Christmas is Coming...

Last weekend we had a very small but festive group and powered on with our current projects.

Karen and family arrived for morning tea but Karen was unable to stay long as they had all be up for an airport drop at some unearthly hour.

Stephanie came in time to meet Karen and family and brought a beautiful mandarin cake. Linda brought chicken for lunch and we three enjoyed chicken sandwiches and cake together.

Progress upstairs included...

Photographing our Glimpses of Japan quilt. I'd been unable to photograph this whole quilt until I resurrected Surrey's Quilt Photographing System. So here is a better photo...

 We attached the sashing and corner stones to Karen's Spots top and cut the borders ready to attach.

Borders were attached to Christine's Windmills. This one is now ready to sandwich.

We have completed the centre of Ann's Aboriginal quilt top. We are now in the process of auditioning fabrics and colours for the borders.

Our last task was to debate the last Lucky Dip fabric - Lynette's Egyptian. We have decided to make a bookcase quilt with this one so do a few internet searches for ideas. I'll be sending out the fabric soon and hope you will be inspired by this novelty quilt.

Our next gathering will not be until February so there will be plenty of time to complete all the blocks you currently have and return them to me. Don't forget to send your Lucky Dip fabric too. We have now finished our basket load. I already have two new ones for us to start the new year with. Always plenty to go on with. I have emailed dates for next year so make sure you add them to your diary now.

Merry Christmas to you all and happy quilting in the New Year.

Three finishes in one week is a bit of a record

We've never finished so many quilts at one time.

Last night Elaine delivered Robyn's Retro to me all finished so this morning I photographed it and am about to label it.

Carol won the quilt. Congratulations Carol! She had decided to keep the quilt and donate the money to charity.

And another finished quilt

I finished hemming the binding of our Pink Flowers in a Blue Sky quilt yesterday and today Kim and I photographed it outside using the hanging system that Surrey devised. We just have to remember to pin to the hangers in the right place and use an umbrella to keep the sun off the camera.

I put it into our draw generator and Linda has won it. I will let you know whether she would like to donate money or the quilt to charity.

November Gathering

We four (Karen W., Carol, Elaine and Betty) had a most productive day on Friday.

Our first task was to label and photograph our Peaches and Cream quilt. This meant the quilt was complete and Christine won it but I have still not heard from her if she would prefer to donate the quilt or money to charity.

Carol spent lots of time quilting the blue 9-patch quilt and I sewed on the binding, finishing the hand stitching yesterday. It is now labelled but not yet photographed. A job for next time.

We all spent time placing trimmed blocks for the Blue and Brown Spots quilt. It now has the sashing cut and some rows stitched together ready for next time we get together.

No, the orange at the top has nothing to do with this quilt but is for the quilt on the back of the design wall.

We have cut the next borders for Christine's Windmills and they are ready to attach if anyone would like that task.

Then the great reveal of Ann's aboriginal blocks. As we were putting them up a wonderful zig-zag appeared. We thought the orange inserted in this zig-zag might highlight the orange in the focus fabric that we were not allowed to use in the blocks themselves. Next tasks here are to trim the blocks and add the orange sashing to form the zig-zags.

Of course the day of sewing activities was highlighted by a wonderful lunch and afternoon tea and lots of chatter at all times.

We drew out another mystery fabric and that has been sent out. Because there was not much variety in the colours of the mystery fabric we also added another piece to give you more colour selection for your block.

Let me know if you'd like to come for a pop-up quilting day. Also let me know if you'll be here on 1 December for our final gathering of the year. So far there are lots of members not coming so we might not have one.

A Busy day in October

Last Saturday we started our quilting get-together by visiting the Oatley Pink Quilt Show and the Oatley Markets. The quilt show was a bit of a disappointment for me as we could not actually wander around and view the quilts easily. They were hung over the pews and once the auction had finished we were unable to see the quilts that were not right on the edge as people were standing chatting, blocking the pews for other viewers. What a pity. We had about 5 quilts in the show by various of our members.

Home then to lunch then Karen W., Elaine, Linda and myself spent some productive time getting a few more quilts one step further towards completion.

We sandwiched and tacked our Blue Spot quilt onto polar fleece and it is now waiting to be quilted if anyone would like the task.

We de-threaded Carol's Peach quilt so it is now ready for a label and photographing. Then it can go into a draw or go to charity. If you have any favourite charities that might like large quilts please let me know as I also still have the Glimpses of Japan quilt.

The Blue and Brown Spot blocks in the background of the photo above will probably be best as a single bed quilt so Karen W. is going to make another block to complete the 15. We found a few orphan blocks that could go well in the corners of a border so they have been added to the board. We have enough of the centre paisley fabric to cornerstones with calico sashing but these decisions can be made next time.

Karen W. brought back Robyn's Retro quilt with all the quilting done. We added the binding and trimmed that ready for hemming (if you'd like that job just let me know). We also de-threaded that quilt.

As Christine's Windmills needs more borders we have thought that calico is a good option for a wide one but that decision can also be finalised next time.

In all a short session of work but we all felt that a lot was achieved and perhaps we'll have a few quilts ready before the end of the year, or is that wishful thinking? I look forward to seeing lots of people on November 9.

When life falls to pieces make quilts

Over the last few months I have spent odd bits of time using up my 2.5" squares of scrap fabric in a quilt idea inspired by Bonnie Hunter and her "leaders and ender's". Tuesday and Wednesday this week I've spent time putting all the bits together.

I am really pleased with the result and now just have to consider borders, binding and backing.

I started by making strips of 5 squares with a white triangle at each end. The centre of each strip was a 4-patch of 1.5" leaders and enders and the end square of each strip was the darker of the two adjoining 2.5" squares to create a good contrast with the white ends. I joined the strips together into blocks of 7 strips. Once I'd made 18 such blocks I spread them on the table. The quilt that inspired this one had a strip of another fabric running straight down between each pieced strip. But I noticed that if I offset the blocks when I joined them I ended up with a white zigzag pattern running down the quilt.

However I then had to work out how to fill the empty top and bottom of each strip to offset them. A few scribbles on graph paper and I got excited. Each alternate strip has a different corner filler section.

That was on Tuesday. Of course I then just had to finish putting it together.

The irony is that when Stephanie saw me using the little pieces she donated her stash of 2.5" squares to mine. This was great because it made a wider colour range. But I've ended up with more little squares than I started with. I guess I'll just have to make more quilts! I might even add another strip to this quilt to make it more square?

A Warm September Day of Patchwork

We had a lovely group yesterday with Karen G, Karen W, Elaine, Carol, Stephanie and I. Progress was very positive.

My sewing machine was tied up with quilting of Carol's Peach. Stephanie and I shared that job. Not quite finished yet but it will be off the machine by our next get-together.

I have worked out a way to quilt around each dark pink square without turning the quilt in too many circles in the process. I hope to finish this quilting before we meet again.

Karen G, Carol and Elaine worked together on the borders of Christine's Windmills and at the same time Karen W and Carol worked on putting together Helen's Blue Spots. Both these quilts did not inspire us until we started auditioning borders and at last they have both come together very well.

Christine's Windmills still needs borders finished next time we meet.

The finished quilt top of the Blue Spots now looks fabulous and worthy of putting on a bed. Next time we will need to sandwich this quilt reading for quilting and binding.

Because we had space on the design wall we put up the blocks we have for Karen's Blue and Brown Spots. Unfortunately we have not yet received all the blocks back so will wait for those before we can finalise layout and size. If you have any fabric and/or blocks from any of our projects please send them all back to me asap as we do need the excess fabric for corners, replacement blocks etc.

I have received some of the aboriginal stripe blocks back but not all yet.

Because we are now down to the last quilt in our pile we have chosen another fabric - Helen's Sunflowers - and a suitable block. I will post out the fabric soon and write the instructions to go with it.

Thank you to all those who work so busily on our quilting weekends. See you next time I hope. Remember, if you need a fabric fix beforehand just contact me to make a time.

Meanwhile, now that I am not in continual pain I hope to do a bit of tidying and sorting upstairs as everyone was complaining it is a mess!

Hippy August Patchwork

Being 3 weeks post hip replacement op I thought I'd only go upstairs then downstairs once in the day but in fact I did it 4 times! And I did it without any walking aid. I could not multitask as well and had a bit of a short fuse but I hope I did not offend anyone.

We had a great day working on our projects. Our first task for me was to sew together Christine's Windmill blocks while Karen pieced the backing for Carol's Peach quilt.

Once Elaine and Stephanie arrived we had lunch and had a great visit from Geoff et al who entertained us for some time. Geoff delivered a small spotlight for me to use when I photograph the quilts.

It was then back upstairs to tack Carol's Peach quilt.

We then played a bit with borders for Christine's quilt to try an lift it a bit and this is what we have come up with. Thanks Stephanie for the yellow thought. It really lifts the whole thing.

Elaine continued stitching the inside ring of blocks for Helen's Spots. This was followed by lots of discussion about  how to lift this one, experimenting with all sorts of ideas.

This is what we now have and my job is to create the 4 missing corner blocks. After we've finished that centre medallion with its yellow border then we'll consider what to do next.

We drew another fabric out of our lucky dip basket and have a beautiful aboriginal print donated by Ann from the Central Coast. I will post it out soon and write instructions for the block.

Meanwhile, if you feel like another pop-up sewing day just ring me and we can organise.

Finishing and furthering a few PhDs

Today's gathering saw our Glimpses of Japan quilt finished, photographed and labelled. Ann won the quilt and has decided to donate it to charity. It is so big (a queen size topper) that it hardly fits in the photograph.

Linda visited with her two lovely girls for lunch and took our Karen's Pinwheel quilt to donate to her mother's nursing home.

Then there was the backing to make for Robyn's Retro quilt. Karen spent most of the morning piecing a back that included the one orphan block from this project. Then we were all busy for a few hours tacking this quilt sandwich together ready for quilting.

Stephanie and Elaine spent some time trimming all the Helen's blue spots to a common size. Unfortunately this meant that lots of blocks lost their points but that just happens sometimes.

I spent most of the day sewing together Carol's Peach quilt top. Only a bit of unpicking and realigning and this top will be ready for our next border discussion.

This meant there was now one side of the board empty so Karen and Elaine pinned up the blocks from Christine's Windmills. They did cause a lot of discussion and experimentation with placement and sashing options but we have decided on no sashing and concentrating on borders when Elaine makes block #12 to complete the layout. We only had 11 which is an impossible number to work with.

This leaves us with still one set of blocks in our boxes of unfinished quilts, Karen's Blue and Brown spots so if anyone has not returned their blocks there is still time as we won't be having another group gathering until August. We did not draw another fabric but will do so next time.

Don't forget to contact me if you'd like to come for a pop-up sewing day as there are still things to do. I know Elaine will be coming with her extra windmill block and Stephanie will be coming with some pink for Helen's blue spot quilt so why not join them. Just ring or email to make a day.

PhD = Projects Half Done

A small Friday gathering

Last Friday Karen W., Elaine, Carol and I kept ourselves very busy and made lots of progress with our outstanding quilts.

Our first job was to add the binding for our Japanese quilt then Elaine started the hand stitching.

Next we decided on a pale peach sashing for Carol's Peach quilt blocks. They all needed to be trimmed and some needed tiny bits added to make them large enough. This is all now going together quite well.

Carol took on the task of adding the filler triangles to Robyn's Retro quilt. This was a bit of a fiddle but is now done.

This quilt has now had an extra border added and we decided to leave the cut corners on it. It is ready for sandwiching and quilting next time.

With a little bit of time left Karen started to put up Helen's Blue Spots blocks. They looked quite boring until we found an orphan block for a medallion to enhance the centre. We've now also decided to add more of the pink zinger colour as a border at various stages.

We did not draw another project from our lucky dip basket as we still have plenty to be going on with. However, the progress over the day was great and of course we enjoyed the company and food.