Birthday Cake, a quilt beginning, News and lots of hand work...

Happy Birthday Inge!!
Yep, Inge had a rather special Birthday with lots of lovely celebrations including a fab afternoon tea at the Cottage courtesy of her lovely Daughter Betty.
The Birthday Cake was a yummy affair with slices of fresh strawberries over the top...

plates and plates of wonderful goodies to munch on and some of the best curried egg sandwiches I've fanged since....well since the last time!
Betty then popped herself up on a chair to take this great 'Birthday Party' Pic of the group.

Debby, one of the Needlework group, joined us for Patchwork, she is starting on a cute floral applique quilt for her bed, 3 blocks done so far, great job Debby!

The Ladies on the Top Table.......is that is 'top of the class' table? 'top gals table'? or the table at the top end of the room?.. or all three?......anyway, they are all busy beavering away for the Big Tree-mendous Quilt Show that is coming up in a rush, Winifred is creating a lovely cushion, appliqueing a pieced tumbling blocks to the cushion front.  Louise is also creating a cushion, lots of lovely hand quilting going on there! and Dorothy is knitting up a storm with a squiggly scarf, lots of little 'fingers' down the side that will twist and turn as the scarf grows.

We were all very sad when Lorraine H decided to re-locate back to Tassy, Lorraine was a very involved group member, taking on Leadership of the Thursday night group, and always happy to share her knowledge and tips, lots of which she learned from the many local classes and retreats that she attended.
Although Lorraine has been able to keep up with all our news and work by accessing our blog through her local library, we have just had little snippets now and again, so it was a wonderful surprise to finally get an e-mail from her, yep, finally on the net...well it takes time to get connections and cables laid when you live in the middle of a National Park on a Tassy coast!   ;)


The most exciting bit of news? remember the stunning  Lone Star quilt Lorraine shared with us before she left?, then a flimsey, it has since been finished and entered in the Annual Quilt Guild of Tasmania's show....and won 4th Place.  Congratulations Lorraine!!

Lorraine also entered her 'Friends of Buderim' row x row Friendship quilt.

 and....
yeah, there is more....
she also entered her Hexagon sampler 'Start of Something Big'

 and for those of you who want the details, Lorraine has also sent us pics of the show notes.

 And to fill you in on what she has been up to, some of Lorraine's email....

 "However, I have been able to keep up with all the Buderim Group news when I travel into town and visit the Library using their computers. It seems like you all are still producing lovely work and having a lot of fun. As soon as we arrived here, I joined the local Patchwork Group - Wynyard Cottage Patchwork - and I have really enjoyed attending their meetings. They are a lovely group of around 25 members who meet 3 times a month in each others homes. There seems to be a big emphasis on hand work down here with lots of beautiful applique and hand quilting everywhere! I have also joined the Quilting Guild of Tasmania and recently went to a wonderful retreat with them - 5 days of unlimited quilting in the middle of Tasmania in a lovely mountain setting. A few weeks ago, the Annual Quilt Show for the Guild was held in Launceston in conjunction with the Craft Fair. I had some quilts entered, and was lucky enough to win an award! My blue and white lone star quilt was awarded 4th place in the Amateur Traditional Section. As this was the largest section in the whole show, I was really surprised to get an award. It was so exciting to be at the show and see all the wonderful quilts there, and one of mine with a rosette on it ! I have attached some photos of my quilts at the show." 

Thanks for the update Lorraine, and once again congratulations on your Show win.  How about some pics of the work done by your new quilty friends?, I am sure we would all love to share. - A.

Lyn Ballinger Challenge

Great excitement at this weeks meeting, it was our annual Luncheon and Judging of the Lyn Ballinger Challenge. This year, in keeping with our Quilt Show Theme of 'International Year of the Forests'  our challenge was to create a 'green' shopping bag from calico and re-cycled fabric.  The feature fabric, at first sight, could only be described as,  well, ugly really.  But what a star it turned out to be!, those clever quilters created some really cute shopping bags.  Now as the 'Viewers Choice'  voting is to take place at our Quilt Show on the first weekend in June, I can't show you all the finished bags....but...I can show you some of the innovative ways the girls used 'that fabric'

 There are leaves galore, singly and as bunches, hearts, suffolk puff flowers, letters, logos, buildings and baskets. How innovative is all that!

The Luncheon itself was organised by our 2 Professional Luncheon Co-ordinators, Queen Fran and Duchess Beryl, who had their tiaras firmly in place to prove their claims, they did a great job of presenting the many delish dishes, keeping everyones glass topped up with a selection of champers, punch and chilled fruit water and just generally setting out the room with lovely green table decorations.

 and of course, there is always the 'behind the scenes' workers and helpers who make these occasions sing along without a hitch.

Judging this year was by Patchwork Group co-founder, Rose, who in keeping with the theme, wondered if perhaps she was a re-cycled Judge, having previously judged a challenge 10 years ago.

 We also had some great Show and Tell, some of which was from a week or so ago, sorry I've missed a couple of posts, it's all the new pup's fault, I seem to rush from sunup to sundown and beyond with a roll of loo paper in one hand and a mop in the other, chasing behind a new puppy that can only be described at 'mischief on a stick'

Sue bought along a couple of cushions from last century, yep she finally finished them!!.  Both cushions used Sue's own hand dyed fabrics.

Now why is Susie hiding behind the 2nd cushion?, she was having a little sob...somehow or other, in the cushion swap over, all Sue's colour co-ordinated, organised tinsy little applique pieces got dumped on the floor!.....I kid you not! and what is worse, somehow, one of them disappeared. Drat!.

Janet has used a pattern from on of our Library books on using Jelly rolls to create this wonderful quilt.  Yep, apart from the background all the colour pieces are from a Jelly Roll!

Here is a closer view, it takes clever colour matching to create that larger triangle but as you can see, Janet has done a brilliant job of creating those large triangles.

The quilting, which so suits the quilt design was done for Janet by Fiona of the Quilting Fairy.  Fiona used a variagated thread for extra flow in the quilting design.

Val has been commissioned to make two quilts for twin little girls, she bought along finished quilt number one to share with us.  Wonderful vibrant colours bring this pattern to life.

 and a few closer views of the great blocks.

 Wendy bought along her finished 'Chinese Lantern' table runner done in a recent in house workshop with Janice.

Janette has created another wall hanging for her home,  a lovely stained glass creation with the neatest blanket stitched applique.