Tina's Quilt as you go - not as wonky as I had wanted, but great fun to make. I love the finished texture.

This is going to look stunning when it is all put together!


I put them in the mail to you this evening, Judy.

Maria asked us to choose fabrics that spoke to who we are as quilters, which for me meant using my orange fabric! Before making a quilt for my friend Jeff(back in 2011), I had zero orange fabric in my stash but since then it's become something of my signature colour with these three prints in particular cropping up time and time again.

I only shattered one needle while sewing this, all those pins on the curves were more than my machine could take! I put the block in the mail this morning. October is my Queen Bee month, I'll be posting instructions soon and will bring fabric with me to the October 5th meeting!

Using Naomi's beautiful hand-dyed fabric, her description of pebbles thrown into water and inspiration from a friend's recent quilt as you go project, I made a watery and wonky spiral block. I added in a few strips of Cherrywood fabrics from a previous guild challenge and a couple of solid scraps.

Sorry it's late Naomi, I'll get it in the mail asap!

For Daniela:

My first incarnation of the confetti block was pieced very improvisationally with many scraps, and only after I was done did I realize that this wasn't what Greer was looking for. Ooops. Luckily I had enough backing fabric to make a second block with fewer seams. I'm not trying to over achieve by making two blocks, just fixing what I did wrong in the first! I'll put them in the mail soon.

This is a new Q & A series to get to know our members.  Today, Tina Marney talks to us about her experience as a quilter.

Tell us about yourself.  Where are you from and how long have you been in our guild?
I‘m originally from Manchester in the UK, and have been living in the States since 2003. I’m a scientist currently wrapping up a PhD in Molecular Biology. I’ve been a member of the guild for about a year.

 Have you always been crafty?  What other things do you make?

My mom taught me how to sew, embroider and knit when I was little but I only really started taking crafting seriously about 8 years ago. I started my crafty resurgence with knitting, moving on to crochet, past needle felting and finally on to quilting. I’ve made maybe a dozen quilts and given them all away. I’m also a photographer, I mostly specialize in performance photography but I like to dabble in just about everything. If it’s in front of my lens, I’ll shoot it.

 I have a large six-seater dining table in my apartment. One end is for eating, the other for sewing.


This blanket is my favourite project to date. It took me over a year to knit from sock yarn scraps on size US1 needles. I went through a phase of miniaturization of component pieces of large items but currently I’m focusing on simple projects, especially in my quilting.


Who or what inspires you most in quilting?
I’m pretty active on both flickr and pinterest and I get most of my inspiration from there. People all over the world are making beautiful things and putting them out there for you to see.

I’m making a quilted baby blanket for either my sister or my cousin. I’m currently in the phase of not knowing whether it’s hideously ugly or awesome, which will decide the eventual gift recipient (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who gets what!). But since it’s a surprise there are no pictures.
Because I’m crazy, as soon as I finished my first sock yarn blanket I cast on for a second using all my leftover yarn. It is very close to completion but I’ve stalled out knitting the edging. Picking up and knitting 20 rows of 500 stitches will do that to you.

My first attempt at a Fall leaf for Naomi. The applique is a little... rustic. I think since I have so much of the original fabric left I might attempt another leaf iteration! The base block is 10" square.

I hope you like it, Laura! This has two scraps that came from the swap table at guild meetings, my way of increasing my scrap stash!

My opposites block for the June Challenge! This was made with leftover Cherry Wood semi-solid from the February Challenge plus some 30s repro print from my first eBay foray into fabric about 7 years ago. Fun!

My block for Jody, using a tutorial I found on Crazy Mom Quilts. Please ignore that wobbly seam, it's just bad pressing, it's straight I swear!

Just as all the trees outside are beginning to flower and bud (allergies, anyone?!), I finished up my February block for Ellen.


For some reason the construction of this did not come intuitively and I basically ended up making a facsimile of one of Ellen's example blocks. I hope you don't mind!

I've got a backlog of Lucky 13 Bee Blocks to share with you all. First up a tree for Daniela, based on a tutorial I found here.



Next  up is a Rocky Road to Kansas block for Karen. This one was a challenge for me since the majority of my scraps are red, brown and black, the three banned colours! That's what happens when you keep making quilts with the same colour palette, I guess. This was also my first time paper piecing and I really enjoyed it! I also liked the accidental fussy cutting that happened with the ducks and the dog, hopefully they aren't too childish.


Now I'm ready for whatever February and Ellen throw at me!