Erie Street Quilters

Late last fall I was graciously invited to join a local group of quilters.  They call themselves the Erie Street Quilters because of their meeting location.  It started out as a group of quilters who wanted to start doing some more modern quilting.  (my area of the often seems very UNmodern)

My day schedule is more free with the kids in school and I was happy to accept the invitation. 

The group has been doing a Queen Bee thing for the past few months, so I've been playing catch-up on the blocks. 

 First up were some feather blocks.  They look weird because we didn't need to trim them square.

 Then some free form roses - again, we were asked not to trim.

 Then words!  We were supposed to choose something fun, or something we say, or something that represents us, or inspires us.  I do catch myself saying "splendid" often.  I think usually in sarcasm.   I paper pieced my letters this time.  To tell the truth, after a year of the "Spelling Bee", I've had my fill of words for a while. 

 My word with some of the others.

 For our January "blocks" we were asked to make Alzheimers Activity Aprons.  You can Google it for free patterns and ideas.  I was happy to use some things I've had for years, like the tassel!

 I also did some paper pieced leaves.  I was given the fabric for the stems, the rest was "sunrise to sunset" colors with a sky blue background.

And, most recently we were asked to make some string pumpkins with gray back grounds. They did come out different sizes.  I have fixed that.  

My month will be March, I can't wait!

Cutting all the Things in Fabric and Vinyl

 The Christmas before last I received a Silhouette Cameo machine as a gift from Mr. Riley.  It was pretty exciting.  And scary.  Up until recently I had only used it for a couple of projects.  The Matrix quilt and the Lighthouse Quilt.

I opened my mouth at a PTO meeting and said I could cut vinyl with it so I've upped my game and now I want to make all the things.

For school I did some letters and paws.

I'm still learning a bit about sizing the letters when doing multiple cuts. COUgars :)  This one is probably temporary, though, since there is some painting that will get done once school is out.

This one was actually a "mistake" because it wasn't big enough, but we found a place for it.

Then I started projects that I've wanted to try around the house.  We've had the menu board for a few months, but now its fancy.

And I made a vinyl bee of my logo (actually I should re-do it) and put it on the car.  I used to have a magnet bumper sticker of a bee - but it got lost or stolen off the car.

Next I moved on to fabric letters with Wonder Under on them.  I'm not sure why, but Alf the kitten was fascinated by the machine.

 So the last of my bee word blocks from the Spelling Bee Quilt Bee are finally done.  I'm in search of "The Perfect Yellow" to set them all together.

 I have more plans for the Silhouette!