The Great Sewing Bee - 26-28 March

"Three days of uninterrupted sewing" says Cathy. Cathy had missed the last workshop and so organised this bee to catch up on some sewing fun.

Sunday was quite a normal day. Some were making cyclone preparations, but Cathy and her band of bee ladies were making sewing progress.

Monday saw 7 ladies determined to ignore the strengthening winds and scudding rain and get some major sewing done. After numerous phonecalls from friends and family, it was decided to abandon all sewing activities after lunch. After the third distress call from Cathy's house, we abandoned prior to lunch. Machines and sewing supplies were carried to vehicles just as the rain started pelting down. It was particularly bad timing as that burst only lasted 15 minutes. Never mind, all sewing machines made it safely to their homes before Cyclone Debbie arrived.

Yes, that gutter is completely full of water.

So what was achieved?
(Photos from Monday only)

Di demonstrated how easy it was to accomodate 1/4" difference in fabrics if the longer strip is placed at the bottom on the feed dogs.

Ta Da! Easy as. 

Cheryl had some help working out what size the squares had to be cut to make pinwheels for the border of her Delectable Mountain quilt. (For an 8"block, cut the squares for each 4" unit, 5".) This worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the blocks are supposed to be 7 1/2"! Let's hope they match the quilt as perfectly as they match her cutting mat.

Marilyn worked on her butterfly block for the BomB and then went home. (So this is actually a picture of someone else's block.)

Lesley cut 10"squares from her blue and grey fabric and 25 old business shirts, sewed all the way around the edge and then cut the squares on both diagonals. Perfect half-square triangle units - with bias edges. Will be interesting to see how this picnic rug goes together.

Del bought this cricket panel 10 years ago when her grandson was 10 and in to cricket. She is quilting this as a quilt for the Women's Centre. The quilting around the figures (by walking foot) is proving tedious. The bad news is that Del also bought a soccer panel at the same time!

Cathy spent a day and a quarter making  2 Chinese Lantern blocks from strips she picked up from the give-away table recently. She thought it would be a good way to use the scraps. And they did look fantastic, but timewise, probably not an ideal project. They were packed into the car between rain gusts so no photo. Cathy then moved on to the In and Out I Spy quilt pictured using all her left over owl fabric.

Anne got some help measuring borders for her Sampler Quilt and then sewed a little peeper on. The best hint for this is that she ironed this 1" peeper in half and then stiched it down on the 1/2" ironed line. When the border is sewn on with 1/4"seam, there will be a 1/4"peeper, but it will be stitched down and not get caught up in the machine quilting.

Di used some left overs to make a pretty lined bag that will be a special little something for a needy child.

Imagine what could have been achieved if we'd been able to continue!
No doubt some ladies (aka Cathy) did not lose power from the cyclone and so probably spent the whole time locked up safely inside the sewing room. The blogperson could be found sitting in the complete dark of a powerless house quietly handstitching by camping headlight.
Another Sewing Bee is on the drawing board.
Next time, we'll try having one without cyclonic weather!