Questions and samples from Jeanette (WA)

Well when I got your email with the new block on it I thought I had bitten off more than I could sew!!! 

The only “flying geese” I had anything to do with were the real birds, 36 years ago on the cattle station north of Meekatharra, where they “pooped” all over the homestead veranda every time they got into the yard!!!! Nice to eat but very messy things!!

Luckily the next day at work, one of the girls who does a lot of patchwork was working…….so I said….”What on earth are flying geese”!!!!

She laughed and showed me with bits of paper, then said “Don’t worry, I’ll make some tonight and bring them in tomorrow”. So between the evening and morning shift she knocked up a few in various stages of manufacture!! 

So now I have them mastered!! 

This pic is the “throw” rug I made from scraps of quilts for April’s 7^th birthday, along with her Leggo land café thingy to make. She was wrapped up in the rug on the couch that evening….goodo. It’s even got triangles of black faced sheep on it like ours on the farm….which she loves.

I’ve been practising with Thomas left overs and am pretty happy with it! Just a couple of the smaller geese are not as accurate as they should be. I drew lines on the bigger ones to stitch on as advised by my friend, but thought my eye was good enough on the smaller ones….apparently not quite!!  So there will be another today with hopefully a better finish to my liking.

So if you look too closely you will see what I mean….however, practise makes perfect! Oh I don’t need to get a ¼” foot for my machine….the lady in the shop showed me how to move the needle to the side over a mark on the foot and then with the fabric on the edge of the foot it does a perfect ¼” seam. Excellent!! 

I’ve cut my days down to 8 a fortnight as of July, so maybe I will get some more time to sew.

Got a 45mm Rotary cutter from Spotlight last week as I had worn down the blade on the original you bought for me……thought I might as well get the bigger one instead of new blades for the smaller one. Wow, this one really moves!! Also got some fabric from Finches Nest….that shop we went to.

OK Off to cut out the next pieces for next practise block.

News from Liz (Auckland)

Liz (Auckland) has been working on several projects with her group(class?) ...

I go to in the cultural centre next door, but am desperately trying to actually finish some projects before tackling anymore.

We did a "butterfly" wall hanging - which had no real pattern except a tracing for the large butterflies - each of the wings as composed of coloured segments sewn onto a background. I got much better at using my machine for applique! but struggled with making the bodies stand out - the batik fabric is fairly resistant to embroidery needles and because each lady was doing her own thing there was no set pattern to follow re background and placement... - it was a bit challenging - but I am almost finished - now working out how to quilt it and put a black frame on it. Did have fun experimenting with beads and glittery metal thread although they dont show up much in the photo.

Also tickled pink because I have now bordered all my 20 sample blocks and ready to sort out sashing and borders - accuracy as always is my major challenge - one moments inattention and oops!

I went to an exhibition of a quilting group from West Auckland and foudn it a goldmine of inspiration of using the same block to make some wonderfully different effects.

Our next block

 The instructions for our next block are now on the Instructions page of this blog. Have fun with this one.

Please note that this is not a good example because the diamond surrounding the mystery fabric is too similar to the mystery fabric and does not allow it to shine out.The corners are also poorly aligned.

June Quilting Weekend

Another wet and rainy Saturday to start our June quilting weekend, yet again living up to our name of Rainbow Connection Quilters. You can see lots of happy, but cold quilters tacking our Sampler quilt to it's backing. Even I am happy sewing leaders and enders to complete a sample block for another quilt.

Some of our regular members are having fun sewing and posing in front of some of our quilts on the go.

Linda and Lian

Jenny

Elaine

Linda brought along two of her own blue quilts to get advice and hands on help. Note our Brown Roses quilt layout in the background.

We all helped tack the layers together on Linda's first ever quilt.

We were excited to have three new members join our group this time too.

Karen (from Carlton)

Karen (from Balmain)

Jeanette (from Dongara, WA)

I made a mistake on the measurement of our next piece of lucky dip fabric so had to recut the pieces that Jenny so carefully cut. I will send them out to you all asap as I did the cutting last night. If you took a piece of Jenny's Poppies fabric home with you please return it to me and collect your new piece. I will have the instructions ready soon.

We tried out the new Corner Binding instructions and I have tweeked them a little and uploaded the new version as a link on the Instructions page. Any feedback would be gratefully received.

We offered to mend one of the quilts we had made for Bezzina house and completed that job, learning a lot in the process. Some of the seams on blocks were smaller than 1/4" and had come apart. We lined the offending blocks with vlisofix then did fancy stitches to create an embellishment over the loose seams. It worked quite well. But please note:

Your seams must be accurate and 1/4" please.

Binding Corners on the Queen's Birthday Holiday

The rain and the public holiday allowed me time to sort out the Instructions Page on this blog. Feel free to use the instructions and if they are written by me please observe normal copyright rules. Use them yourself, tell friends about them but don't use them to make money.

I am currently working on getting my corners right when binding my quilts and am putting up the instructions as I write them.

My corners used to be erratic and disappointing like this...

... but now they are beautifully mitred like this ...

If you would like to improve your corners please feel free to try following the instructions on the Instructions page and give me feedback by leaving a comment.

Have fun quilting.