Christmas High Tea

Last weekend we all enjoyed our Christmas High Tea and then returned to my place for an afternoon of quilting.

We completed putting two quilt tops together and I'll get on and back them after the chaos of Christmas subsides.

Karen brought along another batch of Artist Trading Card from her recent trip to Atherton so if you are so inclined to swap any then start making a few to swap next time we meet.

We have drawn our next fabric and block design and I will send out instructions after Christmas as well. Meanwhile I have sent out the pieces of fabric to make use of the 70c postage that is about to go up.

We certainly enjoyed our time together and I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Air Con in October

Our gathering in October happened on a very hot day but as I now have air conditioning upstairs we were able to sew without drips of perspiration falling on the fabric. Such a change from previous years over the summer months when we have almost died up there.

 We have finished the Bright Flowers quilt ready to donate to Aussie Heros.

 Linda's twins are due in December so she was not very active but was an excellent supervisor and passer of blocks.

Ivy just loves patchwork too. 

 We have now put all the sashing and cornerstones on Valerie's Liberty blocks seen here on the design wall.

Geoff of course had to be there to bring ivy.

We put up the blocks for Jeanette's star blocks and it was amazing how awful they looked when we put them up in the design on the instruction page. We then shuffled them a bit and came up with this layout which is much better. With a bit of tweeking the blocks will make a great single bed topper. We have some blocks that have not been returned yet because Carol was sick and Elaine was in Cairns so neither could attend.

Here is a photo of our next block completed by Jenny. Below it is a photo of how it will be cut but please send yours back without cutting it. The only fixed positions are the fabrics supplied as per the instructions.

Thanks to all those who came and/or completed blocks and made our day a most productive one.

Two Cold Days in August

This month we decided to have two Saturdays quilting and both were quite cold days. Over the time I was joined by Karen W., Elaine, Carol, Linda, and our newest member Valda.

Valda started by adding a label to and removing tacking from our latest completed quilt. We have called it Lilac Garden. It was inspired by Heather's focus fabric and a 2-4-6 block. Note the appliqued flowers that cover a tiny hole in one of the squares!

Lilac Garden - won by Karen G.

 Congratulations to Karen G on her win! Her contribution to the group finances will go to charity in lieu of the quilt if she chooses to keep it. Otherwise the quilt will go to charity.

We drew our next lucky dip block and to our surprise  it was another of Jeanette's fabric donations and of course another complex pointy block. I've made the block and created instructions which I have emailed out to you all. Fabric will come in the mail soon.

Karen W. is now visiting our mutual friend in Malanda Qld who introduced us to Artist Trading Cards. She has taken up the next 9 ATCs in exchange for 9 that were sent down earlier this year. If you'd like to swap some please just let me know as I still have a few swaps from the Atherton group.

With the help of all the workers over the two days we have progressed with some of our other quilts and some can be seen in the photos above. Perhaps by the end of the year we'll have a few more completed. Thank you all for your hard work.

One cold Saturday in June

Last Saturday we joined together once more and had a most productive weekend. In the last few weeks Jen has started her quilting venture and has made her first block so she, Geoff and Ivy visited. I'm sure Ivy will be making blocks soon too.

Some achievements included...

Tacking the "Heather's Purple Flowers" sandwich. This is now ready for quilting.

Adding more borders to the "Bright Flowers" quilt top. It is now ready for tacking.

Creating a border of the tiny left-over ends for our "Aztec Star" quilt.

Putting Twister blocks donated by Jenny onto the design wall ready to think about. Jenny has no desire to continue with this quilt so we'll make something special from the blocks I'm sure. These blocks are in lieu of our next lucky dip as we have quite a few quilts on the go.

Putting our "Valerie's Liberty" onto the design wall. We are one block short so Carol has volunteered to do the extra one needed.

As usual much fun was had chatting and eating. Arianne was finishing her coat for TAFE and it can be seen in the background.

Of course everyone had a cuddle of Ivy.

I could not resist the photo of our two supervisors...

Thanks to all who came and those who sent their blocks back.

By the way, if anyone knows a patchworker who does not live in Sydney and would like to join our group it would be great to have some more distance members. The room is crowded with us all (and our occasional visitors) but distance members would be great. Many who had been working with us have now left the group for various health or commitment reasons.

Finished PhDs and Adopted projects

On our April Saturday we all adopted a focus for our day and have now (with help from Elaine with binding) have 'finished' two more quilts. Because they are sandwich quilts they will need a little more detailed quilting and of course a label but basically finished.

Japanese Jewels - won by Liz (NZ)

Blue Flowers - won by Heather (Deniliquin, NSW)

Carol and Elaine created wonderful ideas for joining the Machu Pichu Star blocks.

Karen G joined all the Purple Flower blocks so that is a top ready for borders prior to finishing.

Karen W completed the 'in the ditch' quilting of the Blue Flowers quilt then I bound it while away the following week. It is great to have a bit of hand sewing to do while you chat.

Linda and a few others decided to complete the new block with the support of others. We now have quite a few of these completed.

It seemed that our quilting day was most productive with two quilts actually ready for raffling amongst ourselves. Liz has put up a picture of her finished Liberty block on her blog.

See you all again on 20 June. Happy quilting.

Patchwork in February

Wow! What a productive Saturday we had last week! We were only a small group but very busy. We also welcomed a new member to our group - Carol. Welcome Carol.

Our first activity was swapping Artist Trading Cards and gathering together a collection to send to Atherton.

Then we had two quilts sandwiches to tack together. Both are now done awaiting quilting.

Linda completed her block for Heather's Flowers quilt. which meant we could then tackle the arrangement of blocks for that one.

We think we've got is as right as it can be.

After measuring our Bright Flowers quilt we found it needed some more borders so here are our thoughts on that one.

Then lots of discussion about the Machu Pichu Star quilt. We will probably make that for an Aussie Heros Quilt too as we only have 8 blocks. We are going to frame each block in a thin bright green then use the focus fabric as sashing and our little pieces as corner stones. It should look good.

Then to finish the day there were a few sketches to work out how to make a tumbling blocks quilt that Linda would like to try.

Carol drew the next Lucky Dip which is a blast from the past. It is from Valerie in Wales. Thank you Valerie. I hope we make a quilt you will approve of.

In all a productive and fantastic day. See you all next time.

Christmas Celebrations

At last an update.

We had a great time at Amelia Kate's for our Christmas High Tea (although I think we do a pretty mean high tea ourselves at each of our gatherings at my place).

Unfortunately we could not get just one big table which would have been nice.

That afternoon we returned to mine and Linda won the recently finished Peek of Pink quilt.

We also spent time constructing a kit cotton reel holder that Linda had found. It actually holds cotton reels with their matching bobbins on top.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year. Hope to see you here at one of our gatherings soon.