Pinnie Parade

There's a pincushion parade over on Instagram this month, and I have joined in!  What I love about this #pinnieparade is the pincushions can be ones made already - gifted to a friend, gifted from a friend, newly constructed, vintage - you get the idea!

Here's a rundown on week one:

Graphic made while trying out Canva

Day 1 featured my newest pincushion acquisition, gifted by my friend Caroline.  She pieced tiny pieces to make this adorable pinnie.

This pincushion for Day 2 was made following Heidi's pattern from her Sew Organized for the Busy Girl book with leftover Carolyn Friedlander fabrics and mailed to a friend.

Day 3's pincushion I kept for myself.  I used a thin leftover strip of solids from Chawne Kimber's Small Pieces workshop.

Day 4 was a gift from my friend Jackie.  She made this pretty hexie pincushion with all Cotton+Steel fabrics.

I pattern tested this cute scrappy pincushion for Amanda Jean's Plenty of Pincushions Volume 1. Posted on Instagram for Day 5.

This long skinny pincushion gifted by Amanda Jean was shown on Day 6 and is perfect for placing right in front of my sewing machine when chain piecing.

Leslie sent her new Urban Artifacts fabric, and I made this pincushion with her selvages for her market booth.  That's Day 7!

I am pretty sure I can play along for 31 days using pincushions already made!

If not, then I will have an excuse to make MORE pincushions.

I see that as a win, win situation!

Gruber's Retreat 2017

Warning: this post is quilt-picture heavy as I just returned from our eighth annual quilting retreat in Minnesota. Four full days of sewing with friends!! I look forward to this get-together at Gruber's All.Year.Long! In most cases, I only see these amazing friends once a year, but we pick up right where we left off the previous year like we just saw each other yesterday.

 Once again, I traveled with my featherweight in the Sew Portable Travel Bag.  Jewell got lots of sewing hours in as I assembled the remaining 96 log cabin blocks for my daughter's graduation quilt. Listening to the machine sing stitch as I chain pieced (and chain pieced and chain pieced) each log cabin round was therapeutic.  I really should use this machine more than I do.

My goal was to have the quilt top assembled by Sunday, but I settled with having all the blocks completed and a final layout decided.  The design wall was not large enough to show all the blocks and work on the final layout (I did that digitally and then confirmed on my design wall when I got back home), but it was sufficient to see enough of the pattern to make sure I was on the right track.

In addition to our usual laughing, chatting, and snacking, there was some beautiful projects in the works.  I'll leave it to my friends to share their own photos.  Cindy was doing her magic with solids and Anna Maria Horner prints; Amanda Jean whipped up a quilt top worth of blocks and her adorable pin cushions; Doris completed TWO quilt tops, worked on Heather Ross fussy cut paper pieced star blocks, and made an adorable 3-D unicorn for her niece; Stephanie finished her Metro Rings quilt top started in a retreat from just two weeks before, kept up with her #100Days100blocks project, and made quick progress on the Local quilt; Mary made adorable owls and firebugs to add to her other Elizabeth Hartman Fancy Forest critters; and Shelly worked on THREE projects simultaneously including adorable Elizabeth Hartman flamingos.  We missed having Michelle and Terri with us this year; it's sure not the same when we are without one (or two) of our friends.

Since I wasn't sewing much before retreat, I created Lego sewing machines for my friends.

Exchanging happies has become a ritual at retreat, and I'm always amazed at what my friends create year after year.  Below is the amazing collection of happies I received from my friends this year. 

Having other quilty friends who are in the area pop by is another tradition of our retreat.  Brooke,  Victoria (who invited me to the first retreat but has been unable to attend in recent years) and her daughter Beatrice joined us for dinner at Granite City.

Maria (@QuiltMomofFive on Instagram) came by to meet Stephanie and Shelly as they all follow each other on Instagram and then invited us all to her new lake house for dinner.  Coincidentally Maria is good friends with Heather who I got to meet at our very first retreat in 2010.  

Heather, Amanda Jean, Maria, Shelly, and Stephanie, Krazina, Cindy, Doris

Amanda Jean brought quilts from her new book and we each picked one to sleep under.  I love this Remainders quilt which helped me have the best night sleep of the retreat! 

Here's a close up of the quilt made with tiny triangle trimmings.  Amanda will be teaching her Spin Class at our guild in September, and I think saving all those leftover siggy block trimmings may not have been in vain...haha!

For the last two weeks, I have received Facebook reminders of previous year retreats as they popped up in my Memories from years past.  I thought it would be fun to share them all here in one place.

2010:  Toni, Amanda Jean, Rene', Shelly, Mary, Victoria, Doris, Terri, Shelly

2011:  Doris, Michelle, Rene', Terri, Amanda Jean, Mary, Cindy, Stephanie, Toni, Shelly

2012:  Doris, Michelle, Rene'', Terri, Mary, Cindy, Amanda Jean, Stephanie

2013:  Stephanie, Cindy, Amanda Jean, Mary, Doris, Toni, Rene', Michelle

2014:  Rene', Doris, Toni, Mary, Terri, Stephanie, Cindy, Amanda Jean

2015:  Amanda Jean, Rene', Doris, Mary, Michelle Terri, Cindy, Shelly, Stephanie

2016:  Cindy, Michelle Stephanie, Terri, Shelly, Doris, Mary, Amanda Jean, Rene' 

I am so fortunate to call these ladies my good friends!!  Quilting is an amazingly creative outlet, but having such an incredible group of friends to share this passion is what encourages me to continue!

Friday Finish: Lego Sewing Machines

This weekend is our annual Gruber's retreat in Minnesota, and I made lego sewing machines to take for my retreat friends.

I have made these little machines before, but at my last Lego store visit I discovered the option of engraving bricks so these machines are personalized.  

Each time I make a batch, I have to change up the "recipe" just a bit because of the brick availability at the time.  These machines are so much fun to make; I should just start ordering the actual parts I want from now on!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.  Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by,

Facebook Communities Summit

I recently had the privilege of attending (with two other guildies) the first ever Facebook Communities Summit, representing Orlando Modern Quilt Guild.  What an amazing opportunity for our guild to be invited to attend along with admins of 100 other groups!

I won't go in to all that was discussed (click on the link above if you want to read the press article), but the focus was on "meaningful groups" and building a sense of community.  I will say the three day summit was an experience I will never forget.

As you can tell by the graphics, the groups were an eclectic mix.

We were in workshops all day, and treated like VIPs during the evening events!  The workshops covered topics including Engaging Your Community, Creating Shared Purpose, and Fostering Safe Community.  Mary, Michele, and I had the opportunity to share our guild story, meet other group leaders and hear their stories (including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg), and learn from an amazing array of speakers.

The venue designers Must Be quilters.  Our workshops were held in rooms such as the Hex Room, the Triangle Room, the Circle Room, and the Heart Room!  I kept seeing quilt designs everywhere I looked!

We were the only quilt group represented at the Summit, but that didn't stop us from finding other quilters!  We met Shelly on the plane who had joined our Facebook group days before the event.  Ann was at the Summit with a pilgrimage group; we discovered she had made a Quilts for Pulse with her LAMQG!

Dawn had put the word out that she wanted to meet us and could be found carrying a hot pink backpack!  We found her the last day and had a great time discussing quilts and seeing her recent finishes on Instagram.

Lighthearted workshop in the vein of late night comedy.  See the HSTs in the background?!

This got me thinking about community and quilters and how the two just go hand in hand.  Am I right?!  Quilters tend to seek each other out and instantly connect like no other group of people I have known.  It's a beautiful thing!

Look at these bar tiles!

So it seemed appropriate to start a Facebook Group where ALL quilters could connect in one place; a place to discuss anything quilty, regardless of style, skill level, or location.  If you are on Facebook, please consider joining Quilty Friends Rock and/or inviting quilt friends to join.

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Love for Linette

I am currently in the middle of two high school graduation quilts.  When I saw the #LoveforLinette call for blocks on Instagram, it was a simple matter of cutting extra squares in the colorful fabrics I am working with.

 Simple nine patch blocks made with 3.5" squares were requested in bright colors and one low volume square.   Making three blocks is the least I can do for a quilty friend, and I hope these contributions combine nicely with the other blocks for a comforting quilt.

Detailed information can be found on Sarah's blog post if you are interested in making blocks for Linette as well.  May 27th is the requested date for mailing block(s).

Friday Finish: Quilts for Pulse

I haven't found the words to describe the Quilts for Pulse project, the impact it has had on our community, our guild, myself, and I am not sure I ever will.  The QFP top that was started at our annual Gruber's retreat has now been quilted and photographed, so it's about time I at least blogged about that.

Nine of us made the retreat this year; each of us made an oversized heart block from Happy Zombie's Love Quilt pattern.  

We each selected a color; you know I don't even remember for sure which color I chose ;-)

Lovely Mary!

 Mary, of course, selected turquoise blue!

Coming up with the block layout was a group effort and was not taken lightly...sure wish I had input from eight others all the time!

Love these girls!!!

The quilt top was finished in July at our retreat.   It sat patiently waiting to be quilted while I helped with other aspects of the QFP project.  Due to the overwhelming generosity of the worldwide community, our Orlando Modern Quilt Guild set about making quilt tops from the incredible number of heart blocks sent in, quilting and binding those tops, photographing each completed quilt, distributing quilts to those affected by the Pulse tragedy,  and writing thank you notes.

As for the quilting, I quilted various patterns in the heart blocks and the phrase "love is love is love" in the negative space.  I didn't mark the letters or lines, preferring to quilt organically as if I were writing those words.  I have messy handwriting ;-)))

Serendipity has been a common theme when discussing QFP with my guild friends.  (One day I hope someone writes all about that.)  When it came to the binding, I was in a hurry and grabbed from my leftover binding collection.  While stitching the binding to the front, I realized the fabric was all from Amy Butler's LOVE fabric collection!  During our Gruber retreat photo with the quilt, Stephanie and I realized we were both wearing our Glamp Stitchalot t-shirts designed by Monica aka Happy Zombie (not planned).  The backing is Amanda Jean's Good Neighbor's fabric line.  Serendipitous, indeed!

photo by Paula Kennedy Photography

Our heart quilt was finished (just) in time to be professionally photographed (thank you Paula Kennedy!) for QuiltCon's Quilt For Pulse exhibit.  After the photo shoot the quilt was gifted to a 911 operator who had to listen to and transcribe all the horrific emergency phone calls from that terrible night.

Our quit label

Quilty friends definitely do rock!  I am so grateful to my retreat friends for helping make this quilt for someone in need and so appreciative of the generosity of the worldwide quilting community that made it possible for the OrlandoMQG to deliver almost 1,800 quilts.

If you will be in Savannah next week for QuiltCon, please stop by the QuiltsforPulse exhibit and see photos of all the quilts made and donated.  There is an official meet up at the exhibit Saturday at 12:30, but at least one member from our guild will be there during all hours of the show.  

Hope I get the chance to say Hi! and Thank You!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.