A CyberBee Christmas

It was a busy weekend. Friday night, another Christmas party given by my husband and his partners for the operations staff. We had a great time at Casa Carbone in Raleigh.

Saturday was another quilty day with the CyberBee. This group started with a few members that were using e-mail back in the nineties. We grew to fifty members. All live in the area, but we only meet in person quarterly. We had our first-ever Christmas get-together after revising our calendar of meeting dates. It was an all-day sew-in, but I did not go until time for the lunch.

After lunch, there was a Christmas gift exchange. Each participant knew who they were making a gift for, and knew their likes/dislikes. Each lovely gift was unwrapped one at a time so we could all enjoy the creations. As I have said before, this group has some of the most talented quilt artists in our area, and a bunch of overachievers to boot. The gifts were creative, beautiful, personal, useful, ingenious! Sadly, I did not participate in the gift exchange since I did not think I would be able to attend this meeting.

Here is one of my favorites: a chicken bag given to Jenny. It unzips in the front.

Here is a lovely table runner from a simple pattern, made by Ann for Martha. Table runners were a popular item at our Show-and-Tell this year.

Our regular Show-and-Tell is always like going to a quilt show, but you get to hear the stories behind the projects and quilts. Here is a quilt that Ann brought in. She had inherited a quantity of old calico prints from a deceased friend, and used them to make this quilt. Those old fabrics can still make charming quilts!

Here is an old UFO finished by my friend Michelle. It was a Row-by-Row project from this group, probably started back in the 90's. She used a variegated thread in a spiral meander. The little squares on the border contain signatures of the RBR participants.

And here is another project from an old CyberBee swap: an angel quilt by Doris. She did a great job getting all those different-sized blocks together. It's great to see some of these group projects getting finished. I still have my CyberBee row-by-row in Ziploc baggies.

You may recognize this one made by Jean. I quilted it back in October with freehand leaves of all kinds.

Five members of CyberBee worked on "fractured" or "slice" quilts. They each chose a picture or poster and divided it up for each member to create a part. Then they are put together. Diverse methods are used, but they all seem to go together beautifully!

JoAnn's is finished.

Dorothy has constructed the top and is ready to quilt.

Jean's top is also complete. Some of those oranges are dimensional. I love the pitcher!

This week I am getting ready to have all the Turners (my side of the family) over for dinner on Saturday. We usually have about forty people. I hope my grandchildren will get over their colds so they can come up. I am trying to at least have the house all ready in case I need to run down to South Carolina and do some emergency babysitting this week. It is so hard to work when your children are sick.