Cultural Fusion: Hour Glass - and basting in a pinch!

* New (to me) way to baste!

Last summer I was able to attend two workshops taught by Sujata Shah (The Root Connection Blog).  What a wonderful way to spend two days!  Sujata was a delight, I have made a new friend.

I've finally pulled out my machine and sewed the Cultural Fusion Hour Glass blocks together, added some borders and basted the result. The block was fun to make.  I thought I had picked a good number of blue and green fabrics, but while cutting I starting doubting myself and added some more yellowish material and mixed myself up on how I was doing it too.  So some of my blocks are not following the guidelines but the results are still striking.

I'm making this quilt for a local charity.  They organized a sewing session last weekend that I attended. The ladies there picked the fabric for the borders and gave me the batting, a thick polyester something I've not used before.  If I had thought ahead I would have made more hour glass blocks for the frame, but I just have borders now.  The other ladies were also using that batting, so I could see how lovely the stitching shows on the quilts.

We meet once a month to sew from 9 to 4 - all day.  The location (a church) has a person who sets up the sewing tables including (higher) cutting tables and ironing boards.  We just have to contribute one quilt a year and spend one day each year only working on their projects.  Oh and we each bring a salad to share for lunch with the others.  Last weekend I made a grape salad, more like a dessert - it was well received.

Grape Dessert Salad - (Because it's near Halloween my husband named it eye ball salad topped with crumbled bones.)
1.  Clean and put in a dish - about 4 lbs of assorted grapes (mine were frozen as they were over bought for a party we held a few weeks ago)
2.  Cream together: 8 oz sour cream, 8 oz cream cheese, and about 1/4 c sugar.  Add to the grapes and mix
3.  Right before serving top with some brown sugar and nuts.

The ladies are very nice, I feel very lucky to be included in the group.

I still haven't quilted my tumbler quilt, it has all my pinmoors as it's basted and waiting for me to finish - but I wanted to get this hour glass charity quilt at least started during the day long session.  * I taped the backing down so it was taut on the table and then just put the batting and top of that on the table.  I used regular straight pins to baste! When I finished I took the tape that had been used on the backing and put little pieces on the sharp tips of the pins.  It worked!  I was able to stitch the seams and then remove the pins without sticking myself once!  So now I just need to decide on how to add a FMQing design and finish the binding!

I'm looking forward to making more quilts from Sujata's book, Cultural Fusion.  Several folks are making rail fences following her guidelines, I'll be joining in!  The results are posted on this website - http://culturalfusionquilts.blogspot.com/