April Quilting Weekend

We had a happy gathering a few weeks ago to finish a bit more of our group works in progress.

We now have enough blocks returned to start putting our Helen's flowers quilt together. The next step is to decide on sashing, borders and binding.

The Quilter's Gift fabric has been incorporated into a disappearing nine-patch and all the rows have been stitched together.

Karen was able to use the big table to trim her experimental jelly roll quilt ready for binding.

Robin had trimmed the bright orange donated quilt at our last gathering.

February also saw the final hemming of the orange quilt.

 Now we have printed the labels for four of the quilts and the purple quilt has been quilted and binding nearly finished. I think next time we might have a little stash of quilts ready for donation. Do you have any ideas of where we can deliver them?

Three donated quilts

Early this year we had three unfinished quilts donated from the collection of the late Elizabeth Brown, a colleague of Karen W's.

The first one is applique and each block is done by a different person. The centre two blocks are partly hand quilted in magnificently tiny quilting stitches. Karen is currently trying to find the group that did the blocks to see if they want to complete it. Otherwise we might donate it to the Quilters Guild who will have someone that is happy to continue the tiny quilting.

There is a simple but stunning purple quilt top of foundation pieced blocks. We have decided to just back this one and quilt it simply as it is already quite heavy with the foundation fabric.

This bright quilt only needed to be bound, photographed and labelled. The binding is now on and I'll put up a picture of the finished quilt after our next weekend together.

Christmas Patchwork

Both my patchwork groups had Christmas gatherings - above are the Rainbow Connection Quilters and below are the Kogarah Library Quilters.

These two 'quilts' (actually curtains) have been made for Kogarah Library activity times for small people. They were a lot of fun to make, first each creating one or more of the patches, then working out how to put them together. Thanks ladies for all the hard work that went into these.

 

 

A visit to Springwood quilters

A few weeks ago some of us from Rainbow Connection Quilters and the Kogarah Library Quilters visited a group in Springwood who launched an Bushfire Quilt Appeal for 200 quilts by Christmas. Tracey, who is in charge is on the far right of the photo above. We even got a mention on the Quilt Appeal blog!

Ces and Lorraine drove up with all our quilts (4 from Rainbow Connection Quilters and 17 from Kogarah Library Quilters). Barre, Marion, Karen and I travelled by train and were collected at the station to go to the Salvation Army Hall at Springwood.

As soon as we arrived we were put to work on one of the many jobs there were around the room. The group meets every Thursday to make community quilts.

 

Karen and Lorraine did lots of pinning of quilt sandwiches and I was asked to cut dozens of binding strips then pass them on to another person to sew them together. In fact it was a well oiled production line.

Morning tea was most sumptuous so whenever we needed a break we ate some more. Ces and Marion were snapped as they enjoyed a chat over a cuppa.

Barre has found his calling in a quilt group. As he is tall he got the job of holding the quilts up for each to be photographed. I think his arms ached for days afterwards.

In all we had a great day and a very pleasant train trip. 

Two more quilts and an extra weekend

With a lot of help from Marion (mostly hemming binding) when she visited recently we have now finished two more quilts and donated them to the Springwood Bushfire Quilt Appeal (more on this later).

Linda T's hidden nine patch quilt

Jenny's Poppies

Because Marion was visiting when there was not an official quilting weekend we held an extra one for people to bring their UFOs (Unfinished Objects) and PhD's (Projects Half Done). We had fun and all of us got something achieved.

 

  

A Stolen Quilt

The quilting fraternity are asked to publicise the fact that a quilt has been stolen. Please see the link here.

October Weekend

What a blow! I forgot to take any photos last weekend. But with the help of 3 quilt police and many others sewing and ironing we did get the Linda T's Hidden 9-patch quilt together on Saturday. That evening I was able to sew on the borders.

On Sunday Robyn and I started tacking the layers together so if anyone would like to come and finish the tacking with me just let me know when. We alternated tacking the 9-patch and the quilting of Jenny's Poppies so we did not get bored. Both jobs are only half done so help with the quilting is also waiting if someone wants to try some machine quilting.

I think I was still coping with jet lag and the end of my cold as the weekend was a bit of a blur. Those that were here have discovered that although the 9-patch is easy to do, it is very difficult to put together when more than one person is involved. When a few people are removing pairs of blocks from the design wall there is not a lot left on the design wall from which to check the arrangement of the blocks. Hence the need for three quilt police to check that patches were returned to the wall in the same orientation they left it.

Lots of fun was had by all.

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.