Wednesday 31 August 2016

Another minute's silence today for the loss of another long-time and always prolific member. This blog will be much shorter without her colourful quilts and there will be a gap in our patchwork mornings at the table near the door.

The BomB blocks returned today and if only we can find the magazine with the pattern in it, we can start piecing the charity quilt. 

It was lovely to have Joan back with us this morning, but sad to hear she is moving permanently back to Mt Isa. And to show our appreciation, Joan won the badge draw. (Or maybe it was just a coincidence.)

The Colorada Beauty blocks from the August BomB ready for the latest quilt for charity

This is Faye's last quilt. Beth had quilted it for her last Thursday. Faye had used this pattern, called Exquisite, before. And this time she had dug into some really old scraps, some of which she wasn't even sure of  how they got to be in her stash. 

Beth now has matching single bed and cot quilts in the room for when the grandchildren sleep over. And how cute they are!  It is all machine blanket stitch applique. The cot quilt has been hand quilted and the big one was stippled on Faye's machine.

Joan has had this quilt on the go for about six months.  When the blocks were finished, she started using a design wall, but it just didn't seem to make a nice pattern. So the method of piecing was to put all the blocks in a plastic bag and just randomly pull out two and sew them together. That has seemed to work! (This is the prettiest pale blue quilt, but for some reason the camera turned it to grey.  Maybe too sunny a day today. Sorry.) And Joan also managed to find the perfect matching pale blue backing when she stopped at the patchwork shop at Clermont on her way to Mackay.

Kay has made this bright fun quilt for a new grandnephew. Expecting lots of wear and tear, the applique is done with a machine double blanket stitch.

Reverse of Deane's little bag.

Deane purchased this pattern and no-fabric kit from the Red Bus at the Fair. It had the papers that you iron to the fabric in it. Deane has found them quite easy to work with and now has a beautiful little project carry bag.

Wednesday 24 August 2016

There was some silence today as we thought of another loyal and lovely member who will no longer be sharing her quilting journey with us. A reminder to us all to live life to the full and to finish those quilts.

It was BomB (Block Of the Month Bonanza) day today with some instructions to make a block for a charity quilt. So no winner next week - unless we draw out the name of someone and they get the prize of having to put the quilt together!

Barbara, or rather the grandson, picked out this fabric while shopping at The Quilters Store at Salisbury. It was the first time Barbara had ever been to this shop and she advises that everyone must visit as the fabric and supplies are just mind boggling. Grandson informed Barbara, "The trains must not be cut!" So she has just backed the fabric with red minkee, machine quilted in simple squares and bound it with red. Train cuddle heaven.

These quilts Beth has made are going to Batemans Bay so they have a thick wadding as well as a fleece backing. Beth made the purple one first and did not like it at all but went ahead with the green one anyway, which was just as well as she thinks it looks great. We are pretty impressed with both of them!

Fay has changed from squares to circles! What a delicate pattern for using up scraps. And all hand quilted, of course. It will go to 'some little girl around the place'. Fay always finds a loving home for her quilts.

Delma is just finishing putting the binding on this table runner which will be gone to its home by next week. It is the first time she has used batiks in a very different style for her.

Joke won the Badge Draw again and pulled out a voucher from Mackay Sewing Centre. Well done.

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Absolutely beautiful sewing weather! Maybe a few people decided to stay home to get something done today, although there are quite a few on holidays as well. But those of us who trotted out to Bucasia were treated to a lovely little Show and Tell as well as much happy chatting and camaraderie. Delma won her first Badge Draw today and picked out a Mackay Sewing Centre voucher from the goody bag.

Anne has made this as a bright summer quilt for herself as she loves blue. It is just a simple Snowball block with the snowballs all being 'fussy cut' from Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

This is a more recent quilt of Joke as she is still adding the binding. Everyone was taken with the fantastic dramatic colour scheme and then Joke tells us that she was too when she saw the quilt hanging on the wall of a shop in Armidale and then found out that they sold the pattern in kits. Even the fabrics were precut and so it went together quite quickly.

Joke brought in her Chicken Scratch quilt today that has been in use for over 23 years. Although we believe it is also called Depression Lace and that is a much prettier name. She had originally sashed it with Broderie lace but didn't like the look of it and so unpicked the lot and added the checked sashing and borders the same as the blocks.

Marlena bought this Crabapple Hill pattern in Las Vegas of all places. She has been embroidering for some time but it was the centre stars that were holding the construction up. In the end, Marlena ditched the 6" Martha Washington Stars and made something a trifle simpler. A beautiful feature of this quilt is that the embroidery extends into the pieced blocks.

Only Marlena would go to such trouble for a label. (But she did let slip that she actually cut that block the wrong size and so had to redo it.)

Only another 6 blocks came in today and it looks like it will be a very small BomB quilt this month. Cheryl got to draw the name out as she won the BomB last month, but despite telling her she wasn't allowed to draw her own name out, she did! Congratulations Cheryl. You shall be very busy for a while.

Wednesday 10 August 2016

A brand new quilting year began today with the holding of our Annual General Meeting. Nothing much has changed though, with the only alteration to the executive being the elevation of the Acting Secretary to Secretary status. But formal proceedings count little for the activities of the club and we still have the annual retreat, a "Table Runner Month", some charity quilts and a Chris Timmins workshop all on the horizon.

There was only a short Show and Tell today, which was just as well as the AGM and the August Committee Meeting took up much of the morning. Although there was still time to sample some deliciously fluffy pumpkin scones. (Thanks Kaye.)

Iris won the Badge Draw and Brenda was most surprised to win the Monthly Raffle. Congratulations ladies.

As only ten BomB blocks were ready today, we extended the draw for another week hoping that those who didn't get around to completing the block will have a go this week. 

Aren't the BomB blocks handed in so far looking great? Love that pink, purple, blue colour scheme.

Kaye is looking very pleased as this is the very last block from the Di Mansfield workshop from some years ago finally finished. There are 30 of the delightful embroidered teddies and flowers blocks so piecing and embellishing have taken some time. Whatever is Kaye going to sew on Wednesday mornings now though?

Del sat in on the Dresden Plate lesson with Joan's Beginner Patchwork Classes. She even made two of them and added some scraps for this lovely tote which should fit all her sewing goodies for retreat - well, some of them anyway.

Wednesday 3 August 2016

There was a small crowd today. Maybe it is getting close to AGM time!

Please don't forget the AGM next Wednesday 10 August. Remember, a club only functions as much as members are prepared to get involved in running it.

It was a great thrill today to see the proceeds of the Charity Quilt raffle being handed over to the Northern Beaches Girl Guides. It was also BomB (Block Of the Month Bonanza) day, Liz handed over her last Blanket of Love for a while as she pursues some slightly larger quilt making for abused children, and there were some very different quilts at Show and Tell. Joke was very lucky to win the badge draw after only joining us for a few weeks. Some people have been coming for years and have still not won!

President Marilyn accepting a certificate of appreciation from Amy and Joely of Northern Beaches Girl Guides after handing over our cheque for $1782. The guides will be getting new non-leaking tents for their camps and a sewing machine to learn to sew bags for the camping equipment. What a good result all round!

The demo for today's BomB, Delectable Mountains. Easy as pie! (Well, we'll see next week.)

This is third week in a row Marilyn has brought along something finished. Well done Marilyn. Keep up the good UFO work! Marilyn saw Phillipa making a quilt like this at last year's retreat and thought "I can do that", so she did. The circles are raw edged appliqued with straight stitch and it has already had one session through the washing machine to rumple up the edges a little.

Jean started this at last year's retreat too. All but one of the fabrics used in the blocks have been included in the border.

And all the left over pieces of fabric were used up in the pieced backing. Almost as much work in the backing as in the front piecing! 

Cheryl made this quilt for her neighbour who is going through a rough patch. The neighbour had been talking about patchwork and how much she loves purple and Cheryl saw that as a sign that she should get out all her purple fabrics and quickly make a quilt for her. Let's hope this really cheers her up!

Cheryl pieced the blocks QAYG so the back is a lovely framed patchwork of its own.

In the tradition of last year's raffle quilt for the Spring Fair, Kaye has once again helped with her Carlyle Gardens Craft Group. This crazy patch with embroidered teacups and teapots is sure to be a draw card. Joan did the machine quilting.

Barbara has remade this bag which was originally constructed from one of Linda's kits but she was never entirely happy with how it turned out. There was a lot of work in remaking it, but she loves it now.