Jo's Little Women Club #10

The last Wednesday of every month is now my favourite evening.  I signed up for the new Jo's Little Women Club (#10) put out by Jo Morton and offered by my LQS, and boy was I excited to participate.  It has been a long time since I was a part of a Jo club,  (#6 I think), and #10 looks like it's a great one to get back into "Jo Mode".

Heather, who works at Traditional Pastimes where the club is held, is our hostess and power quilter extraordinaire.  Not only is there a regular Jo pattern from the club to complete as homework, but there are several other options to keep you inspired each month and earn free rewards.  Now who doesn't LOVE free rewards from a quilt shop?  Each time you complete some homework, you get a punch in your punchcard worth an 1/8th of fabric (fat or skinny).  So by the end of club you could have built yourself quite the collection of Jo yardage!

One of the extra pieces to work on through season #10 is Belle's Crossing from Jo's most recent book titled Coming Home.  Heather had the sample completed for us to see and explained how it would work for each month.  This month we have to complete the center medallion with applique and the sawtooth border surrounding it.  Hello punch for my card!  I hope I can get it done!  I'll likely machine applique though, much faster with so many projects to complete this month (meaning throughout March).

Then, one of Heather's good friends, Anne, gave us an applique method demo using aluminium foil for simple repetitive shapes.  Her method was demonstrated on circles and the orange peel shape from Kathleen Tracy's pattern "Orange Peel" in her 2nd last publication titled Remembering Adelia.  The shape is the similar to the shape of simple leaves, just like the ones in the Belle's Crossing quilt.

This method uses a template of the shape from cardboard (such as a cereal box) which is used as a guide to cut both a piece of fabric and a piece of foil 1/4" larger than the shape.  The template is then placed on the wrong side of the fabric after it is sprayed with water, while the foil is placed on the right side.  Then the 1/4" edges are folded in firmly around the template and a very hot, steamless iron is laid on the shape to form the applique piece.  Quite quick for a pattern that has many of the same shape and great for keeping the wabbles out of the edges of circles!

I'll be cleaning my house this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I will actually get done in the quilting room, but I will be sure to keep you all posted when something quilty occurs!  The first project we are to make is the small square one in the upper right corner (above).  It's called Lizzy's Little Quilt.  Not too difficult looking, so I'm hoping it won't be too much of a challenge to have completed in time.

Happy quilting! 

Heather