Emmmmmbarrassing Secret Sister Encounter

This past week the Friendship Star Quilt Guild had it's year end party.  All the secret sisters were revealed.  So, what's so embarrassing about that?   The day before the party, I took a Capitol Post Card class from Eileen Doughty.  I don't know what came into me, but I declared before all the class members that I knew who my secret sister was and proceeded to talk my way into an embarrassing situation because one of the persons I was talking to was my secret sister and it wasn't who I thought it was!  Ha ha on me!  I have to admit, however, that I was pleasantly surprised to finally meet my real secret sister.  I've been in awe of Betty's work and admired her courage in establishing a long-arm business. 

By the way, the post card class was a blast and I highly recommend Eileen as a teacher and lecturer.  She helped each student make their project their own.  Here's my 5x7" post card quilt:

 I'll be dropping by the Annapolis Quilt Show this Saturday afternoon before I take my Dad out to dinner for a belated birthday celebration.  For my visual record, here's the Linus quilts I completed for our June 3rd workshop:

Paint Chip Challenge

What is that?  One of my quilt guilds handed out those paint cards you can pick up at any hardware store.  I was assigned:

Purple, green, and yellow.  At first, I thought I'd hit the lottery.  I imagined making a New Orleans mask with these colors.   Alas, after much research and several drawings, the colors were so muted, I would have been ashamed to associate them with the bright New Orlean's Mardi Gras.   Back to square one!
I started playing around with shapes in my photo enhancing software, bought the materials, and made the following quilt:

How did I make this?  First I printed out my pattern to the size I wanted it and taped together the pages to make a between 30 and 40" around quilt.  I used wonder under to cut out the pieces and iron them onto the background.  Next, put a piece of stablizer behind the background and satin stitched all around the edges of the pieces.  After tearing off the stabilizer, I made a quilt sandwich and quilted it.  Voila! Quilt Done!  Today, I brought the quilt to guild and showed it with all the other entries.   Surprise, surprise....for my effort I was given a certificate:

I've never been a great namer of quilts.  And, when I get stumped, I rely on my backup method....pick one of my favorite cartoon characters and go for it.  I already have a quilt named "Boris Badenov" after the short soviet spy in Rocky and Bullwinkle.  This quilt didn't look Rocky and it certainly didn't remind me of Bullwinkle.  So, I named it "Natasha" after Boris' spy partner.  Since I couldn't remember ever hearing a last name for Natasha, I took my maiden name and added a "ski" to the end so it sounded Russian.  This quilt's name is now "Natasha Robbinski."  People who know me from my past life will know that I have used this name before...but retired Natasha when the cold war was over.  Now, she lives on.