Our October gathering

 Quite a lot was achieved on Saturday as well as quite a lot of eating. We four regulars were there and were kept busy. Stephanie and Karen made their mosaic blocks while Elaine did some trimming of her blocks with my very large ruler. Then we all set to trimming and sewing the Bear's Paws.

After lunch Naz and her Mum Jamilla arrived for the afternoon and Naz took these lovely photos for us.

We decided that Jamilla needed a quilt so presented her with one of the Rainbow ones. We might even see Naz and Jamilla again at our gatherings.

We were able to put together the Bear's Paw border on our medalion and it can now grow when decisions are made.

We also put our Mosaic blocks on the design wall. When put up aligned in the normal way they looked far too boring but with a bit of offsetting and turning it now looks quite cool. We still have a few blocks to come in so will wait until next time to make further decisions.

We might even get these last two quilt tops done before the end of the year!

No new fabric draw yet. We should have asked Jamilla or Naz to do that but of course, I forgot.

We had our regulars attend via Zoom and were able to catch up on news and 'show and tell' from others.

News from Jeanette in WA

 Just a few pics of our Hanging. Yet again a great day with over 600 viewers through the door. We spent all day Saturday setting up, Sunday open to the public & Sunday evening pulling it all down again. Some very weary bodies today. 

Around 2 edges of the rec centre we have what are called "Rooms" set up as individual displays.... Christmas  room, Crochet room, From our beginning in 1996 to Now  room, Community quilts room & mine was Hexie room as they call me the Hexie Queen

We don't realise till each Triennial Hanging, just how clever our members really are. 

Wow what a show!

You can even see another member's view of the same show here. It is amazing how two people focus on a different selection of quilts.

I think the updating issues are fixed

 This morning I opened my blogs and there were all my friends popping up on the side with their latest entries.

I hope it now continues to sync correctly.

Problems with Blogger

 I have noticed that for the last few weeks my side bar of blog links is not updating so I am not seeing new posts from others when they are posted.

Please accept my apologies if I seem to be ignoring you.

Show and Tell from Elaine

 Elaine says: "These are all the quilts that I have donated this year, just not sure what ones I gave to Sutherland Hospital and which went to the cancer clinic."

Such a lovely lot of colour. Thanks Elaine. You are quite the patchworker.

Instructions for Mosaic block

 

Collect:

• mosaic focus fabric supplied - F
• orange fabric supplied - O
• your choice fabric - A - which must match one of the paler colours in the focus fabric - any pale colour or tone on tone.

Cut:

Sections as per the drawing and lay them out as in the drawing and photograph. Remember that the measurements must include 1/2" seam allowance on each piece.

Construct:

You will need to sew the pieces together in sections  that create straight 1/4" seams (see below). Press all seams to the orange for the sections.

When attaching sections to the mosaic piece press seams towards the mosaic.

Your finished block should be 14 1/2" and returned untrimmed. Remember to include your stamp addressed envelope if you live in Australia.

Achievements today

 We were only 3 members at our day today but we had 4 more join us on zoom. 

We tacked Karen's quiltop to make a sandwich ready for quilting and also tacked our swan together ready for quilting. 

Linda came on to make a sixth screen on zoom but Heather dropped out for some reason about half way through. Elaine raced home just as we started because a storm came to threaten her washing. Luckily she got it all in before the zoom meeting finished.

In the foreground you can see the layout of our next block. Apparently we initially thought the third fabric should be calico but a we started putting it together we think the third colour should be one of the paler colours in the focus fabric. We rather liked this piece of hand dyed fabric in the pale blues and mauves. So the 'rules' have changed. I'll send instructions later.

Ugly duckling becomes a swan (nearly)

 We were all a bit disappointed with our Suzannah Twist quilt top as it grew...

During the week I tried putting in some 'knots' as shown to us by Jo when she came but they could not even be seen on the top so I unpicked the one I had done.

Then I decided it needed corners but 'OH NO' I made them too big. So then I decided rather than changing the corner blocks I'd increase the width of the border. However, we did not have enough of the focus fabric. So I've used a yellow that we had plenty of...

I almost like it now. One lesson to learn with group quilts is about colour! The colours used in the block MUST be IN the Focus Fabric! It is important not to just use colours that GO WITH IT.

The other thing I did was add a sashing because the junctions of the block pieces were never going to line up. With a sashing this is less obvious.

Click on the picture and you'll see it larger. I can even see how to quilt it now.

This was a difficult block so thank you all for your struggles. We've all learned a lot about colour and set in seams.

A pop-up quilting day

 Yesterday, because Jo and Tony were visiting, I called a pop-up quilting day for anyone who could come to join us. We ended up with 6 quilters yabbering away all day and discussing various options for our ongoing projects. 

Some people chose to complete their blocks for the Bear's Paw project and there was a bit of show and tell of completed projects. Elaine has bound and labelled the Pebbles quilt so it is now ready to donate.

I finished my next Broken Rules experiment with colour so it is also ready to donate. Elaine added a label to that too.

Stephanie arrived with a load of cottons and some fabric to give away so some people left with more than they brought.

We trimmed the next lot of blocks and the quilt looks much better. We even have enough fabric to make the extra diamonds between the blocks if we want to. 

Jo taught us a few more tricks about 'appliqued' diamonds and double thickness bag straps. Thank you Jo.

With lots more Bear's Paws we could get a better idea of how that quilt will look with Jo's fabric as the focus.

Jo and Stephanie then set to with some remaining rainbow strips to make a Courthouse Steps version of the rainbow. Tina has taken that flimsy home to make into a quilt.

Meanwhile Tony was entertained by our continuous chatter and feeding rituals. He had his laptop for extra entertainment when needed and also ventured up to see what we were doing.

Jo drew our next fabric which turned out to be Tina's metre. We discussed various options for a block that suited the fabric. There might be issues as the design is printed skew on the fabric but I'm sure it will look great in the end.

We sent off all our finished quilts except for the Rainbow ones with Karen to be delivered to RPAH cancer day centre. I hope they like them.