El Camino Quilters Guild -- Vista CA

Yesterday's Machine Applique Techniques class was held at the Senior Center in Oceanside CA. The El Camino Quilters Guild meetings will be held this morning in Vista CA; the two communities are just a few miles apart.

I have been fortunate in that I am staying with Linda Pupols, the program chairperson for the guild, in her stitchery and quilt decorated home. So much eye candy, one just doesn't know where to look first! Linda and I both have backgrounds in stitchery of various types, but she has completed a lot more pieces and has them framed and displayed. She has quilts everywhere, many made and hand-quilted in record time by her 92-year-old mother, who is still an active quilter. Linda would show me a twin or full sized quilt and tell me that her mother hand quilted it in six days!! Incredible!

Linda has only been quilting in the four years since she retired, but judging from the quantity and quality of the quilts I saw, she is well on her way to sharing her mother's quilting passion.

Here are the applique quilts that I brought to share with the class. You can barely see Gail in the picture; she is the workshop chairperson for the guild, so she had the room totally set up and ready for us (complete with working power -- hooray! No crawling around on the floor!), pinned the smaller quilts up on the wall and generally kept things running smoothly.

The floral applique project in two colorways. I originally found the pattern for this online as copyright free clip art, then adapted it for applique. No drawing required!

A colorful stash of fabrics for leaves and flower petals.....


Tracing the pattern on the background fabric with water soluble marker.

Out came all the rolls of freezer paper -- remember the big rumor a few years ago that Reynolds was going to stop making it? And the run on the grocery stores as a result of that rumor?

I really had to stop myself from stealing that colorful bag of scraps from her workspace! But I successfully fought the urge and, since it was only about 3:30 in the afternoon, Linda and I left to visit three of the area quilt shops.

Pictures and purchases to follow!