A Very Special Birthday and an Orphan Block....among other things....

Happy Birthday Sheila 

It is Sheila's birthday this week so of course we had to have cake, Chocolate cake with Vanilla Frosting...........yum, .  Couldn't contain myself, such an important Birthday just had to be the start of todays post.  Hope you enjoyed your day Sheila and that your Birthday is all that you desire.

Big sign on the door when we arrived today, 'please use the back door' !? ........there were little men installing new lights in the Atrium, no they weren't small men, but 'little men' as in Penelope Keith's catch cry to her butler in the BBC show 'To the Manor Born' of "Bravenshaw, get a little man to do it!".......do you remember that show?, it was a fave of ours.   -    sorry, I digress, must still be on a high from all the fun and cake. It's always great to see improvements being made to our Cottage.

Lorraine H was busily finishing off the binding on this wall quilt, a gift to newlywed family members

last stitches in, then a quick pic - Lorraine, shyly(?) peeking over the top, but see these co-ordinated sandals and slacks? remember them for later.

Val was bitten by the re-cycle & tidy up bug, she dug around and found a couple of orphan blocks, some left over triangles, a Row x Row that just didn't work and a few other bits and pieces and created 2 wonderful quilts for her charity group.
This one with a few Row x Row rejects...who would have thought rejects could make such a great quilt!

Val had some pinwheel blocks 'at the bottom of the re-ject bag' joined and sashed them and added the two Crazy Patch borders...because, well you know, we are all practicing our Crazy Patch round here at the moment.

Val particularly wanted us to know that Marguerite gave her the wonderfully vibrant fabric to back both of these quilts.  When making charity quilts, all donations are appreciated, but lovely donations are treasured.

 

I found this poor little orphan block, lying sadly by itself,  with no one to claim it, 

 

 on the floor, by the muddy door...........oh the pathos.

Marcia! put that phone down!....now please!.....I'm sorry...I fib....will you forgive me????

Marcia wasn't able to be with us today, she sent this ever so easy but ever so brilliant Disappearing 4 Patch block along with Wendy ....there has been so much talk about the disappearing 9-Patch (also bought to our attention by Marcia) and now we have the disappearing 4-Patch, both make wonderfully easy quilts with a great repetitive design, easy assembly and just the ant's pant's for a quick quilt.

Our ever so talented Sue created this quilt from one piece of fabric!!...I kid you not!!....she very cunningly cut the floral component and the dark and mid blue sections and assembled this wonderful quilt that draws the eye to the center of the quilt, well I guess if you want to count the sashings and border, she technically used 2 fabrics.

Wandering up to the back room, I found Ailsa had just finishing pinning her Row x Row Quilt on the tables.

 

 and the view from the other side of the table...

Isn't this a great set up?, plenty of room and light, all we need now is to get a system for raising the table heights to save the dear old back whilst sandwiching the quilts. - Ideas are in the works....

There is a rather exciting exhibition in the near future, Val gives us a sneak peek with this lovely cross stitch.

there is more info and pics coming soon. - It's going to be a great exhibition!

Now Lorraine H., after finishing the blue and white quilt binding had got stuck into this beauty, an open house gift for another couple of family members, Adam and Kate.

Now how do we know it is Lorraine?, remember those beautifully co-ordinated slacks and sandals?, the very same peeking out from the bottom of the quilt?.
Adam and Kate are rather cleverly embroidered on the 'gate post' (should that be tree post)? of 'Happily Ever After' what a wonderful gift.

 Another WIP from WA, Heather is helping a friend learn the art of quilting, creating a 'shabby' 1 patch design using lovely Amy Butler fabrics.

Finally, time for lots of 'Happy Birthday' singing and a wonderful Arvo tea, beautifully prepared by Fran, Janice and Lorraine I. 
But first, the cake had to be cut.......then the happy singing and on to tasting and enjoying the wonderful array.

There were so many goodies to be tasted and enjoyed, savoury twists, lots of sangers, egg and lettuce, ham and tomato, curried egg etc.,  Frans famous bicckies, both the jam variety and the ginger ones, (well, it was a special day) and what Janice's Grandad used to call 'wobbly cake', yep, we had a marshmallow cake, chock full of jelly squares and chocolate chunks......bliss....