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.

April Quilting Weekend

Our last quilting weekend was just before I went away to WA for two weeks so I am a bit tardy in putting up the pics. Our raffle was won by Suzy from St Ives UK and she has decided to donate it to Bezzina House. Congratulations and thanks Suzy!

We actually achieved quite a lot and after hemming the pinwheel quilt we have added the sashing to Penny's Dresden Plate sampler and also almost finished joining the blocks for Wilma's Brown Roses.

Robyn brought along a quilt she had finished recently. She does superb machine embroidery and quilting. I hope she enters this one in the Sydney Quilt Show next year.

Our next lucky dip is quite an easy one. You will just be required to make two nine-patch blocks matching a tiny sample of fabric I will send out soon. I will type up the instructions and mail them out as soon as I can.

I hope to see you in June at our next quilting weekend.

Central Western Quilting Tour

Last weekend Robyn and I took a three day quilting tour with the Quilters Guild of NSW and headed for Orange. I have added all the patchwork stops to a quilting tour on the right hand side of this page. Just scroll down.

Another unidentified block

I thought this was Wilma's but it may not be. Who does this one belong to?
Yes it is Wilma's

Unidentified blocks

Oops! I made a booboo.

I forgot to make a map of the Red Log Cabin quilt to show whose block is whose before we put the backing on. I have put up those blocks none of us recognise on the offchance that you might be able to tell me if they are yours.

I will describe them as

1. boats
2. owls
3. Mickey mouse and hearts
4. green in flowers and leaves
5. tiny white hearts

Please let me know if you recognise one.

Helen V

Suzy

Jane W

Valerie R

February Quilting Weekend

We worked very hard last weekend to finish off a bit of our backlog of quilts. Robyn, Elaine, Jenny, Linda, Mary and Lian came and we are now very happy about our results. Our Red Log Cabin is complete and our Pinwheel quilt only needs to have the final binding hem done.

 

 

 

We had our first ever in-house raffle amongst those who had paid their raffle fees for the year. Jenny won the Red Log Cabin and Elaine won the Pink and Blue Flowers quilt. They were both absolutely thrilled and spent the rest of their time with us with grins from ear to ear. They will both now be removed from the draws for the rest of the year.

We also spent time arranging the blocks for our two outstanding quilts. Penny's Dresden Plate Sampler has become just a sampler quilt. The two 'Dresden Plate' blocks will be made into two accompanying cushions. We have chosen blue as the sashing and maroon as the backing but have not yet chosen the border fabrics.

 

Wilma's brown roses looks great with the blocks on point with no sashing. We are still waiting on a few of these blocks to come in and will try to buy more of the brown roses fabric to fill in the missing triangles.

Our final task was to see how the Green Twister blocks looked on the design wall. We all agreed that they need no sashing but that appliqueing one of the small square patches left over from the cutting will just fill in the otherwise very blank corners. These blocks were only completed by those who saw my demonstration. However, if you would like to try one the theme is Green and the instructions can be found under the Instructions tab above and is called 'Square Dance'. Be brave and good luck!

In all a fun weekend together accomplished much.

Quilting Weekend in November

 

This last weekend there was lots to do, lots to see and lots to talk about. The first thing to report is that the beautiful red log cabin is ready for quilting and binding  and we have created our 'rules' for a quilt draw amongst ourselves that will allow us to win one of our beautiful quilts and donate some money to charity instead of the quilt if that is the most appropriate outcome.

We spent lots of time completing blocks for our dresden plate sampler and joining our pinwheels together for our pinwheel quilt.

 

There was lots of time to chat and have our 'board meeting' and we welcomed a new member Lian to our group.

Liz's blue and pink flowers are now complete and this quilt will be the first in our quilt draw for 2012 so keep tuned and we will publish the winner when it is drawn at our February weekend.

Then there was a show and tell time. Robyn had a quilt almost finished and I had much to show and tell about my quilting experiences whilst Elaine and I were in Canada and the USA. Here is the quilt top I completed as my project when I went with Marion to her quilting long weekend at Kennybunk Beach, Maine. I collected all the fabrics when I was travelling. They are all fall fabrics as a reminder of the fabulous fall colours we saw as we travelled.

I also demonstrated the twister blocks below that I learned to do at the quilt camp. Everyone is now very excited to be doing a green on green set of blocks for an extra quilt. This is a bit hard to demonstrate for our distance members but if you have a twister template and can follow the instructions below then please do so and send back your experiment including the little offcuts as well.