Basement fun etc.

Saturday was our Basement Divas meeting; as usual it was a great time together.
Once again I was the recipient of something made from my non serious donations to the Jellyroll Race prizes. On the left is the quilt that Suzie made with orphan blocks that I put together in a prize pack. On the right is a flimsy that Gwen made from a pack of all scrappy leftover Disappearing 9 Patch pieces. Gwen offered to finish it but I felt guilty letting her take her time to do that so I will finish it. I never expected anyone to finish something with my donations and return them to me but with this group you never know what will happen. It is all part of the fun. 
I  also received an almost full bottle of Bubble Jet set from Fran. She read my post about buying a bottle and emailed me not to buy it that she had some she would never use and it is mine free of charge. She said I could make her a square oven mitt in exchange. I think that is a great bargain.

I have five more scrappy trips blocks made and I have 5 more sets of strips arranged on trays and ready to make into blocks. There are 9 more up on the design wall (not shown here). If I make this square I only need 3 more blocks but if I make it a rectangle I need 9 more blocks. I guess it is time to make up my mind what I want to do with this. Maybe I should just make the 5 blocks and then put it away for a while and work on things I need to finish.

The Basement Divas

We met yesterday to play with the circle theme. There were 12 of us there and as usual we had a good time and a great lunch. We have been talking for a while of setting up a blog as a means to stay in touch between meetings and when we miss meeting. Yesterday we finally all sat down in one place after lunch and talked it. We are very loosely organized, more like not organized and we are usually all  talking about different things. But Lori got us all together and we decided to go ahead and do it.We tossed around some ideas and  decided on a name, Basement Divas. We chose that because the basement part was obvious as we have always met in a basement and Divas because that was a challenge we had using Lorelei Sewing Diva fabric. We identified with those ladies. So far we have just set up the blog and only one post, mine; hopefully there will be a lot to see soon. Look for us here to see what we are up to.

I took my Rosie circle along yesterday and got some input about the background and the general  opinion was that none of my backgrounds were right. Here it is pinned up on two pieces of fabric that are the colors we all thought looked better than what I had. I can't decide but I do see that I have once again slipped into the color wash mode and  there is not enough contrast between my yellow orange and the pink. It all mooshes together.  I will probably shop tomorrow for either a dark blue or a dark green batik with a little  subtle color to bring out the yellow.

Rosie

I have a Rosie and much to my amazement it lays nice and flat. I have only finished the construction of the circle and I have to decide what to do with it. Do I want only one or do I want to make more and have a collage?

I am not sure about the background.Here it is laying on two background that were what I had started with.

The 2 photos side by side below are better views of the two backgrounds.

I think this bottom one is the background I am going to use. I have a large piece of this and a large piece of the one in the photo above right so either on would give me more options. The Rosie turned out to be about 20 inches in diameter so I would have to do some creative piecing to use the other greenish print.

I will be working on this tomorrow when our group meets. I have been known to get all excited about something and show up with a finished piece and nothing to work on. I am mending my ways. I will  also ask for opinions about the background.

Jelly Roll Race



The night before the race



  The Jellyroll Race with the basement group was held Saturday. Lori, who hosted the event had planned well for everything. Mike her husband carried machines and bags, made coffee, watched Brady their 3 year old and stood ready to take care of anything that might go wrong. (nothing  did) It was Brady who gave up his playroom to provide us with a wonderful,large, well lighted space to sew.  Everyone finished a flimsy, everyone got a prize or two, lunch as usual was spectacular. What more can I say it was a great day with good friends  and I think  it exceeded everyone expectations.



Here we are sewing away as fast as we can, that is me in the green sweater right in the front. In the back on the counter if you click to enlarge the picture you can see the laptop with the Florida contingent who joined us via Skye. There were three of them. I don't have photos yet of their quilts

Here is Lynn with the first quilt top finished:her time was 47 minutes.

Diane cut her strips from an impressively large stash of bright fabrics. 

 Fran,  was last at 1 hour 44 minutes but only a few minutes behind me. She had some machine issues at one point and ran out of bobbin thread another time.
She cut her strips from a large stash of red fabrics.

 Gwen, who  had an all batik Jellyroll.

Jan on the left who cut her strips 3 inches. Jan was also our referee and had a whistle to keep us in line.

                                                  

 Kathy is hiding behind her all batik Jelly roll. Kathy is my hero, she taught me to paper piece, which was no small challenge

Maryann, on the left,had a Kate Spain Christmas Jellyroll. 

Suzie , on the right, used all batiks and I think  she cut them from her stash.  Just a note here about Suzie and Maryann; they are sisters. This fact somehow escaped me until I was looking at them one night at our friendship block group  and I noticed how much the resembled one another. This was probably during the second year Suzie was sewing with us. I don't know why they kept this a secret from me. Everyone  else knew they were sisters. Do you see the resemblance? 

This is me with my quilt made from a Kate Spain Central Park Jellyroll.

 This is Lori who hosted the event. She did a super job of planning for the event. There was also some planning a while back when they begn to finish their  basement that made Brady's playroom work out to be such a wonderful space for us to play in once a month.  I didn't want to leave Mike out even though my photo is rather poor. He not only went along with the plans that made this space quilt group friendly, he cheerfully puts up with us and never seems to mind the invasion.