First another Brown Quilt that Elaine and I teamed up to do (she did most).
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Hexie table topper |
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Hexie dogs for a friend who is dog mad. |
We started in 2007 with a quilt made one very rainy weekend with friends from across Sydney and across the world connected by patchwork and quilting. Our members have included quilters and novices from far and wide - NSW, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland (Australia), New Zealand, Massachusetts and Connecticut (USA), N.Ireland, Cornwall, Shropshire and Wales (UK). All our quilts are for charity, either raffled to earn money or donated directly to a nearby charity.
First another Brown Quilt that Elaine and I teamed up to do (she did most).
![]() |
Hexie table topper |
![]() |
Hexie dogs for a friend who is dog mad. |
At our last quilting weekend Karen brought a lovely cake for our afternoon tea.
Here is the recipe as promised...
Carrot Cake (GF and other adaptations by Karen)
2 cups plain flour (if using gluten-free, add ½ tsp xanthan or guar gum, or 1 tbsp golden syrup)
2 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon (plus ½ tsp each of ground ginger, five-spice powder, cardamom, or to taste)
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil
2 cups grated carrot
1 cup chopped walnuts
250 gm tin pineapple (crushed or chopped; drained)
Frosting
250 gm butter, softened
250 gm cream cheese
c. 250 gm icing sugar, sifted (add more to make stiffer, sweeter frosting)
1 tsp vanilla essence
Sift flour, baking powder and soda, spices and salt.
Beat eggs well in a separate large bowl. Add sugar and oil gradually, continuing to beat.
Fold in carrots, nuts and pineapple gradually, mixing well after each addition.
Fold in flour mixture gradually. (If using g/f flour, add a little liquid, e.g. from the pineapple tin, if the mix is too stiff.)
Divide mixture between two rectangular slice tins, lined with baking paper.
Bake at 180ÂșC for 15-30 minutes depending on your oven. They are cooked when a skewer in the middle comes out clean.
Allow to sit in the pans for 15 minutes, then put on wire racks to cool, covered with a tea towel.
Frosting: Beat butter and cream cheese together, adding icing sugar gradually and vanilla.
Use the frosting either on top of the cakes or as a middle layer between the two.
Tip: Unless there will be a lot of hungry mouths, only ice one of the cakes (or cut it in half and sandwich the halves with the frosting) and freeze the other cake (without any frosting) for later use.
After freezing, defrost then heat in a microwave oven for about 1 minute before adding frosting.
Karen Wilson
September 2025
Based on a recipe from Priscilla Roth in The Independent newspaper, London, c. 1988
Sorry that this has taken so long to come but sheds have taken precedence.
Elaine and Karen came for our scheduled day together a few weeks ago, Liz was on Zoom. I received a few shadow blocks after our day so we will need to work out where they will go.
Progress so far includes...
Carol's Orange now has its borders added and binding cut but it needs a polar fleece backing. I don't have any to hand so we'll need to buy that in a dark blue or teal I think.
We thought that the fabric lends itself to a block like the one Jeanette showed us with the pale part of her borders in the pale blue we found in our stash. I'll send this out with the focus fabric. Your job will be to find one of the other darker colours in the fabric (not white or any of the greens and not the yellow either. Good luck.
At our gathering on Saturday we spent a few brief moments looking at the blocks that have been received so far for our next three quilts. The RH column are the favourite fabrics, the centre column are the brown, and the LH column are the kids blocks. There are still more to come back and I know they will keep us busy for a while making our three quilts.
"My latest completed quilts which I've quilted myself. - they are Tumalo Trail done in my 1.5" scraps. The larger one is "Turning Twenty Again"."
My second finish for 2025. I made this one from my strip scraps by sorting colours and tones then creating courthouse steps blocks around leader-ender 4-patches until one dimension was trimable 6.5". Heights of each block are whatever they turned out. Lots of fun.
When we gathered on Saturday we 3 were very pleased to make so much progress...
We now have some bright pink polar fleece to back our stained glass quilt top. That will be tacked next time we meet.
So many could not join our Zoom on Saturday so have sent photos of their latest work for our show and tell.
As Heather is unable to make our Zoom today she has sent me news about her quilting and craft room.
Firs a quilt she made recently for her nephew's first daughter.
She also sent me an update on the progress in her new craft room...
"We have finished painting the Craft room as it will be. Cupboards removed for painting and awaiting the blinds for the windows. I have started to set up my machine and cutting table and not much else!!! The remaining bedroom is currently a store/junk room and luckily the door is left open , otherwise one would not be able to open it!
The intention is to keep the sewing tables clear of "stuff" so that I can sew easily.....I am looking forward to actually sewing. The machine got a thorough clean yesterday and a new blade in the rotary cutter. So all ready to sew; only issue is that the fabric and patterns are in the "storage" room. A lot more tidying up in the near future.
When I was at Baradine in April Jenny gave me lots of scraps, many of which were triangles left from a quilt she had made. Elaine loved these triangles so I gave them to her to play with. Here is the finished quilt...
It really looks great in real life too and will probably be donated to the cancer patients that Karen has contact with.
Just remember - Scraps are not Rubbish!