Galaxy-Gram! A Cathedral Stars Afternoon!

It seems this week has gotten busier and busier and my lunchtime posts impossible to obtain!

But I wanted to share the fun day we are having with Quilt Asylum McKinney Texas in a Cathedral Stars workshop!

We've made 4 patches!

We've made half square triangles!

We are playing with tri recs rulers for star points!

Class goes until 4 p.m. And we will fill every minute with stitching and laughter cutting and chatter and enjoying each others company.

Much love from McKinney!
Bonnie

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Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 6!

A view to the water above the town on Mackinac Island, May 2014!

Crisp and cold, just waiting for spring to really arrive in Northern Michigan.  Isn’t the view of the old church steeple so classic?

“It was the Victorians who made Mackinac Island one of the nation's most favored summer resorts. In the post-Civil War industrial age and before automobiles, vacationers traveled by large lake excursion boats from Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit to the cooler climes of Mackinac Island. They danced to Strauss' waltzes, listened to Sousa's stirring marches, dined on whitefish and strolled along the broad decks.

To accommodate overnight guests boat and railroad companies built summer hotels, such as the Grand Hotel in the late 19th century. Victorians, like travelers everywhere, shopped for souvenirs, and Mackinac shops supplied them.

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More Show & Share Wonderfulness!

We love ANYTHING at Show & Share!

Anything you have made!  It doesn’t have to be something from one of my designs…and PLEASE inspire us with any antique beauties you have, because I go nuts over them.  SO much inspiration.

The humble roots of quilting are the things that just call to me.  I thought I would showcase our antique Show & Share before the slide show so these items are not buried in with the rest of the scrappy wonderfulness.

We had such AWESOME antiques this week!

This is miss Sandra of the tomato red 301, and more recently the electric lime green 301! I’m sure you’ve seen her photos in my slide show before, I borrowed her green machine when I was in Mineola this past October.

She was talking about this lovely find that she calls “Missouri Star” and I asked her to please please please bring it in.

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Stitchin’ at Fabric Fanatics, Day 5!

Full full class at 34 students strong today!

Would you believe with this many women sewing and pressing that we actually had to turn the heat off, and the a/c on?!

We DID!

It was great fun to see everyone, some had taken other workshops this week, while some had come in just for this day – a one day Mystery that shall remain nameless and photoless until it shows up in Quiltmaker Magazine for their May/June issue!

When class was over I boxed it all up to Fedex on up to Golden, Colorado so it will  be arriving there about the same time I arrive in Phoenix, with my quilt bag one quilt lighter!

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Scrap Crystals Over Plano!

All the Comforts of Home!

There are some folks that are just such FUN people to be around.

TOP of my list.  Miss Allison!

I don’t know whether to crown her the Betty Crocker or the Martha Stewart of the vintage machine world, but this woman has panache and class and an attention to detail, and the ability to keep us all in stitches with a huge case of the giggles!

It all started about 2 days ago when Allison found herself at a solo table kind of tucked back into a corner where the light wasn’t that great.  So the next day she brought a lamp!

And in true Allison fashion, she draped the lamp with her scrap strips to decorate the corner up a bit.  We laughed and asked her if she was moving in!

The next day some more comforts of home arrived, and the game got funnier and funnier.

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Galaxy-Gram! Scrap Crystals in Plano!

Today's class at Fabric Fanatics in Plano, Texas is packed full of little scrappy gems of happiness!

We've been working with 2 inch strips and that wonderful tool, the easy a ruler!

Don't let it scare you, but each 12 inch block contains a wonderful array of 96 pieces.

We've got all kinds of colorways coming to life here and I love each and every one!

To put it simply, you can get away with quite a lot when it comes to ugly fabrics when cutting them into 2 inch into triangles!

Quilt on, Plano quilters, quilt on!

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A Bow-Dacious Mother & Daughter Day!

How fun is it when Mother & Daughter teams make big plans to spend the New Year’s holiday together sewing away and sharing not only their fabric, but their love of quilting!

Yesterday’s Bow-Dacious class at Fabric Fanatics in Plano brought together THREE Mother/Daughter teams and the conversations and interaction were so much fun!

For some reason, these three pairs all found themselves at the same row of tables in class!

I love knowing who started quilting first, and finding out a little bit about each pair.

Aren’t they cute?

I learned to sew basic things from my mom, but quilting never really entered the picture for me until I was off and married.  My mom has only picked up quilting in the last 7 years or so.  I have not been able to attend any quilty events with her as yet, so I was a bit jealous as well as joyful over these Mom & Daughter duos making holiday memories together.

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Those Whacky Weed Whackers!

This is me and Nell!  Couldn’t we be sisters?

Nell and her mom Loretta drove down from Valentine, Nebraska through a snow storm to get down here to Plano Texas, where the weather is not much better!

It’s been raining all day, temps just above freezing, and we know that is going to be turning to ice as soon as we get further into evening time.

The plan tonight is to get out to dinner early, get it done, and get back to the hotel where things are safe and warm.

I am posting yesterday’s Weed Whacker workshop photos this evening since this morning was all about the Grand Illusion Mystery reveal, throwing us off a bit on our regularly scheduled ways of working with things.  In other words, we are playing CATCH UP!

Weed Whacker is one of those quilts that just WORKS with EVERYTHING!

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Grand Illusion Graphics!

Happy 2015!  It’s Here!

The Reveal to Grand Illusion Mystery happened at Midnight, EST LAST NIGHT!

Are you excited about it?  I know I am.

I’m as nervous as can be hoping you will like it, going over everything just ONE MORE TIME before  the ball drops, hoping I didn’t screw up somewhere along the line.

The block was originally named Big Bang, a block I did for a previous issue of 100 blocks by 100 designers for Quiltmaker Magazine.  I loved doing this block and knew I wanted to play with it, and putting it in the mystery was the perfect way to break it down!

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