Kogarah Library Quilters

The Kogarah Library Quilters group is nearing the end of its year of blocks and quilts and we are now madly trying to finish up the quilts we have in progress ready for our exhibition at the library in early November. If you have a chance to go and look please do so.

 

 

 

 

Two quilts to sandwich

Next time we get together we have two quilt tops ready to sandwich, quilt and bind. I got carried away and put little details in the binding corners of our green twister quilt that the Sydney members started at the beginning of the year. The quilt camp where I learned the twister block was on again last weekend in Maine USA and Marion went again. We had a skype call and she showed me the quilt tops she finished while she was there.

Linda and I will be going on a quilt camp together soon and I hope to finish the embellishments on my England quilt top.

The other quilt ready to sandwich is Wilma's Chocolate Roses. I have now found a backing fabric for it that matches the chocolate on the front. However, we still have to find an appropriate binding.

At our next get-together there will be lots of tacking to do. See you all then ready to sit around the table with these two group activities.

Jeanette is prolific

When I sent fabric and the pattern to Jeanette (WA) this time she had her block done and in the mail the next day. Looks great!

She had already done a few practice runs before she got the fabric and they look great too.

She sent me a few more pics of blocks she has been experimenting with. For a new patchworker she is very good.

Amazing! Thanks Jeanette.

I am really glad Jeanette lives so far away because I am sure neither of us would get anything else done if we lived near one another. We'd be quilting all day every day I am sure.

UFO Sunday! What a great idea

UFO Sunday is a post from the Free Motion Quilting blog by Leah McTavish. Read it. It is quite inspiring. I think I'll start a UFO Tuesday because Tuesday is my quilting day. Perhaps tomorrow I will just sort out all my UFOs then select one of them to progress with. Wish me luck. Perhaps borders on this beautiful one will take it off my design wall.

August Patchwork and Quilting

Prior to our quilting weekend in August Liz came over from New Zealand and we were able to complete the finishing touches on our Penny's Sampler Quilt. 

 

So our raffle was held and Lian won the quilt but has decided to donate it to Bezzina House with most of our other quilts.

 We welcomed our newest member Sue who was actually the first to finish the new block - Marion's Churn Dash.

By afternoon tea on Saturday we had 11 members all enjoying our time together upstairs quilting, and downstairs around the dining table. The roll call included Elaine, Sue, Ruth, Jenny, Lian, Wilma, Robyn, Karen, Mary, Linda and myself. What a crowd!

Our next block is Marion's fabric and a churn dash design. The background colour and centre block should be white (not cream) and the straight lines are your choice of fabric but remember the colours must be present in the mystery fabric.

And look at Wilma's Brown Roses so far!! There are a few more borders to add and the binding of course but it truly looks magnificent. The sides on the cross caused a few issues and a point of discussion for Robyn and I but we eventually got the thin brown border on and the quilt square! We are going to batt and back this one rather than using polar fleece.

Yes, and this is a photo just to prove I was there too.

 

Using stripes

Jenny alerted me to this great site See How We Sew

It has a great entry called Make the Most of those Sensational Stripes

Now here is some help for us all

Cath (Melbourne) has sent this link to dozens of patchwork and quilting video tutorials.

Missouri Quilt Co presents all sorts of patches, quilts and terminology.

I have also added this link to the Quilting Videos list on the right. Happy watching.

Questions and samples from Jeanette (WA)

Well when I got your email with the new block on it I thought I had bitten off more than I could sew!!! 

The only “flying geese” I had anything to do with were the real birds, 36 years ago on the cattle station north of Meekatharra, where they “pooped” all over the homestead veranda every time they got into the yard!!!! Nice to eat but very messy things!!

Luckily the next day at work, one of the girls who does a lot of patchwork was working…….so I said….”What on earth are flying geese”!!!!

She laughed and showed me with bits of paper, then said “Don’t worry, I’ll make some tonight and bring them in tomorrow”. So between the evening and morning shift she knocked up a few in various stages of manufacture!! 

So now I have them mastered!! 

This pic is the “throw” rug I made from scraps of quilts for April’s 7^th birthday, along with her Leggo land café thingy to make. She was wrapped up in the rug on the couch that evening….goodo. It’s even got triangles of black faced sheep on it like ours on the farm….which she loves.

I’ve been practising with Thomas left overs and am pretty happy with it! Just a couple of the smaller geese are not as accurate as they should be. I drew lines on the bigger ones to stitch on as advised by my friend, but thought my eye was good enough on the smaller ones….apparently not quite!!  So there will be another today with hopefully a better finish to my liking.

So if you look too closely you will see what I mean….however, practise makes perfect! Oh I don’t need to get a ¼” foot for my machine….the lady in the shop showed me how to move the needle to the side over a mark on the foot and then with the fabric on the edge of the foot it does a perfect ¼” seam. Excellent!! 

I’ve cut my days down to 8 a fortnight as of July, so maybe I will get some more time to sew.

Got a 45mm Rotary cutter from Spotlight last week as I had worn down the blade on the original you bought for me……thought I might as well get the bigger one instead of new blades for the smaller one. Wow, this one really moves!! Also got some fabric from Finches Nest….that shop we went to.

OK Off to cut out the next pieces for next practise block.

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.