NEMQG January Meeting

Last Saturday was our January meeting of the NEMQG.  We met up at the Arlington public library where we were greeted by a trunk show from Sew Fresh Fabrics.

They talked all about what it is like to own a fabric store on etsy and what it's like to work in the fabric industry.

After, we all had a chance to purchase some of their great fabric.

Here we are digging through everything, making a mess, and buying lots of fabric!

These are the goodies that I came away with.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much I love Art Gallery fabrics.  Well, I love Art Gallery fabrics.  I'm not a big orange person, so some of these fabrics are a bit out of my comfort zone.

I also managed to snag some Castle Peeps fabrics.  6 fat quarters and a half yard.  I'm not sure what I'll do with this, but this was one of those lines that I was hoping to get before you couldn't find the line anymore. 

NEMQG - Holiday Mini Quilt Challenge

Last weekend the NEMQG held a holiday mini quilt challenge with our pincushion swap.  I decided to make a small quilt using needle turn applique that we learned in our last meeting.  I knew that I was going to be busy traveling for work, so I saw that as the perfect time to work on a needle turn applique quilt. 

I designed the quilt myself after sketching up a few different designs and settled on a gingerbread house and a Christmas tree. 

I made it using the scraps that I had from the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery BOM except for the brown house.

Here are a few close-ups.

I added some crystals to the Christmas tree to look like ornaments.

Here's the house.  The windows and door knob are made of buttons. 

Here's the back of the quilt where you can see some of the quilting that I did. 

I was running short on time for the binding, so I ended up machine stitching it down using some metalic thread. 

Now for the competition.  There ended up being four quilts total entered into the challenge.

After seeing all of the quilts up there, I knew I had no shot of winning.  I mean, come on, look at some of those.  They're fantastic.  Everyone at the meeting was given a piece of paper to vote on their favorite quilt.  After the tally, quilts 3 and 4 (from left to right) were tied for third place and quilts 1 and 2 were tied for first.  I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when I learned I was tied for first.

Because there was only one winning prize, we had to have another vote off between quilts 1 and 2.

After the second tally, again quilts 1 and 2 were tied.  (I was shocked that I was still in it, much less tied for that awesome quilt on the left.)  Then, we realized that we were missing one vote, the deciding vote.  After all of the votes were recounted and the tally was final, MY quilt was dubbed the winner!!! Holy cow!!!  I seriously never expected to be the winner after seeing all of the cool quilts. 

So now this cute quilt is hanging in the hallway off our kitchen to our master bedroom.