Sewing in community is an important part of quilting history. Family and friends gathered together at quilting parties to finish a quilt. Today, quilt guilds, quilt shows, retreats, and other organized events create opportunities for community.
I prefer getting together with my sisters, so today we gathered at my local church and stitched on quilts while catching up on each other’s lives. We don’t do this often enough. Interestingly, we each chose a baby quilt project to bring to the sewing day.
My older sister worked on several quilt tops made using pieces left from other projects. She already pieced the blocks and spent the day stitching the blocks together.
My younger sister had two flannel baby quilts ready for machine quilting. Free-motion quilting is her favorite part of the quilting process. She used lots of flannel scraps cut and stitched into basic blocks. After pin-basting the layers together, she began stippling one of the quilts. My sister has always been creative, drawing as a young girl. She sees machine quilting like drawing with a needle and thread. Her dream, a long-arm.
She will donate these quilts to a program through her church which provides quilts to young mother’s in need.
I continued working on the Dresden plate pattern for my granddaughter’s baby quilt. I centered the plates on the background squares and basted the centers down first. I am appliquéing the wedges using a buttonhole stitch.
I had to impose my own artistic expression into the blocks. That’s another way of saying I had some challenges. The plates extended to the edges of the background squares I had pre-cut. I chose to alternate the direction of the plate on the background square before appliquéing. Tips of some wedges were stitched down after sewing the blocks together.
Next is to fuse the center animals and buttonhole stitch the circles. Today was a good day sewing with my sisters. Enjoy!
Modern Sunbonnet Sue's Musings 
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