Quilting fun in Palm Beach County

The entire East Coast is in a heat wave, making Florida hotter than ever...but the quilting fun never ends!
Just crank up the A/C, get out the fabric, and roll on with that rotary cutter!

I just had a marvelous time with the Palm Beach County Quilters Guild. What a great guild! They are doing loads of good charity work while supporting their county fair, the big Mancuso show in November, and their own biennial show. In between, they have lots of well known teachers and a monthly meeting that is jam-packed with activities. I lost count of all the drawings! And every person who has a birthday that month gets to select a fat-quarter from a giant basket.

The quilts are mine, ready for the lecture...and that's my purse on the chair. Seems dangerously close to the basket of fat quarters!

But I did manage to control myself.

The time allotment for the program was shorter than my regular lectures, so we decided I'd show a number of my quilts, including family/vintage ones...quilters always seem to enjoy a trunk show.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. There had to be some reason for the quilts I selected.

So I did a program I have been thinking about for quite awhile: The 7 Habits of Highly Collective Scrap Lovers (with thanks to Stephen R. Covey).

There was a quilt to illustrate each of the 7 Habits, which I changed from business jargon to quilt-speak, such as" #1: Be Proactive" became "It's a Scrap If I Say It Is!".

I had that great Double Wedding Ring with the red binding and the Big Baskets quilts to represent each side of my family. The others were mainly quilts and tops I have made, especially some Mystery Quilts.

Over on the right you see the three Quirky Bits samples, as that's the class we had following the lecture.

You may remember it's relationship to Perky Old Men, being made with the same endless batch of 3-inch nine patches. Cherry-Cherry's mono-chromatic blue one is on the far right, and in the center is the new top I just finished.

I got a Hoffman Bali-Pops selection of batik strips for my birthday ("Strawberry Fields"...did you know those things are collectibles now??? Put out in yearly collections, for our obsessive pleasure!).

Every time I teach this class there are a couple people who want to use a jelly roll or other pre-cut strips that are 2-1/2" instead of the 1-1/2" strips.
I have no problem with that! Why do any extra work (a great motto!).
Quirky Bits is cuter with the smaller strips, but looks great with the wider ones, too. So here's my version, which has some very quirky parts indeed. I enjoyed making it it to have as a sample for the class, and in the process firmed up how I want to write the pattern.
The class was wonderful, with lots of ladies trading strips and sewn units, plus making plans to shop for more additions to their strip collections.

Well, with such hot weather, there is nothing better for Summer than a Watermelon..... quilt, that is:

This was made a long time ago from an Eleanor Burns pattern called "Boston Commons". The large white area has watermelon leaves quilted all through it  in pink thread.

I searched online for a picture of a watermelon vine, copied it, traced two leaves, then blew them up to life size. By flipping each template from side to side, I had 4 leaf shapes to combine in many ways all around the white part.

This quilt was purchased at a fund-rasing auction and now resides in Washington state.

Until next time...stay cool!