Hand Quilting....don't you just love it

Talking with quilters about the one thing they most love about quilting, the thing that captures the heart, is more often than not, hand quilting.  Those tiny little stitches, so uniform, creating such intricate designs.  Our group has many hand quilters of note but the one whom we all look up to is Gwen, who volunteered to quilt the central design on this beautiful W.I.P. for Dorothy.

 

There is quite a saga attached to this quilt, Dorothy began creating it with her son and his bride in mind, but life changes and for various reasons the quilt was packed away for a number of years, until chatting with the other gals she was encouraged to bring it along.

Helen, one of our long time members and a quiet achiever,got the ball rolling on this lovely by volunteering to do the remainder of the needle turn applique, which was promptly followed by Gwen volunteering to do the central medallion quilting, by this stage Dorothy was getting quite excited and wondering what exactly to do with the quilt, her Grandson promptly asked to be the recipient, so, a family heirloom, with a story, in the making.

More Charity quilts are being created and Beryl in the spirit of waste not, want not, decided to clip apart the trimmings from the string quilt blocks into crumbs and useable triangles.

Now that's the spirit!
Mind you, the guilt then hit and I popped my trimmings into a covering thinking the dog might like it for a bed, nope, he wanted the whole shebang...

30 seconds, I kid you not, between flinging the quilt over the couch, turning to pick up the camera and finding him scrunched up on that tiny little overhang - and no he's not asleep, he is just pretending! the big furry quilt snatcher!

Sue W. created this lovely hand quilted wall hanging for her friend of many years in memory of the times they traveled to Japan with their work.

And another lovely applique quilt from Sue W, inspired by Sue A's show quilt, which in turn was inspired by a quilt in a magazine Gwen was perusing, and so the creative juices flow.

A wedding quilt with a special story. 
Janice's long time friends were at one time Strawberry farmers - and Janice was one of those intrepid souls who helped out at Strawberry picking season, not a job for the faint hearted - said friends are now raspberry farmers. 
As soon as Janice spotted this black and white floral she thought of Raspberry flowers, disappearing 9-Patch and the upcoming wedding of her friends Son - Viola! Wedding Quilt inspiration!

Janice had the quilt machine quilted and added a striped binding for extra pazazz!

A big thank you came the way of Fae, Marlene, and Estelle.
Laurel from the Buderim Garden Club popped into last weeks meeting to thank them, return the quilts loaned and present the three with a lovely potted plant.

If you were one of the many visitors to the Garden Festival in the Memorial Hall you would have seen the quilts on display.  Made for quite the stunning entry.