bed.

Excitement is high as we all settle in for a fabulous show. 

Darlene has made several of Edyta's quilts, and helped her with the bed turning. 

Linda and Teri had met Edyta years ago at her first retail show, and immediately wanted to show off all her quilts!  Here are the three friends over 10 years later, and we still love all her quilts and her fabrics!

Back Door Bundles

Edyta Sitar's latest book, Scrappy Fireworks Quilts is going to be released soon.  To get ready for the quilts in this spectacular book, we have created Back Door Bundles, which are 58 fat eighths inspired by the quilts of Edyta Sitar.  We chose regular cottons and batiks in shades of pink, raspberry, blue, gold, green, and brown.  The scale of prints includes large scales perfect for fussy cutting, as well as tone on tone blendables.  You will enjoy using our bundles as the basis for all of Edyta's quilts--just add scraps or trade with your friends for the amazing variety that Edyta uses.

Here, Neppie is working her magic on the bundles, rolling them so that most of the fabrics show.  We have Edyta's favorite snack, Skinny Cow, ready for her when she's done!

This shows the fabrics in one bundle.

English Paper Piecing

 It's here!  Our friend Vicki Bellino's book on English Paper Piecing has arrived, and it's wonderful!  This Saturday, March 17, from 10-3, Linda will be demonstrating her tricks for making EPP quick and easy.

Pictures from top to botton:  We couldn't settle on just one project, so we've started several!  Linda is giving some of our girls tips on how she's made the Baby Pentagons in the book.

One of the best parts about English Paper Piecing is how portable it is--and you can look for adorable tins and boxes to carry your pieces around!

These blocks are made with 5/8" hexagons.

The Baby Pentagons are going to be made with reproduction fabrics, mostly Jo Mortons.

Look what we've been doing!  Well, actually, Linda and Marilyn have been working on these wonderful quilts.  Linda used English Paper Piecing for the cute mini Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt at left.  It looks different from the usual because it uses Civil War reproduction fabrics. 

The Double Hourglass quilt also uses reproductions, and is a little less scrappy looking because of the uniform setting blocks and borders.  Linda pieced it as well, and Marilyn quilted both quilts--yes, even the mini!

Both quilts are from the new book by Kathy Tracy, Civil War Sewing Circle.