Dongara quilt show

 Jeanette sent through some pictures of her group's quilt show last weekend. There were well over 300 articles entered. It was an amazing weekend. A lot of work with only 27 in our club, but so worth it. I was totally stuffed by Sunday night.

As well as the quilts on display, we also create "rooms" at the end of the hall....
A Bush Christmas room, a Kids room, a Bags room,& a Stitchery room. Irene & I did the Bags.

It certainly was a great show Jeanette!

September came and I still have my old kitchen

 On Saturday we had a very productive day again. Karen, Elaine, Kathryn, Glenda, Linda (and daughter Jessica) and I were all kept busy and have a few things on the way.

Everyone was amazed with Elaine's latest quilt for herself made from fabric given to her for her birthday.

And here is another of her finishes using fabric from Stephanie's stash.

At last I was able to photograph our latest finish. If anyone would like it please send me an email.

Everyone's brain was in gear trying to work out how to make a hexagon into a square and this is how far we got. The fabric in the centre is Lynette's that we drew out of our lucky dip a few months ago. I wanted hexagons but we all agreed it would be best as large pieces and Stephanie said hexagons from the group are too hard to stitch together. So we made square hexagons. 

Now I just have to write the instructions and send out the hexagons of fabric before anyone can start.

Some ladies had lots of fun sewing some drunkards path blocks which Carol suggested for her donated fabric and it is starting to look amazing. We did not send this one out to everyone but you'll get the hexie star one.

Our next step with this little ballerina project is to trim all the blocks accurately to 6.5" squares. I love the way the diagonals look like twisted ribbons.

What a great day it was! Thanks to all who took part whether in person or on Zoom.

Liz visited from NZ

 Today, while Liz was staying with me before returning to NZ, I called a pop-up sewing day.

Glenda and Elaine came and between us all we now have two quilts tacked ready to be quilted.

When the orphan block quilt was tacked we put it on the design wall to work out where the embellishments would go. It is looking good.

The other quilt ready for quilting is Elaine's pretty flowers but I do not have a photo of it or Elaine.

Elaine also labelled the Broken Dishes quilt and that is now ready to be claimed by anyone who would like it.

Our first Orphan Block construction

 Elaine and I have played with ideas for the first orphan block collection we started on Saturday. The top is now constructed but there are lots of add-ons to be placed in some of the bare places.

And of course a border or two.

Elaine's Cat quilt

 Elaine backed this  with a blanket she found at an op shop for $3 that was exactly the right size.

Very effective and a great border too.

August gathering

 Quite a crowd attended either in person or on zoom and lots of fun was had by all. Glenda, Karen, Kathryn, Stephanie and Elaine came to share the day in my funny house almost prepared for renos. There was some difficulty finding where everything is now stored. 

Our first activity was a bit of show and tell from Elaine...

... and Karen.

Then it was time to put together our pretty flowers applique blocks and decide how to enlarge the quilt top and choose some borders.

We settled on a peeper of purple then using the remaining blue fabric as the final border.

Because I have so many orphan blocks now accumulated in my stash last week I had started putting up my red/white/blue ones to make a top and filling the gaps with 2.5" squares in red/white/blue. 

I then suggested to others that were attending in person to bring their orphan blocks and perhaps we could sort them into colour themes and put them together. A collection I had sorted were all pale and really seem to go together well. Elaine took home one Dresden Plate block and some backing to applique it onto which accounts for the large gap. We searched my stash for other small pieces of fabric that could also be fillers where needed.

While we were sorting orphan blocks we created collections of green/brown ...

... and colourful multicoloured pieces that would go together.

It was interesting trying to sort and the big lesson learned was not to overthink it because by using the right assortment with added frames and fillers to make things fit, the colours do work together if the colour choices are broad.

We'll see what comes of these.

At 3pm we had our zoom with Heather, Jenny, and Jeanette. It was then that we noticed Jeanette's quilt in the previous post below.

What an amazing creative lot we are! 

Jeanette's colourful quilt

 As seen on Zoom...

Sorry I was so long getting this photo online Jeanette.

Brown Quilt finished

Today Elaine and I finished hemming the binding on the brown quilt. It looks amazing. Stephanie quilted it beautifully and added 8 Australian animal shapes in her quilting (kookaburra, kangaroo, wombat, gecko, cockatoo, lyrebird, echidna, emu). She remarked that it is one of the straightest, squarest quilts she has done! Now it is all ready for David and Carlos to collect next time they are in Australia and take home to London in time for autumn maybe.

 This is a sideways image because it is a queen sized quilt. The block design is a disappearing 6-patch designed by Stephanie and I and used for our colour wash quilts.

July Quilting Day

 Last Saturday we were a small and very busy group. Just Stephanie, Karen and I with help from Pernilla. We decided that we really needed to finish off some of our UFOs before starting another piece of fabric but pulled Lynette's to give us lots of time to consider our options.

We put the blue flowers up on the board but as we need two more applique blocks we went no further with that one.

We added another border of brown blocks and now that one is a Queen Bed topper. I think it should have an unpieced border added (say 3") and then a binding before we can consider it finished. It is looking really good with its contrasting corners.

Jeanette sent along a photo of her latest quilting efforts and the quilt will hang in their show soon.

Karen brought her progress to show and tell of a BOM modern quilt she is making. 

Zoom was a very small group - just us and Sue - but we were able to have a great catch up.

My news is that I am preparing to have a major kitchen reno (starting August I hope) so stay tuned to your email for changes of dates and venues until that is over.

See you all next time, somewhere.