Seams Group April

Our Seams group convened tonight at Bonnie's for our April get-together. It was a smaller gathering than usual--a few had work commitments, a few fortunate souls are living it up in Paducah this week. But as always, there was inspirational work to see in both traditional and art quilting, with a little knitting thrown in for good measure.

And yes, everyone yelled at me for driving myself back to the doctor yesterday when I had the allergy reaction.

Diane has completed her Mumbo Gumbo quilt top. It's colorful and spicy, much like its maker. She's displaying it from Bonnie's upstairs balcony.

Bonnie, whose days are consumed with the owning and operating of a UPS Store, was thrilled to have actually completed a new quilt. I'm impressed... Completely completed, as in quilting and binding totally finito. It's a great primitive look, beautifully and exuberantly quilted.

Casey, as always, brought a number of inspiring things to show us. She's doing a class through Quilt University, working on a Water Study. It's full of experimentation , using Angelina and glitter along with cellophane shrivelled by a heat gun to simulate foamy water. It's a very effective use of technique and her workmanship is exquisite. She brought another quilt to show, a class piece from her Keiko Goke workshop. And she was working along on a nice, crunchy knit shawl, which is destined for a family friend in Korea.

More detail of this water study piece here.

We see Kasia all too seldom. Tonight she was fresh from participating in a successful gallery night in Milwaukee and has sold one of her art quilts! Yay Kasia! She also wowed us all with her newly completed portfolio, which showed the care and detail we always see in her work. Inspired by mandalas, Kasia does a lot of quilts featuring circular elements and themes.

But her biggest news tonight is that she is going to be a grandma for the second time later this year. Kasia is below, looking through Casey's altered book.

As for me, I dragged along the Kimono shawl and completed repeat number eleven. Arrgh! According to the pattern, I'm not even halfway through. I wish I could move through this lacy knitting as quickly as some of the other knitting bloggers do. They put me to shame. But I'm getting into the zone, enjoying the meditative journey, trying to convince myself that speed is overrated.

And Caroline won't actually be needing that shawl for months and months