Two Cold Days in August

This month we decided to have two Saturdays quilting and both were quite cold days. Over the time I was joined by Karen W., Elaine, Carol, Linda, and our newest member Valda.

Valda started by adding a label to and removing tacking from our latest completed quilt. We have called it Lilac Garden. It was inspired by Heather's focus fabric and a 2-4-6 block. Note the appliqued flowers that cover a tiny hole in one of the squares!

Lilac Garden - won by Karen G.

 Congratulations to Karen G on her win! Her contribution to the group finances will go to charity in lieu of the quilt if she chooses to keep it. Otherwise the quilt will go to charity.

We drew our next lucky dip block and to our surprise  it was another of Jeanette's fabric donations and of course another complex pointy block. I've made the block and created instructions which I have emailed out to you all. Fabric will come in the mail soon.

Karen W. is now visiting our mutual friend in Malanda Qld who introduced us to Artist Trading Cards. She has taken up the next 9 ATCs in exchange for 9 that were sent down earlier this year. If you'd like to swap some please just let me know as I still have a few swaps from the Atherton group.

With the help of all the workers over the two days we have progressed with some of our other quilts and some can be seen in the photos above. Perhaps by the end of the year we'll have a few more completed. Thank you all for your hard work.

One cold Saturday in June

Last Saturday we joined together once more and had a most productive weekend. In the last few weeks Jen has started her quilting venture and has made her first block so she, Geoff and Ivy visited. I'm sure Ivy will be making blocks soon too.

Some achievements included...

Tacking the "Heather's Purple Flowers" sandwich. This is now ready for quilting.

Adding more borders to the "Bright Flowers" quilt top. It is now ready for tacking.

Creating a border of the tiny left-over ends for our "Aztec Star" quilt.

Putting Twister blocks donated by Jenny onto the design wall ready to think about. Jenny has no desire to continue with this quilt so we'll make something special from the blocks I'm sure. These blocks are in lieu of our next lucky dip as we have quite a few quilts on the go.

Putting our "Valerie's Liberty" onto the design wall. We are one block short so Carol has volunteered to do the extra one needed.

As usual much fun was had chatting and eating. Arianne was finishing her coat for TAFE and it can be seen in the background.

Of course everyone had a cuddle of Ivy.

I could not resist the photo of our two supervisors...

Thanks to all who came and those who sent their blocks back.

By the way, if anyone knows a patchworker who does not live in Sydney and would like to join our group it would be great to have some more distance members. The room is crowded with us all (and our occasional visitors) but distance members would be great. Many who had been working with us have now left the group for various health or commitment reasons.

Finished PhDs and Adopted projects

On our April Saturday we all adopted a focus for our day and have now (with help from Elaine with binding) have 'finished' two more quilts. Because they are sandwich quilts they will need a little more detailed quilting and of course a label but basically finished.

Japanese Jewels - won by Liz (NZ)

Blue Flowers - won by Heather (Deniliquin, NSW)

Carol and Elaine created wonderful ideas for joining the Machu Pichu Star blocks.

Karen G joined all the Purple Flower blocks so that is a top ready for borders prior to finishing.

Karen W completed the 'in the ditch' quilting of the Blue Flowers quilt then I bound it while away the following week. It is great to have a bit of hand sewing to do while you chat.

Linda and a few others decided to complete the new block with the support of others. We now have quite a few of these completed.

It seemed that our quilting day was most productive with two quilts actually ready for raffling amongst ourselves. Liz has put up a picture of her finished Liberty block on her blog.

See you all again on 20 June. Happy quilting.

Patchwork in February

Wow! What a productive Saturday we had last week! We were only a small group but very busy. We also welcomed a new member to our group - Carol. Welcome Carol.

Our first activity was swapping Artist Trading Cards and gathering together a collection to send to Atherton.

Then we had two quilts sandwiches to tack together. Both are now done awaiting quilting.

Linda completed her block for Heather's Flowers quilt. which meant we could then tackle the arrangement of blocks for that one.

We think we've got is as right as it can be.

After measuring our Bright Flowers quilt we found it needed some more borders so here are our thoughts on that one.

Then lots of discussion about the Machu Pichu Star quilt. We will probably make that for an Aussie Heros Quilt too as we only have 8 blocks. We are going to frame each block in a thin bright green then use the focus fabric as sashing and our little pieces as corner stones. It should look good.

Then to finish the day there were a few sketches to work out how to make a tumbling blocks quilt that Linda would like to try.

Carol drew the next Lucky Dip which is a blast from the past. It is from Valerie in Wales. Thank you Valerie. I hope we make a quilt you will approve of.

In all a productive and fantastic day. See you all next time.

Christmas Celebrations

At last an update.

We had a great time at Amelia Kate's for our Christmas High Tea (although I think we do a pretty mean high tea ourselves at each of our gatherings at my place).

Unfortunately we could not get just one big table which would have been nice.

That afternoon we returned to mine and Linda won the recently finished Peek of Pink quilt.

We also spent time constructing a kit cotton reel holder that Linda had found. It actually holds cotton reels with their matching bobbins on top.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year. Hope to see you here at one of our gatherings soon.

October Patchwork

Liz from New Zealand visited us this time for our quilting day bringing with her her first two ATCs. I exchanged one of mine for the second one here. It is really beautiful.

Karen worked really hard on Helen's blue flowers quilt that has been so long in the making. I have included a photo below of the nearly finished borders hanging over the banisters.

Jenny, Linda, Robyn and I worked on other projects. Mine was quilting the "A Peek of Pink" quilt made with the fabric we were given for entering our Wilma's Chocolate Roses quilt in the Sydney exhibition.

Liz put together the Bright Flowers blocks with a lot of discussion from all. It is just amazing what you can do with insufficient completed blocks. It will end up a single bed topper, possibly going to the Aussie Heros quilts.

 After everyone had left for the evening Liz and I decided to put together the blocks from Elaine's Japanese Quilt. We are quite pleased with our work. It was extreme maths to make it fit. Only the borders to go (as shown) until the top is complete.

Geoff, Jen and Ponyo came to supervise and chat for a while.

Artist Trading Cards - by Fabric Artists

Our patchwork day this month was quite different. Robyn was wonderful and put the borders on one of our quilt tops but the rest of us took on a new challenge.

When I was in Mareeba last month staying with friends John and Marion, Marion (an artist) introduced me to the idea of Artist Trading Cards. Blank cards can be bought from art supply shops and the pack claims ... "Artist Trading Cards are a concept where artists create pocket sized artworks so that they can be traded with other artists. This began in the Impressionist age and is popular today among artists who prefer to share their art." They are not sold but swapped.

Marion sent me on my way with some ideas, some blank cards and two cards of her own (top left two in photo below). The deal was I was to send back two cards of mine when I made them on my return home.

So I took out my Kindy Bits box (tiny bits of fabric that are too small to cut a 1.5 x 1.5" square from) and we started creating.

Very soon Karen G had made a log cabin card and Linda had made an applique jungle.

We just stormed onward and at each stage we experimented with ways to quilt our trading cards.

But then the brainwave struck to try binding our quilts. After a bit of trial and error it was decided it was best to use commercial bias binding and to keep the back flat rather than folded as back of the 'quilt' was going to be glued to the trading card anyway.

Our final collection included some from us all (Robyn is going home to create hers from her own stash).

The challenge for this month is not to do a block but complete two 2.5 x 3.5" artist trading cards (this size is really important) and send one to the group for Christmas. We'll have a lucky dip so we will all have our own trading card to keep and one from another member of the group. The winner of your card might even make one especially for you which means your collection will start with three cards!

In all, our September gathering was fantastic. We were only five but had such a creative time and I still havn't stopped smiling. Happy card making and quilting too.