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Friday, February 11, 2011

Coastal Haven Sew 'n Sews

The ladies at the Coastal Haven RV park have formed a guild! 
We have had such fun sewing together for the past month that we thought it was time to become an official guild.  We are truly a national guild since we have members from throughout the U.S. Some of us have real brick and mortar homes that we go back to after the winter ice and snows are gone and the weather warms.  Others live full time in their RV's and live wherever the weather blows them. Most of us have come back to Coastal Haven for several winters and plan to return next year. Therefore, our guild will remain viable, and the membership will increase as other RVer's join in our fun.

We've been sewing regularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Most of us made purses under the direction of Joan and Rosanne who are our resident "purse-making" experts.  This project, of course, required a couple of road trips to quilt shops in Gulf Shores (or was it Orange Beach?) and Magnolia Springs, Alabama. Fabric shopping expeditions always include lunch. We have to keep up our strength, you know.
Our second shopping trip resulted in talking with Mary the owner of the Magnolia Springs Fabric store.  Mary offered to come to Coastal Haven to teach a class.  She listed several techniques that she could teach, and we chose to have her present a class on foolproof binding.  On February 10th twelve of our members assembled with our sewing machines in the clubhouse for Mary's binding class.  Her class was very clear and concise with easy to follow directions.  Everyone was able to master her smooth binding technique as we attached binding to place mats. 
 Naturally, those of us who were working on our binding didn't have time to prepare our own lunch.  Linda and Chris did that for us!  They prepared 2 delicious homemade soups, garlic bread, and brownies.  A few ladies brought salads and desserts to add to the menu.  Needless to say, we were well-fed!

In addition to our sewing sessions, we attended the Quilt Show in Robertsdale, AL at the Methodist church on Feb.3.  This was a fabulous show that featured about 300 quilts.  All types of quilts were on display - antique, patchwork, applique, stack and whack, etc.  We worked up quite an appetite while looking at the quilts, so naturally, we went to lunch together and had a lot of fun.
As I begin to reflect on the activities of our guild, I see that we eat almost as much as we sew.  Maybe we should change our name to the Sew 'n Eats!


Well, it's time for me to get back to my sewing.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Log Cabin quilt

I have been working on a log cabin quilt with 3" squares. I save the smallest of scraps to use in this quilt.  When I buy shirts to use for my quilting, I use the button plackets and the collar bands in my log cabins. I only work on this quilt when we are spending extended time in our 5th wheel RV.  I bring my 1935 Singer Featherweight sewing machine with me and a container of light scraps and a container of dark scraps. Then I am ready to sew!

So far I have 256 blocks sewn together. I love looking at all the different fabrics. Many of them are pieces from many years ago when I sewed clothing for myself and shirts for my husband and boys. It's like walking down memory lane when I recognized pieces from various projects from the past.