Today was 30th Anniversary Day!
So many members, past members and memories.
So many quilts and photographs.
So much good food and so much laughter.
What a wonderful morning!
Thanks very much to Robyn McKenzie for the initial idea to hold some appropriate celebration and contacting so many people to come and to President Marilyn Corsaro for pushing the idea to fruition.
Almost 40 ladies lunched at the Northern Beaches Bowls Club afterwards where there was more laughter and comraderie.
The Lucky Door Prize of a big sewing box filled with fabric and sewing goodies was won by Vera.
Our 30th morning tea with a great crowd of past and present members and a beautifully sunny day.
The well-laden food table
President Marilyn welcoming everyone and giving her annual report
Foundation members Robyn, Heather and Karen cutting the anniversary cake.
Not everyone brought something to show that they had made at BBQ for Show and Tell but we all enjoyed seeing the quilts on show. There were things from long ago and things fairly recent, things the sewers were really proud of and things that showed how far they have come. So thank you to those ladies who brought something in. It was fun revisiting old quilts and meeting new ones. But one thing was obvious, this club has produced some diverse projects and accomplished quilters over the course of the last 30 years.
(The photographer should have arranged someone else to take the photos so she could write down details of the quilts. It appears there were far too many to keep all the details in her head. So apologies for any omissions or confusions. If there is a really big lie, just email Lesley and she will edit it.)
Just finished workshop project of president Marilyn. It is the forest at Kingslake after the bushfires.
Robyn loves Batik fabrics and this is a Stack and Slash type quilt made with some lovely examples of Batiks.
The backing also showcases the fabrics.
An earlier quilt of Elaine with some beautiful dimensional applique roses and a tricky ribbon border.
The latest quilt from Liz for the Women's Centre. All hand stitched and hand quilted. Don't know whether they are Is or Hs.
A couple of table runners from Doreen. The spiral one with some fancy cutting and sewing with a special ruler (And lessons from her friend) and the applique poinsettia which should really have been finished for last Christmas but now it is ready for the next one.
This Bear's Paw quilt belongs to Delma. Just look at all those perfect point claws!
Past member Margaret made this quilt from the blocks members gave her as a going away gift. Each flower had a name pinned on a piece of paper at the back and Margaret knew she would never remember which flower was whose so she embroidered (by hand!) all the names on the blocks. The setting blocks make a sensational 3D effect.
Marlena's first big quilt was started with Joan and Joan said she could begin with any centre block she liked as long as it didn't have a white or cream background. And that teal proceeded to be the most troublesome colour ever to match with the ensuing borders. Thankfully Marlena stuck with it for a very dramatic medallion quilt.
Margaret used her fabrics to advantage in her
Kaleidoscope blocks to make this quilt of turtles. She lives at the beach and this quilt really belongs in her house.
Michelle didn't have time to go round to her Dad's to get her Mum's first quilt, so this is just one of the many quilts Jan made for her family. This one was for Fiona and she helped with the fabric choices, but it really shows Jan's love of bright and happy colours. Michelle grabbed it from the sofa where it is in good use and we were to ignore the spaghetti marks.
This is Michelle's first quilt. She got the idea she'd like to make a quilt for her baby when she was almost 9 months pregnant. Delivering just one week after she started cutting strips, Sam got this quilt for his 18th birthday.
This is Michelle's first finished quilt. She didn't win this 2007 BomB but she liked this
Log Cabin Star pattern and so made her own quilt in it.
Robyn spent many hours at patchwork and at home appliquing and embroidering these blocks for her Mother Earth Alphabet quilt.
Barbara's handwork of choice is embroidery and rather than making these blocks into yet another bag, she has framed them to hang on the wall.
Anne has just completed this large pillow case for one of her granddaughters.
Deane has just finished her
Australian Wildflowers quilt which has been her go-to project for over 8 years. The blocks are needleturned applique with hand-embroidered embellishments and it is hand quilted. The quilt was assembled in the quilt-as-you-go method.
Past member Mary used an applique rose pattern to design this quilt herself. It is needleturn applique and completely hand quilted and won second prize in the traditional section in the 1996 Melbourne Quilt Show.
The other quilt Mary brought to show was from the
Coffee and Cream era in the 90s. There are many special pieces of treasured fabric and laces in each block.
Julie brought along 3 of her quilts that have not been given away. This lovely
Trellis Garden had so much fabric left over she donated it to the club and we used it for a BomB (Won by Jan Eg and donated to Kaye's leukemia fundraising.) and a couple of blankets of love.
This is Julie's first jelly roll quilt.
And this one used another BomB pattern. When Julie didn't win the blocks, she just made her own. A lovely feature of the quilt is the sashiko she has worked on the black panels.
Past member Verity is still a regular at Seaforth CWA and her husband likes any project she does that includes fish.
An embroidered block made into a simple table runner by Verity.
Robyn N brought in a favourite UFO. Her daughter does not like pink anyway so there is no urgency to complete it. Unfortunately, Robyn is no longer able to hand quilt. Maybe one day a handquilting fairy will arrive and offer to finish this very pretty quilt.
A masterpiece of a quilt by Joan. It is needleturn applique with fine hand quilting. It now sits lonely on a shelf in a cupboard so it was wonderful to be able to see it aired today.
Cold weather brings some interesting discoveries. When the grandkids were cold at Heather's place the other day they pulled some blankets out of the cupboard and this almost finished quilt fell out. Heather had thought she had lost it. And she now has a little project to finish in the cooler weather.
A very dramatic
Hunters Star is the result of Heather doing the Chris Timmins workshop last year.
There were not a lot of sampler quilts shown despite originally being required to make a sampler for club membership. Maybe because they were our first quilts and so usually a little lacking in technique and fabric choice. They were a great way to learn the basic quilting practices though.
Karen brought along her first sampler from the very early club beginnings when cotton fabric was not readily available.
Iris was in the very last class of beginners classes that we ran at Bucasia.
And Lesley ended up at BBQ because she had made some blocks and had no idea of how to put them into a quilt. Robin Lloyd talked her into sitting in on the last couple of beginners lessons where she learnt all about sashing and hand quilting. Unfortunately, she must have missed the lesson on binding!
It's a wonder more of these didn't appear for the day. It was a challenge around 1993(?) to construct a tiny quilt block of yourself. You can probably recognise a younger Robyn N here with the red highlights in her hair and the very fashionable glasses! She is still smiling!
It was a wonderful morning catching up and celebrating our beginnings and our growth. Not sure we will all be able to wait for another 30 years for the next reunion. We might wonder at our state of mental and physical health in another 30 years.
The card below is appropriate.
