A pop-up quilting day

 Our new member Sue came today to learn patchwork from the beginning. Stephanie also came to help. 

Sue learned lots about 1/4 " seams and leaders and enders and finished her block for our current project.

Stephanie made a few more pale blocks for our latest one on the design wall.

Stephanie also enjoyed a tiny birthday celebration before Sue arrived.

It was a lovely day for the three of us.

July Zoom together

 On Saturday, because I had the flu, we cancelled our gathering at mine and had a zoom in the afternoon. I forgot to do a screen shot which is annoying. It was all a bit of a hoot because I coughed a lot, Stephanie was in the shadows for half the zoom and Elaine could not unmute herself. We also had Jen (Mudgee), Karen (Balmain), Christine (Noosa) and Jeanette (Geraldton).

Some people had show and tell...

• Jen showed us a 3D card she had made
• Christine has been doing paper piecing
• Karen has created 3 blocks for her new BOM
• Elaine could not show us what she had been doing (update is now that having uninstalled and reinstalled Zoom on her tablet she can now get onto Zoom)
• Stephanie, despite her illness, showed us one finish and one quilt in progress 
• I did not show anything.

Jeanette zoomed from her car on a windy day trip to Kalbari to see the Murchison river flowing. Because it was so windy she could not show us so sent me photos later in the day which I include here.

She said they'd seen about 20 whales out to sea.

Jeanette also included some photos of the fauna that existed long ago and left tracks now fossilised. I've seen the tracks of this one.

Jeanette also corrected the caption she sent last time calling one of her quilts a winding ways quilt. It is actually called Walkabout. Thanks Jeanette for all your pics. I'm glad you beat the storm home and were not swept away in the raging torrent of the Murchison.

A show and tell from Jeanette

 Jeanette says...

Our patchwork group had a Stay at Home Retreat last weekend in Dongara. Very productive. I completed the quilt top "Turning  Twenty- Again ". Now to back it & quilt it. 

I finished quilting "Spinning Stars" & " Winding Ways" 

I love the quilting on the Spinning Stars Jeanette.

A June Get-together

 Last weekend on a very very wet day we gathered to have fun with patchwork again. We had a new member, Sue W.,  and quite a few absent members but some of them joined us on zoom later in the day. Kerrie also joined us. She was on her way to a hang-gliding adventure when it was called off so she decided she was closer to my place than her home so came for the day here.

We spent the morning making scrappy squares for our next quilt so the table looked a mess.

It is looking quite good so far.

In the afternoon we drew out our next fabric and spent a while choosing an appropriate block design and hunting through my stash for fabrics that will be good with the Focus Fabric.

 

Everyone arrived home safely even though it was raining cats and dogs when most people left. Thanks for a lovely day.

A Pop-up May gathering

 Heather (NZ) and Jon came to stay for two nights at the weekend. So I called a pop-up gathering and we had lots of fun together. 

On Friday afternoon, soon after they arrived, Stephanie came and we started creating our scrappy crumb blocks for our next challenge. And yes, it is a challenge. Stephanie stayed for dinner as well so we had a great time getting to know one another.

On Saturday Stephanie returned and Elaine came as well so more scrappy crumb blocks were made and we all learned a lot about not 'over-thinking' the process. Just join bits in twos then twos in fours and so on until you get a 6 1/2" trimmed block. Lots of mistakes were made but we all learned in the process.

Then we started discussing the tiny pieces that we trimmed off our block and Stephanie showed us what can be done with such pieces. I am now saving these for her and then the absolutely unusable pieces I am composting.

Lunch was a fun affair and was created by again just putting all available and donated food on the table and tucking in.

At the end of the day we have a beginning of our Scrappy Crumby Quilt and it is looking quite stunning.

Elaine brought back our Ballerina quilt all bound and it is now ready to donate once I put a label on it. If you would like it then please let me know.

Heather was so taken with the Tessellated Stars Quilt that we asked her to take it home to quilt and bind and keep it.

So now we only have Heather's Spots to put together at our next gathering and lots more scrappy crumby blocks to make.

A fun and full weekend.

Our May Gathering

Last weekend an intrepid small group of dedicated quilters arrived in the rain to work like slaves and move some of our group projects forward.

The first achievement was to bind the ballerina quilt and it is now at home with Elaine to be hand hemmed.

The next task was to help me with my huge Woven Jacobs' Ladder quilt top and pin it to its backing. It won't have any batting but is too big to handle on my own.

Task 3 was to sandwich the Tessellated Stars quilt which I can now quilt on my sewing machine. I think I'll just do it in cream diamonds.

Task 4 was to do a bit of rearranging of our quilt blocks from Heather's donated fabric.

  Then during our zoom in the afternoon we made even more changes to this one so it is now ready to sew together.

After discussing options for our next project we will be doing a scrappy crumb quilt using the same process that Stephanie and I are using for our Baradine Bits Quilt. There will be no mailout for this one and no draw from the lucky dip basket. I will email out instructions.

Hypothesis: Making scrappy quilts uses up stash?

 Actually Stephanie and I are receiving more scraps. Today I received a lovely lot from Jenny in the mail.

That will be a great variety to add to our crumbly thoughts. Thanks Jenny.

Crumbly thoughts

 In light of recent crumbling of my mind, here is a quilt Elaine made years ago.

I like the black sashing. I think it is quilt as you go.

Karen's latest achievement

 Karen has finished her National Quilt Museum BOM quilt. It was based on a stripy fabric given to her by Stephanie and seen in the Bungle Bungles block and the border.

It is certainly very striking Karen!

Progress and thoughts

 Elaine came last Saturday and while she progressed with joining tessellated stars, I put a hanging sleeve on my tiny sashiko hanging.

After Elaine left I finished off the few bits left on the stars and it is now ready to sandwich.

Stephanie came on Monday and we played around with our latest set of blocks for the group and came up with this.

While we were away we stayed at Jenny's in Mudgee and she donated lots and lots of fabric to the group.

assorted

plaids, checks and stripes

plains - always useful

A friend of Stephanie's also donated heaps of small pieces.

Now it is time to use these donations so rather than asking all our members to donate another metre each, Stephanie and I made an executive decision to save you all postage and wrap up a few of the metres that we've been donated and also to start using up some of the smaller pieces in some scrappy ideas - maybe even a scrappy sampler?? So rather than just 1.5" leaders and enders perhaps we can start with any shape leaders and enders as in this video. We'll need to decide on a few rules about what should go with what and what to avoid so that will be a discussion for our next gathering on 11 May (note the change of date). So far the thoughts are 

• random mix
• no white or black
• colour co-ordinated
• do scraps have a size limit?
• does the final slab have a size limit?