Raffle Quilts, done and dusted...almost...

yep, it's exciting, the cushions have been made for our 1st and 2nd Prize Raffle Quilts. A big Thank You to Sue.

 'Tall Timbers' Quilt and Cushion

'Everlasting Friendship' Quilt with Two Cushions

The almost part of being finished?? just got to bury those last threads.

Catti, had left her latest embroidery Show and Tell from Needlework on the display table, got a snap of that lovely for you.

June and the Girls were having many a discussion on the finer points of layouts with the 'Hidden Wells' workshop. 

Wendy was putting in the last of the binding stitches to show off her completed version

and Val has completed her flimsey of 'Hidden Wells', it will be another charity quilt for Laurel House.

June bought this lovely vibrant quilt along to show us, her words "there is a pattern out there but I worked out my version on how to do it quickly in strips", well, we just had to beg for another class didn't we......so coming soon we will have lots of versions of this quilt.  Wendy is already wondering if you could use 'I Spy' fabrics... and June had a suggestion for a very interesting border variation. 

William Morris Fans

 Not a quilt in sight here, but some lovely fabrics from Liberty London on a video shot in the William Morris rooms at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Curator Stephen Calloway introduces the exhibition 'The Cult of Beauty' devoted to the Aesthetic Movement of Britain between 1860 to 1900.
If you love to see beautiful things and listen to some lovely music, follow the link.  The video runs for just under 4.30 mins,
http://www.howtospendit.com/#/articles/3814-fashion-shoot-genius-in-beauty

Gum Tree Designers and a Free BOM

The talented girls from Gum Tree Designers are offering another FREE BOM, but it's a BOM with a bit of a difference, to read all about it, pop over here to pick up the link to their wonderful new Newsletter.
The BOM will be posted on the 1st of the month, starting February and will run for 10 months.
First block is from Jennifer Reynolds from Jenny of Elefantz and block one can be downloaded from this page, just scroll down past the newsletter link, past the pic and enjoy!

Many people are organising various ways to help our many flood victims, the Gum Tree girls hit on a brilliant way to help with a 'New Beginnings' sewing kit.  The kits will be sent to quilting groups in each town for distribution.  For a list of what the girls would like in each kit and links to free sewing caddy patterns pop over here.    The dates have been extended to 15th March and will now encompass Cyclone Yasi and Victorian Flood Victims.
Vicki, from The Pickledish Patch and Dawn from "As Sweet as Cinnamon" are presenting a joint 2011 free BOM, pop over to their blogs to check them out.

Hidden Wells, Handy Hints, a Hat and another Lucky Grandie

Remember the homework June sent the 'Hidden Wells' group home with last week?, well some people just didn't know when to stop!
Maree was so excited by the way her colours were coming together, she completed her quilt, and as you can see from the block in her hand, she is off and running on quilt number two.  As June said, we were all warned, this is a very addictive little quilt pattern!

Maree will be giving the quilt to her Grandaughter to take on her big adventure, the starting of her University education.
Wendy was another one who didn't know when to stop, she has half her blocks assembled...

but what is this?? Marguerite checking out the neatness of Wendy's stitching? measuring her 1/4" seams?
or just hiding from the Camera?

Whatever...it gives us a better 'look see' at Wendy's flimsey.

Lorraine has a very handy 'Hidden Wells' hint, stitch pairs of your completed and squared stage 1 blocks together with 1/4" seams all round

then cut the blocks diagonally from corner to corner to form 4 completed blocks, you can easily fluff out and fold your uncut blocks for an early and easy audition.

This method helps to cut down on the chances of stretching those Bias edges.  Thanks Lorraine.

One of our groups Christmas presents to Sheila year before last was a lovely Jelly roll, her first.  The Jelly roll was much admired and petted by family members, but one lassie in particular just fell in love with the colours.  A search of patterns on the net and Sheila created this lovely.

Not wanting to quilt such a large quilt on her machine, Sheila assembled the quilt in two halves, quilted each half except for the 'overlap' in the center, she then joined the wadding by hand using a herringbone stitch, machine stitched the two front panels together and hand stitched  the overlapped backing.  The leftover fabric was then pieced to form the binding, which she then stitched down by hand!....We were all very impressed with all the 'by hand' parts of the creation process........Sheila isn't known for her love of hand stitching, quite the opposite in fact.

Maree has recently returned from a trip to visit her Daughter and Family.   Daughter is a mad keen convertible fan, and can be seen whizzing around town in a little black number.  After a few trips in said machine Maree thought a jazzy little cap would be the go and so created this wonderful little number.  We all want one!, but sadly, don't qualify, not a convertible in sight in our collective garages.sigh!!.  

Marguerite modeled the cap for us and was rather slow in relinquishing in, suits her down to the ground.

Lorraine has finished quilting 'Friendship Forever', one of our raffle quilts for the Quilt Show in July, but wanted a volunteer to help bury the quilting threads.  Lorraine has a Janome with that ever so handy little button that does a couple of 'tying off' stitches, so threads don't have to be tied, only buried.  Andrea agreed to help out using the K Grace Howes thread burying method and found that the method wasn't that well known within the group (Must have been Andrea's secret - no one else had come across it).
So, just because it is sooo, sooo easy here is a couple of piccies to give you a rough idea of how it is done, for an in depth tutorial, waddle your mouse up to the top of our page, click on Tips, Handy Hints and Good Ideas, slide down the page to 'burying threads' and follow the links to RedBarn Studios and the Burying Your Quilting Threads Video Tutorial

Dont'ch just love the net?!, all that sharing and knowledge available with just a click of a mouse.

Esther Aliu's new BOM is launched...

 'Hearts Desire' is Esther Aliu's new free BOM,  a six month project running from 15th February to 15th July 2011.  Esther will put up a new block pattern on the 15th of each month that will run as free for one month only, if you miss a month you can purchase the pattern through Esther's shop.
Esther has lovely pics of her fabric selection and some fabric purchasing hints on her blog along with some close pics of her freezer paper applique technique.

Tutorial from Carol Bryer Fallert on Feather Study Quilts

They just keep rolling in.... A wonderful slideshow tutorial from Carol Bryer Fallert on one of her 'Feather Study' quilts.....amazing and so much info. Enjoy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryerpatch/sets/72157625893044309/show/

Patchwork Film for you to watch

 A National Film Board of Canada tribute to the unique art form of patchwork, made in 1996 and inspired by the films of Rene Jodoin.  Interesting pattern play.  The film runs for just under 7 mins.

Just click on the  'Courtepoint by Gail Thomas' link at the top of the sidebar.

As usual, (and no I don't know how to fix it) the video screen overlaps out into the 'blog skin', so use your slide bar at the bottom of the screen to bring the movie screen into view, this will give you access to the 'full screen toggle' (two oblongs, one inside the other' at the bottom of the movie screen.  Click on full screen for more viewing pleasure.  Just hit the Esc (escape) button to return to the blog screen

It's all go at the Cottage.........

...as the saying goes, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and boy oh boy, do we have broken eggs!! lots of upheaval while the cottage renovations and extension take place, and just to keep things interesting, the Council is sealing the car park!  Thankfully there is a temporary car park created across the road.

One of the first positive things to come from the renovations is the relocation of the Potters wonderful wall mural from inside the Atrium to the external wall by the side entrance, the most often used entrance where it will be visible to everyone passing  from the car park into the cottage or through to the Church next door.  It looks terrific and was certainly the object of much admiration from some school kids and adults yesterday. 

Created by the Pottery Group in 1984 and dedicated to Jeane Cameron it 'Depicts the joining together of the people of Craft Cottage in the love of their craft - the fellowship it creates - and the beautiful environment' - a lovely and so true sentiment!

The Quilts at Show and Tell were all so very lovely, firstly we had two charity quilts from Val made for  'Laurel House' an 'Angels' quilt in vibrant colours....

and a larger string pieced Q.A.Y.G.

Lorraine took over 9 months to get this one from idea to completion, she blames the colour selection!, made from scraps it was originally a 'Take Along' project for her quilting groups, Lorraine tells us that although the blocks were from scraps and therefore 'free' the borders and backing cost a bomb!

Helen also had two quilts to show us, both originated from the one idea in that she bought a lovely Layer Cake and proceeded with stitcheries in complimentary colours.  However, once the stitcheries were completed the Layer Cake colours were far too heavy! which of course meant.............yeah, of course, more fabric had to be purchased...........now isn't that a sad story - not.
Helen's beautiful stitchery quilt, made just for herself, and inspired by a similar quilt made by Julie.

 A closer view of some of the lovely stitcheries by Helen

 The Layer Cake fabrics were much admired by Helen's Stepdaughter, so taking the 'Crossed Kayaks' pattern, Helen created this beautiful quilt for her.

It was day one of June teaching the 'Hidden Wells' quilt, all those doing the quilt bought along their fabric stacks for colour selection help from June - and of course all the other gals had a say as well, great fun was afoot in the front room colours discussed, patterns drafted, and a wee tad of homework to be done.
June also bought this wonderful African inspired quilt that she had made for her 16 yr old Grandson along to show us, all of his favourite earthy colours with animal prints.

June has appliqued tigers across the borders into the quilt body, a very effective and fave trick of hers.

Men at work.........well Men discussing work, 3 Builders/Tradies working out the best way to attack the next step.

and then there are the guys taking out the post and rails edging the car park in preparation for the next step.

You can see the stump from one of the many lovely big shade trees that have been removed in the foreground.
When I think of Buderim I think of lovely big shady Camphor Laurels and Poinciana trees along the streets, sadly these are being phased out, but that's a whole different story!

Quilt Show Dates, Free BOM........

The dates for our Biennale Quilt Show have been announced, so feel free to pencil ink them into your Diaries, the show will open on Friday 1st July and continue over the weekend on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd July....   sooo exciting!

The lovely and talented Val Laird has a new free BOM available for us, pop over here to read up on 'Consider the Tulips', why Val choose the name and to see a few sneak peeks of what the finished quilt will be, it certainly promises to be another beauty.  There is also a link in the sidebar for future reference.

 One of the pics of 'Consider the Tulips' from Val's blog.

Talking about BOM's, Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor for Bella Online, who keeps us all in touch with quilting news from across the net with her free e-mailed Newsletter has posted 2 links to user pays BOM's, pop over here for the first group and here for more links.

Busy and Productive....our first day back

Yesterday was our official first meeting day for the year, and what a day!,
Everyone busy chatting, catching up, planning new projects, etc..etc..

Sheila must have been influenced by the lovely racing red top she was wearing, busily flitting from person to person, asking, suggesting and just generally getting the group on track for our upcoming Quilt Show, in fact she was so fast she was just a blurr scooting 'round the corner.

Some of the girls had unofficial get togethers over the Christmas break, and others just beavered away at home so lots of Show and Tell to get us inspired.

Caity, who did a workshop on Brazillian Embroidery with the Needlework group last year, decided that she would love to have a go at Elizabethan Embroidery, so with the help of the net, she taught herself the stitches and methods to create this wonderful rooster.

 Caity also finished off two other wonderful pieces that she had started in classes last year, a lovely circle of Brazillian Embroidered butterflies used to make a cushion and a lovely 3-D wheat field scene that she has framed.

In her travels, Sue saw the cutest soft toy ball, complete with enclosed rattle, of course Sue had to meet the challenge and work out the design to create her own ball.

It is a combination of Polygon and Hexagon shapes to get the lovely round shape.  And of course if you don't happen to have a little person in your life at the moment, you could always use it as an earring!?.....

Balls were certainly a large part of Sue's Christmas Break, she gathered inspiration from one of our Library books to create this vibrant 'balls' quilt, with gently curved inserts in the larger balls.

June will be teaching the Wednesday arvo group her 'Hidden Wells' variation in the near future and bought some samples along to show us.  This is the original Quilt June made using this pattern, as she says, "I did this quilt the way I was told in class...."

The quilt has a lovely pieced backing using up the left over blocks with a deep border.

And then of course the fun began, June is not one who generally follows instructions or patterns, so she immediately made several other quilts with variations of 'Hidden Wells',this being one variation

The blocks are assembled by strip piecing, cutting into squares and then umm.....what was that you said again June?........oh well, will let you all know when June takes us for our class.
The design is created by flipping the blocks by quarter turns, one block is the area shown inside the white dotted line in the piccie below.

This version was made by June's daughter Maureen, using fewer fabric choices for a totally different look.

Another version, using 'Oriental' fabrics, June has appliqued kimonos onto the border,

 and echoed the kimonos in the border quilting.

Betty bought along her latest flimsey to share, a tesselated design that she tells me is really quite simple when you get going. 

There is quite a bit of 'updating' and 'improvement' works going on at the Cottage, more storage space being built, among other things, so everything is a bit topsy turvey, stuff pulled out of existing storage and put in rooms for tempoary storage, the result is that we couldn't get at the screens to pin up our quilts, so lots of hands on deck to help out.  Thanks in particular to Janice for her efforts.

Spotted Inge using this lovely little felt and fabric needle case book and the tinsiest little  Cathederal Window pin cushion made for Inge by her daughter Betty.  Inge commented "Betty doesn't have time to make quilts, she does 'little' ". Well yes, she does, we have all seen some of the beautiful little miniatures and things that Betty has created.

A Pretty in Inge's sewing world.