August comings and goings...and a Mothers Love.

..and there certainly have been some comings and goings, lots of holidays as everyone pops off to escape the colder months of where we live, not that the colder months are all that cold in reality.

Our most exciting 'finish' for the group was Courtney's first quilt, this has been Courtneys 'bring along project' to work on at group meetings.
Made using her favourite colours in a 9-Patch design Courtney surround her cute 'Sunbonnet Sue'  embroidery with appliqued hearts. 

Some time back, (well quite a whack of time back - see the receipt date in the pic!)  Marcia purchased a lovely 'Amish Style' quilt kit, and to make sure it stayed in pristine condition she packed it away carefully in a zip lock bag.
A few days back Marcia though it would make a lovely 'bring along' project for meeting days, on opening the pack she was met with all the points falling off the triangular pieces.  Further investigation showed that all of the fabric had rotted, tearing apart with the tiniest bit of pressure!

The baggie is being blamed, and perhaps it's so, but I have bits of quilts and patterns all stored away in ziplocks and there is no sign of damage (.......yeah......you bet it was the first thing I did after rushing home - had a good look through the stash, and yeah again, some of my stuff is at least as old as Marcia's wasted quilt!
However - there is a bit of reorganising going on I can tell you!
Anyone else ever had this problem - the kit was from a reputable company in the U.S., so shoddy fabric to start with isn't suspected!

Now about that Mothers Love, the Darling Daughter wanted Mum to make her a quilt, so D.D. chose the design, 'Hidden Wells' and popped off to buy the fabric - not really Mum's colours but the quilt was duly made, quilted, bound and delivered.......now here is the Mother Love bit.
D.D.'s response was.........'its lovely Mum, and you did a good job, but...it's a bit yellow!!!!
So Sue fixed it!   -  How I hear you ask over the sound of all those jaws dropping.
She unpicked the quilting and hand appliqued strips of blues on top of the yellow dots!  yes! she did!

The revamped and re-quilted quilt, cute huh?!

and here you can see where Sue appliqued a blue chevron over the yellow dots, creating a yellow, blue, yellow stripe.

On this block Sue appliqued a blue square over the yellow dots to create a square, in a square, in a square.

Now scroll back to the quilt pic and just see how many of those chevrons and squares there are!!
Now if that isn't Mother Love, I don't know what is.

Our in house workshop for August was a repeat of the workshop done on our first retreat, the ever handy 'Tie Pouch'.
Made from a re-cycled men's tie, it is just the thing to cart your mobile around in, especially at meetings or similar places where you put you handbag down and then wander around, greeting friends, having a sticky at what they are working on and of course nibbling on something delish from the arvo tea table.
Janice, Sheila, Louise, Lorraine, Sue and Aila show off their pouches.

Marie bought along her latest 'Grandies Quilt' to share with us, a striking combination using a mix of a busy 'Batman' fabric and panel with plain fabrics in the borders.  Very effective use of colour to create a stunning quilt.

Val is still busily creating simple quilts for the kiddies at Laurel House, and although she generally uses simple construction methods, the quilts are always beautiful.  Val was just popping the binding on this, her latest, a Q.A.Y.G block set into a diamond pattern on the front and sashed strips for the backing, all quilted with a decorative machine stitch.