The Suppose Creative Guild recently was lucky enough to have a visit from Kaye Evans, an accomplished Kaffe Fassett aficionado and teacher. Her quilts are seriously amazing!

Here are just a few of the quilts Kaye shared with us, you can see more of her trunk show here. And listen ye good Kaffe fans! We are planning a Kaffe Club with Kaye, where she’ll walk us through making a stunning quilt with Kaffe Fassett fabrics over the course of several months. If this sounds enticing to you, please let us know by filling out this short form and we’ll keep you updated on when and how it will all be happening. So exciting!

Kaye said something that stayed with me, about any of us who think we’re not creative: “We were not born without creative bones in our body. We’re all creative if we just let ourselves be.” It’s true! Sometimes we just have to loosen up and allow ourselves to get a little weird.

If you’ve been to our shop and seen our wall of Kaffe fabrics, you know we love him. Can’t wait for Kaffe Club to start! If you’re interested and haven’t already, fill out this form to let us know your preferences for Kaffe Club:

There is SO much I could be telling you right now. Some of it I can’t talk about yet and some of it I’m too exhausted to talk about. We arrived home from market last night, and I’ll be posting photos tomorrow, but in the mean time I just had to get a photo of my spiderweb star block up.  In the Suppose Creative Guild this year we’re making medallion quilts, following the instructions on Bloomin’ Workshop. We’ll be adding 2 borders each month, but I was behind from the beginning. At least I have a center block now!

It makes me so happy to look at. Now if I’d just dare add to it.

Oh boy was September a busy month. Least of all because the many different guild meetings have started up again. Here we have the show & tell from the September Suppose Creative Guild. Disclaimer: if any have official names, these probably aren’t them.

Leanne’s Sunflower Applique:

Leanne’s Strips & Daisy:

Leanne’s Purple Parasols:

Leanne has been calling this her ugly quilt for ages, but isn’t it sweet!

Lona’s Totes on Bolts bag:

Joyce’s Cat in the Hat quilt:

Jo’s Children at Play quilt top:

Evelyn’s Botanica quilt top:

If I can be quicker this month, we’ll have more show & tell in just a few days.

I did something awesome. And by awesome I mean totally lame.  The only photos I took at the April meeting of the Suppose Creative Guild were of food.  But I guess food counts as something creative.  Kathy created it in fact.  This clam dip is a family favorite; we have it every Christmas and it’s great for parties and guilds and such.

And now you can have it too, if you so wish.  If you don’t love seafood, don’t be afraid that there are clams in it, you might still love it.

Clam Dip

(This always goes fast, so we usually double or quintuple this recipe.)
Mix well:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 small can chopped clams, drained
chopped parsley
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 drops tobasco sauce
lemon juice to taste
1 Tbsp grated onion

Heat over the stove and serve with bite-sized pieces of the most delicious bread you can find.  If you’re feeling a little fancy, put it in a hollow bread bowl, wrap it in tinfoil, and heat it in the oven before serving.

Check out what our guild ladies have been working on. They never cease to impress.

Leann’s hardanger is amazing.  I think I have an idea for a guild class…

Jennifer completes another cross-stitch fairy.  2 down, 50 to go.

Nita finished the wedding anniversary kitteh quilt. So cute!

That cat with the glasses represents her bespectacled hubby.

A sweet Built by Wendy top with our favorite voile.

Faye’s machine embroidered rooster quilt is sashed with hay fabric. Perfect!

Is Debbie’s not the fanciest denim quilt you’ve ever seen?

Phew! Better get to work so I have something to show at the next meeting.

Tonight we had Creative Guild meeting so it’s about time that I put up some photos from last month’s meeting, eh? Here’s what some of our ladies were up to in February.

Emma Jean is the lucky inheritor of this vintage appliqued quilt top.  Anyone know what this block pattern would be called?

Jennifer’s been on a softie kick.  Here she’s got Hector Giraffe, Polly, and the monky who’s name I forget but who has the most awesome plaid pants & suspenders.  I believe these are all from Softies Only A Mother Could Love.

Nita recently made this ultra sweet Oliver + S Birthday Party Dress for her brand new niece with the AH Spotted Owl print. I’d wear it.

That’s just a taste of all the amazing things our guild members have going. More show & tell from the Suppose Creative Guild soon!

Our small town main street after the first real storm of the season.

Winter is not being wishy washy this year. Way to be loud and proud, Winter.  So I am trying to get as close as I safely can to the fireplace in the classroom at the shop.  It’s not all bad; things are feeling especially Christmasy and it’s a good excuse for homemade soup!

Last week at our Creative Guild meeting Kathy provided some hot liquid comfort of the savory sort.  As is always promised at these meetings, we’d like to share her secret recipe right here.

Kathy’s homemade chicken soup has long been a family favorite, and the secret is in the dumplings.  After boiling a chicken, shredding it and adding it back to the broth along with carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, and other favorite veggies, the true magic commences with the addition of the dumplings…

Dumplings for Chicken Soup

For a pot of soup feeding more than 4 people, double this recipe. You may find you need to make another batch the next day to add to the leftover soup!

bring to a boil:
1 cup milk
1/2 cube butter

dump into milk mixture all at once:
1/2 cup flour
1 scant tsp salt

Stir vigorously until a ball forms in center of pan.  Remove from heat and add, one at a time, 2 eggs, beating each one in individually.  Drop by teaspoonfuls into hot soup, scraping batter off spoon with index finder.  Do not boil. Heat for 20 minutes.

Let’s catch up with the goings on of the Suppose Creative Guild, shall we?  For many of us, the favorite part of guild meetings is show & tell. Here’s a taste of what we got to see at our November meeting.

Faye showed off some intricate paper piecing in this Christmas wall hanging.

Emma Jean made this quilt with one of her daughter’s old dress.  Way to repurpose!

And finally somebody else made something with the ugly fabric from our December party game.  Check out Evelyn’s scrappy scarf that will end up with frayed edges.  Too bad she didn’t use the purple lamé (she claimed it frayed too much).

Impressive festive wool creations from Leanne:

And Jennifer demonstrated a quick and fun way to make coasters, the way we learned on Allsorts, and she added a triangle variation. Great idea for a quick gift as you can make a set up in no time and tie it up cute.

And last but not least, the treats!  Emma Jean brought some delish Apple Bread, perfect for this time of year.  A big thanks to her for sharing the recipe (and credit where it’s due: it came from a 1971 Ensign magazine!).

Apple Bread
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups cooking oil
3 whole eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups thinly sliced peeled apples

Sift together flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Cream together by hand the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla.  (Be sure to add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.)  Add the sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the apple slices. Beat well.  Bake in a loaf pan at 325° F until lightly browned and done.  Wrap bread in foil as soon as cool, and it will keep in the freezer very well.

The Creative Guild ladies have got it down. We are killing two birds with one stone in a program Dara, Emma Jean, and Faye have planned.  Each month we get to learn how to make a different quilt block.  When we go home and make our block, we make an extra and at the end of the year we take all those extra blocks and put them together into quilts to donate to humanitarian aid!  Pretty sweet, right?  You totally wanna join the guild now, right?

This month we learned the rail fence block.  Here’s a little review on how to make it.

1.  Choose 4 fabrics.  This example was made with fabrics ranging from light to dark.  From each fabric cut 4-6.5″ x 2″ pieces, or if you have pieces of fabric at least 26″ wide, cut 1 long 2″ strip of each.

2.  Take one of each fabric and sew them together for each quadrant.  Here, the varying shades are arranged in this order: light, dark, medium-dark, medium.  You can sew pairs together, and then sew those two pair sets together to get your set of four. If you cut long strips, sew the long strips together, long sides to long sides, then cut them into 6.5″ squares.

3.  Sew two quadrants together, one oriented horizontally and the other vertically.  Sew the other two together the same way.  Sew the two pair sets together, matching the center seam.

And there you have a rail fence block!

Have you noticed a theme in the Creative Guild show & tells?

These ladies have a habit of playing hide & seek.  A pretty bashful bunch of show-offs, right?  Check out more of the show & tell from our meeting last night at the Suppose Creative Guild album on Flickr.