Show and Tell from Stephanie

As Stephanie will miss our next gathering I am posting a few of the quilts  she has been working on. She found a stash of orphan blocks so got to work on two quilt tops.

While we were away we visited Jen in Mudgee. Here are the instructions for the game of Bones that Jen and Alex taught us. I thought you might need them over the next month or so. Have fun with this game.

Continuing the Baradine story - so what did I sew?

 When we arrived at Baradine we had been allocated a work space and a bag of goodies which included a beautiful mug, some coconut ice made by Brenda, some other nibbles and a small parcel to be opened later. This parcel turned out to be a kawandi kit but mine is still at Stephanie's so no photo here. We had a workshop on that when Jo arrived.

While there was lots of space I cut the length of fabric Jen (Mudgee) had given me to add flowers to my hexie project (more later)

My next project was to make squares to match Stephanie's for our black quilt we started as a joint project a while back.

I ended up with enough for this layout and a few left over so I will make a few more to complete another row. I ran out of black fabric so will need to finish that at home.

Another project was to start quilting a tea towel to make a wall hanging for my kitchen. This is now nearly done.

Then back to my hexie project. The donated fabric left overs are in the back of this photo. My main aim was to experiment with attaching the completed hexies  to their background which will range from green to purple. These are just a few. 

I was able to buy an appropriate colour thread at the little shop that Sandi had brought along. The colour is a taupe and disappears nicely on most colours while still looking like blanket stitch. Click on the picture above to see the various options I tried.

Then last night in front of TV I was able to start one of the flower hexies to see how they work out. I think they could work well. I'll make lots but may not use them all depending on how they look on the quilt. These will be the larger feature hexies in the quilt.

Some of the quilts in the show and tell (photos in the previous post) give an idea of this finished quilt top. 

I feel satisfied with what I achieved over the 4 days and am pleased now to know that I can actually do an 8 hour drive without untoward issues.

Bags from Baradine

 Stephanie and I had a great trip to Baradine and lots of bags were involved. On the way up we stayed over at a friend's in Mudgee and she donated two bags of treasures as she is downsizing her patchwork activities.

She also donated a floral fabric that I am now using in one of my projects so it does not appear here.

Di donated a huge bag of bits but unfortunately most of them were too small to work with. Scraps need to be big enough to trim to at least 2" square or 1" strips. So these scraps will go straight to rag waste and used by someone else to stuff dog beds. These now fill two large shopping bags.

This is the pile saved from the waste.

Jenny donated another bag of 'bits' but these were much larger pieces!!!

They are all now flattened and there will be lots of usable pieces. Di's pieces are on the top right and Chooky's and mine are the tiny pieces on the top left.

Stephanie had been given lots of fabric so before she came she cut out lots of bags to make at Baradine. They look fabulous and the ladies she was making them for will be able to raise money for their causes.

Of course there was a show and tell session and I photographed quilts that I could use all these scraps in.

Stephanie's 'Oh my gosh' top

Janice's Hexie quilt

Brenda's Hexie quilt

Raewyn put together two of these quilts from blocks we had all made from our scraps and they will be donated to Macquarie Home Stay.

Brenda was a great sewing buddy who was able to solve a lot of my issues with my projects which I will put in a separate post. Thank you Brenda.

And Jo was my other sewing buddy who had such a lovely attitude to using scraps and making mistakes. Here she is knitting up some of the tea bag strings that we all save for her. Thank you Jo for your ideas.

And thank you to Chooky who hosted and organised the group and all the other ladies who came to enjoy working and chatting together.

A Saturday upstairs with friends

 On Saturday five of us gathered in person then another three on Zoom in the afternoon.

Apparently I was a bit of slave driver but we did get the tulips bordered and sandwiched and our dark 'brick wall' ready to sandwich. Unless someone else would like to do the quilting I will do that when I have time.

While we were on Zoom we drew out our next lucky dip fabric. This one was donated by Carol and it is really beautiful. It would be good to get a stunning block design that echoed the pattern in the fabric.

We have two suggestions so far...

One Karen found online

But I wonder if another stained glass Magic Numbers block using the aqua as the peeper in random positions might work focusing on the orange tones.

Or even a stack and slash with the slashes being parallel to the edge of the fabric rather than random??

Daisies are Done

 Once I had my machine back in working order I was able to quilt the Daisy quilt and then pass it on to Elaine for binding. It is now complete and ready to donate. If you'd like it please let me know.