My "Quilt Block of the Month" Class Project

I have been absent from blogging for a couple of weeks and I've really missed it. Thanks to several of you who contacted me and let me know I was missed. I was totally touched by your friendship. I've had company, (my newly married daughter and husband surprised me as a belated birthday present and showed up on my doorstep for the Labor Day weekend. This brought all of my other children and spouses and grand children to visit since they were home), I went on a trip, (my husband and I drove up to Seattle to tend our two adorable grandchildren together for a long weekend - see pictures below) andI just started a brand new job that came out of the blue and I started the day it was offered to me, so I've been trying to adjust to a whole new schedule (and less time for blogging and quilting). I'm hoping to find a balance that I can live with and enjoy. Things have been extremely busy and crazy but everything has been such a blessing and great things to have happen.

The top picture is of soon-to-be 4-year old Kayla on her new bike and 2-year old McKay on his new tricycle. Grandkids are soooo much fun!! They light up my life.

I've had the very fun opportunity to teach a "Quilt Block of the Month" class at my church. It's been a totally volunteer situation, and I've loved it. It was a group of mostly new quilters just starting out. I started with 15 enrolled and after a few months it narrowed down to 9 very enthusiastic, dedicated new quilters. It was so much fun watching them catch the quilting "bug" and get so excited about their quilts. (One of my new blogging friends that I had mentioned teaching this class at church said, "Don't you feel a little guilty teaching addictive behavior to church friends."--or something close to that. I laughed so hard. It's true.) All 9 finished up the class and are now doing the quilting on their quilts so that we can display them in October at a church function.

.

Above is a picture of my finished product. (Well, I'm still quilting it.) As you can see, because it was a beginning class, we did very basic block patterns and we did them 12". I had accumulated a lot of blues and yellows in my stash that I wanted to use up so mine is blue and yellow scrappy. All of my "students" chose 3 main fabrics and used just those 3 fabrics. They all turned out lovely and it was so gratifying to see, as their teacher, their finished projects and how pleased they were with them. I'm going to take pictures when we display them and I'll share them on my blog.

I decided to hand quilt mine on my hoop for a couple of reasons. I love to hand quilt and I haven't for awhile now and I miss it. Also, I wanted to use polyester batting because I had some on hand and I wanted it to have a little heavier loft and I like hand quilting with that batting better than machine quilting.

I ended up with several extra blocks because as I would prepare to teach, I would experiment with different fabrics and I wanted to show different options for assembling their block. I picked out 4 of them and stuck them on the back of my quilt.

The class was so well received (I take no credit -- it is the quilting people catch excitement for)and generated even more interest among other ladies in my church, I'm going to offer a 3-month class making a holiday table runner which starts September 27th. I've all ready got about 20 signed up for that. (I'm sure it will also narrow down to the real serious quilters.) But I'm excited about it. Here is a picture of the table runner we'll be doing.

GRATITUDES:

1. Wonderful surprises!!!

2. A granddaughter who says, "Your house is fun, Grandma!"

3. New "Dream Job" opportunities.

4. Grandkids laughter and cute conversations!

5. A piece of Chocolate coconut macaroon cheesecake shared with my husband.

6. My family all around me sounding happy!