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.