Two Quilts Finished

Marion's Churn Dash

At our July quilting weekend we completed two quilts. These have been drawn and the winners have both chosen to either give them to one of our members who is in love with them or to donate them to charity. I am still awaiting final decisions.

Sea Shells (donor of focus fabric unknown)

We had a small but productive group and are pleased with our achievements.

We drew another fabric this time (Helen Vette's blue flowers) but we also had a fat quarter of fabric given to us from the Quilters Guild (muted pink, green, navy colouring) because we entered our quilt in the recent quilt show. So there are two fabrics to work on. You might receive these soon but there is no rush as I have not written the instructions for Helen's block yet. These two blocks will be due in to me by the end of January.

The Quilters Guild fabric is to be included in a 12.5" 9-patch as follows - it should be trimmed to 4.5" and be placed at one corner of the 9-patch. The centre of the 9-patch block should use one of the colours in the fabric as a solid or tone-on-tone. The other squares should only use the colours in the focus fabric. We will be creating another hidden 9-patch quilt but please do not cut the final blocks this time just send it back as an uncut 12.5" 9-patch block. All pieces in this block will be 4.5" whole squares. Please email me if you need more help with this.

The instructions for Helen's block will be sent out later via email.

Using Polar Fleece Scraps

Here's an idea for using up all those polar fleece scraps that we are accumulating. Make a polar fleece patchwork blanket by using a skip stitch blade to punch holes around the edge then start creating from there... http://www.skipstitch.com/ideas.html

You could even use this method to join scraps to back a quilt top.

Our Sylvanvale Quilt

 

 The clients at the Sylvanvale Sutherland Activity Centre have just finished their first quilt and it looks stunning. Congratulations to all those who worked so well on this project.

Betty's Rules for Practically Perfect Piecing

For those of you that wanted to print out my Rules please follow the link here.

You might like to print them out, laminate them and pin them near your sewing machine.

If you are not sure what my cryptic rules mean just add a comment here where I can answer it for everyone.

Sydney Quilt Show

Our Wilma's Chocolate Roses quilt made it to the Sydney Quilt Show. In the photo above it is row 4, second from the right. It looked stunning from a distance when you could not see the quilting issues. This photo shows about 1/3 of the total exhibition and of course there were hundreds of stalls as well as workshops to attend.

Robyn and I volunteered for 1.5 hours of 'white glove' duty and our quilt was in Robyn's section. It was great fun doing the duty because we really got to look carefully at the quilts we were in charge of and by finding out the answers to all the questions asked we learned a lot about various techniques.

I'll certainly be happy to volunteer for white glove duty again. And well done ladies for a lovely quilt which will now go to Robyn who was the winner of the draw and has decided to keep the quilt.

A quilting weekend in June

This weekend we had a small but very productive group at our weekend. Robyn brought a new quilt she has recently completed. It is magnificent! We thought this would be a good challenge for one of our next lucky dip fabrics that doesn't actually have a block  in the parcel. Robyn's quilts are so inspiring for us all.

We have started quilting the Seashells quilt. It is a small quilt but should be just beautiful when it is finished. Our last job yesterday was to tack it to its backing before quilting then I started the quilting last night.

In this photo the two quilts over the banister are two more that we were able to put together this weekend. Jenny's Poppies is just waiting for another border and then for me to buy the fabric for binding. Marion's Churn Dash has beautifully mitred corners done by Karen and is now ready for tacking onto its backing for quilting.

Linda and Elaine both had an opportunity to do a little more on their current quilts too. A lot of progress was made! We did not draw another lucky dip as there were just too many quilts awaiting finishing but now there is only the Linda T's Hidden Nine Patch to finish. This means we'll choose another block soon.

A Jelly Roll Day

 Today we met for our quilting weekend at Kogarah Library hosted by Jenny and Wilma. Our task was to have a Jelly Roll Race. (Jelly being American for Jam - Jelly Rolls look a bit like fabric Jam Rolls).

 Pam (Qld) and husband Bryan were here for their first quilting weekend so Pam had to start with the cutting techniques. Much concentration was needed. Bryan kept himself busy until lunch time out in the Library.

 

We all enjoyed our Thai lunch just near the Library and ended the day with a quilt top each. All the tops were so different! What fun we had.

 

Two more quilts finished

We have made a great start to the year with two more quilts complete and ready to go. That is three this year so far. Mind you some of them have been waiting a long time.

Our Green Twister hand quilting was finished by Ruth and Lian and was won by Suzy in the UK. Suzy has decided to have this quilt redrawn. Ruth was our next winner who has chosen to donate it to charity.

Wilma's Chocolate Roses quilting is now complete so Robyn will be able to claim it once it has been exhibited.

Our Next Block

The instructions for our next block are under the RCQ Instructions tab.

Here are the basic rules...

1. Focus fabric is in the centre.
2. There must be at least 4 other fabrics that go with the centre fabric.
3. No solids or blacks.
4. Squares should be cut to 5".
5. Centre square will end up 4.5" finished.
6. Do not trim block to any size.
7. Cut vertically and horizontally through the centre.
8. Take time to play with rearranging the four small blocks before you return it to HQ.

The fabric and block design was donated by Linda T from Massachusetts, USA. Thanks for the challenge Linda.

Kings Highway Quilt

With the extra help from Jeanette and Liz after our last weekend the King's Highway (aka Suffragette) Quilt is now finished. Because Liz (NZ) was here I was able to draw the quilt with a witness and it was won by Linda who has chosen to donate it to charity rather than keep it. Linda will then remain in the draw for our next quilt.