Stars galore!

 One of our works in progress asked for any sort of stars with the centre of our focus fabric and the background of calico. What an imaginative bunch of quilters we have...

The arrangement at the moment is just random pinned on our design wall but this is looking like fun! And there are even a few tiny ones to fill in gaps where needed.

Sue is tickled pink (or blue) with her new quilt

 Sue sent through some photos of her quilt on the bed.

She loves it!

The instructions for this one were to zoom in on one of the flowers in the flowery fabric and applique or embroider it onto the blue fabric.

Karen's finished table runner

 After showing us her unfinished table runner last Saturday, Karen has now finished it and provides these pics for us.

Karen prints her labels and then attaches a border in the backing fabric to make it much easier to sew onto the back by hand. The printable fabric is often really stiff and difficult to get the needle through.

Heather's finished top

 During our zoom last week Heather showed us the finished paper pieced borders for her latest quilt. She has now finished the quilt top and removed all the papers.

It is truly amazing! Next steps - sandwich and binding, label and photo. Then I think a glass of bubbly would be in order.

On a hot day in February

 Several of our members enjoyed our gathering last Saturday.

After Sue chose our next project focus fabric from the Lucky Dip basket we spent some time selecting a block design. Then Stephanie arrived and pointed out an issue with our choice - the chosen fabric is directional and the block design we chose was not and would destroy the lovely direction in the fabric.

so we chose another block design and discussed colour choices and other options for some time. Of course this means I now have to write some instructions.

We were joined by Ivy (and Heather) for some time while Mum and Dad loaded their car with more stuff to take to their new home.

We all thought it was hot in the sewing room until we went downstairs for lunch and found that downstairs was much hotter.

I have now sent out all the fabric for the new block and will get instructions done as soon as I can.

At 3pm we had a zoom and were joined by Heather, Christine and Lynette.

There was lots of show and tell from Elaine and Karen and we found homes for two of our quilts. Kathryn likes the Nautical Quilt and Sue likes the Appliqued Flowers Quilt so they have taken those. Stephanie took our Exploding Stars quilt to donate to the St George Palliative Care Centre. This means we now have $100 to donate to charity at the end of the year already. She show and tell set off much discussion about little tricks and tips re using up scraps of batting (Elaine) and flying geese (Karen). All  our finished quilts can be found on the Pages list along the top banner of this blog.

Thank you to everyone who enjoyed our time together and all those who sent apologies. And thank you Karen for the photos.

Karen's Temperature Quilt

 Sydney Temperatures 2021

Here are pics of the front and back of my weather quilt, tracking the daily maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall (> 5 mm) for Sydney in 2021. I used the weather data for Sydney Observatory, which is the closest BOM site to us. The quilt has the biggest label that I've ever made with the key to temperatures, etc. 

The 'Sydney 2021' label on the front of the quilt was an experiment, using waxy paper from the wrapper of a ream of paper ironed onto the pinkish red fabric so that I could put it through the printer. It worked fine - a handy hint for anyone else wanting to print on their own fabric rather than on the ready-stiffened calico one can buy. 

And another hint for the standard label on the back, sewing a frame of the backing (or another suitable fabric) around the printed stiffened label makes it much easier to hand sew the label neatly to the back. In this case I used the bird fabric as the frame for  my big label.