June Meeting

Our small but mighty hand-sewing group, the Uvulati, gathered last night for our monthly meeting. We meet in members' homes, and have a size limit of eight regular participants (most of us do not have huge dining tables for the treats portion of the meetings!). 

Marsha was binding her log cabin masterpiece and we all marveled at the sheer gorgeousness of it. Each block is totally different except for the center square, and yet they all work so beautifully together.

Judy was binding, too. Her magnificent cool batik stars on white had its origins in a swap from a few years back. It was a wonderful swap where we made twelve-inch sawtooth stars in cool batiks with white backgrounds. The trick was that the centers of the stars had to be some other six-inch quilt block.

Judy's finished quilt is just amazing to me: So fresh and contemporary!

If I remember correctly, she said she was donating it to the school for blind and deaf children where she works, for their annual auction. 

This photo shows the quilt that I made from the same swap blocks. It was a Christmas gift for my son and his wife. Their bedroom furniture is painted a medium blue, so I wanted to accent that color. 

I was pleased with how the quilt turned out.

And then I saw Judy's.

Two of the swap participants live in England, and as it happened, one of them was visiting the US this month, staying not-terribly-far from Philadelphia, and we were delighted that she could join us for our meeting! Judi has been to visit our group on several other occasions, and we have made her and the other swap participant (who has also visited us) international members of our group.

Here's Judi herself, barely peering out from behind this sweet wall hanging that she made from a couple of charm packs.

Generous Judi brought along gifts for the group members: an assortment of British tote bags. I quickly grabbed up the one that ostensibly came from Buckingham Palace and believe it will become my default all-purpose tote! I'm going to have to practice the royal wave to accompany it.

She's also brought along a sweet friend, Belinda, who we hadn't know before. Belinda was working on some of the nicest hexies and triangles I've ever seen, and I'm annoyed that I didn't take a photo of them. She brought me an assortment of miniature jars of jams and mustards, some of which are favored by the Royal Family!

What a nice time we had, ending the evening with some mixed berry cobbler and strawberry frozen yogurt as well as some absolutely scrumptious shortbread cookies, courtesy of Belinda!