Dresden Plates and a colourful knee rug...

just some of the interesting items shared this week.

Now we all know that Lainey is the queen of the purple, so when someone mentioned that the Dresden Plates quilt was Lorraine's I put 2 and 2 together and got 6, yep! wrong Lorraine!
This stunner was started a few years back as a 'bring along' project by Lorraine L.  Lorraine, in the nicest possible way, evaded the question of just how many years ago it was started, however, one gathers that it was quite a few, so if you have such an item in your U.F.O stack, take heart.

Lorraine has had the quilt professionally free motion quilted and now faces the task of popping on the binding...of course if she is guided by the gals from the 'noisy table' who insist that it is only necessary to do 5 stitches a day at Cottage meetings, well, the finishing line could be a few years away yet.
Lorraine was inspired by her stash of Pansy fabric to create the Dresden Plates, they are all hand pieced with 1" cornerstones of Pansies between the sashings, each plate center features the border fabric.

Pat has created a cute wall hanging for the Christmas Fair,  pieced triangle 'trees', and heavily quilted with a variety of free-motion designs in the negative spaces.

Pat has used Christmas fabrics to incorporate hanging tabs as opposed to a hanging sleeve, just one more visual effect on this beauty.

In our group there are just about as many supported charities as there are group members.  Beryl has created this blue beauty for a charity that she supports.

An extra wide sashed border surrounds multi-sized quarter square triangle blocks.

While talking charity quilts, Val bought along 3 quilts in earth tones with designs suitable for Aboriginals.  These 3 quilts are going to Murgon, in central Queensland to be given to Aboriginal children in need.
Strip pieced batiks and traditional aboriginal design fabrics with appliqued kangaroos.  Val has serpentine stitched along the fabric joins which breaks up the solid lines and gives movement to the quilt.

Lots of aboriginal motifs and symbols incorporated into these fabrics.  A simple one patch- 9 patch alternating block arrangement set off with an unusual border.

A vibrant tessellated quilt using just two fabrics and bordered with the feature fabric.

Lorraine C also had a charity quilt to share, this one a red and white Q.A.Y.G crazy patch design, sashed with dots and a wider pieced binding that acts as a border.

Sue W. has been busily hand appliqueing little boy and girl bears onto this colourful kiddies quilt.  Sue only had another few inches of binding to finish stitching down and then into the finished pile with this darling.

Have been watching Betty create this innovative knee rug, she began crocheting it a few weeks back as a bring along piece, Betty is now up to threading the loose weave with colourful lengths of various thickness of yarn and wool, using her crochet hook to pull the yarn through the open loops.

There is quite a bit of length dangling from the edge of the rug, a fringe to be perhaps?  Looking forward to seeing the finished rug.

Lainey, who has been away on retreat bought these two in to share and supplied us with the story.

Our trip away this time we decided that we were only taking UFOs.

The pink butterflies have been put away for a long time. I found the pattern sheet I used for the butterflies on an AP& Q sheet dated 2006. The quilt was originally planned for a great niece when she was about 5 (she is now in high school). I started to make the butterflies in both pink and purple for 2 sisters but when I asked the older one which one she would like I was told “I’d rather have dinosaurs, please.” The butterflies were put away. The pink quilt is finished and the purple one is still a top but I will finish it soon as I have 2 new little girls to give them to.

 

The watery Bargello came about several years ago when the Australian dollar was so high against the American one that I was buying quilt kits and the postage was the difference between the prices in $A and $US. This kit came with rather garish orange fish and lime green weed.

Both of these left out fabrics will find their way into another quilt some time.

PS – she did get the dinosaurs.

A charity quilt of all time, an amazing Art Quilt ...

...and beautiful hand quilting, just some of the eye candy for you this week, oh, and, a sneak peek of something special.
Firstly, Sue W shared another of her Geisha Girl Wall Hangings, Sue loves to hand piece and quilt and is just one of our 'Mistresses of the tiny stitch'

Sue also had a H.S.T. charity quilt to share, Looking for a point of difference in the layout, Sue popped a floral square in the center of the quilt, she then had it professionally machine quilted with a floral design.

Barbara was rummaging around in a cupboard and spotted something that bought back some memories.  Created at the beginning of the century, (Gosh, I've always wanted to say that - sounds really awesome, and old, but mainly awesome) One of the blocks was from a 2006 Challenge, so yeah, the beginning of the century...sorta.
Barbara is fond of 3 dimensional quilting, and included some great 3-D blocks in her quilt. All hand pieced, hand cut and hand quilted, says so in the bottom left block! right next to the 'Pop Art' square.

Lots of memory fabrics from favourite clothing, along with their designer labels, pockets and plackets are included in the sashing, there is even some tinsy little cotton embroidered flowers and  part of the skirt they adorned.  Some of the blocks were done in a Dianne Johnston workshop and one even has a 'Star of the Month' button which Barbara was awarded for her work running our Groups Library.

Everything in this quilt has a story to tell, hope it gets to live out of the cupboard for a bit and share it's stories.

Val assembled another of the Q.A.Y.G strip pieced squares into this charity quilt.

To give the reverse of the quilt a spot of interest the backing squares have had an 'I Spy' square appliqued on to them.

Another charity quilt from Val, this one all her own work, an 'I Spy'  hexie quilt, all hand pieced and hand quilted.  Yes, I did say charity quilt!

Each hexie is backed with a solid which then wraps to the front form the binding.

Derrick, who was visiting with us, immediately chose the old Holden as his favourite block, someone else, a little bit fond of blue, went for the mermaid.

Val also had a flimsey to inspire the charity quilt makers, spotted in a magazine some years back and filed away in the memory banks as 'make that one day'.  Val thinks the original pattern used 2" squares but opted to create this quilt using 3" squares, again, a simple construction creating an effective design, by using the solid sashing there are very few points to be matched.

Bit of 'busy, busy' going on out the back, what are they all doing?
well under the guise of snaping a pic of gals sandwiching a quilt, guess what?

got a tinsy sneak peek of one of the raffle quilts for our upcoming Quilt Show....hope I don't get a smack!  Gotta tell ya, it is beyond beautiful and the work is....oh yeah, sorry, supposed to be all under wraps for a bit longer.

Stella and Wendy gave us a smashing arvo tea. That fruit cake? yummo.

Thursday night.........

For some of us supper is very important............

Debs made a birthday cake for Letitia.....................

And the birthday girl received some lovely gifts.

Jane's workspace looked gorgeous............

As did Sue's.

Marlene was very busy creating poppies...............

Shelia's granddaughters quilt-as-you-go ; guitars, books etc.

Sue's sewing "stuff"

Oh wow, Jackie's colour palette.........

Jane A's sewing basket, needle case and pincushion belonged to her mother.

 I think this belongs to Jackie and machine quilted by Judy

We all loved the label on the back of the quilt.

Jules' scrappy quilt was quilted by Letitia.

Until next week.
XX

Technology, just gotta love it...

Remember Marie's wonderful baby quilt from last week, well, thanks yet again to technology, we get to see another pic of said quilt, this time with the little angel snoozing on it!

Isn't he just darling?!

Of course, sometimes technology just gets a bit too smart for itself.
Lorraine's daughter requested a set of cushions, chocolate, mocha and steel grey were the colours chosen, and they certainly are a stunning set.

To round out the pressie, Lorraine used the back pocket from a pair of jeans to create a really cute and clever pot mitt.  Now the jeans were chocolate but will the pic show that? not on you life, so here, looking decidedly 'denim' is a fab chocolate pot mitt!

You just slide your fingers into the pocket, and the waist band part falls under to protect you palm and thumb.  So clever and innovative....and chocolate...really!
Lorraine was busily brushing at her lovely cushions prior to the pics, and muttering about 'Sunshine', if you're a pet owner, its obvious isn't it? yep, Lorraine shares her home with a loving bundle of fur named Sunshine.

Last week Gwen was tutoring Michelle in hand piecing, well, this week it was my turn, am loving the process but it did have a bit of a side effect, so engrossed in stitching along the line, I missed Show and Tell, yep, sitting right there and missed it! - it's a worry!
We had 3 more charity quilts on show, these are really being turned out at a fast rate of knots.
Of course the challenge is out there to make each one different, even though many of the girls are using the same H.S.T. block designed for us by Sue.
This clever lay out is enhanced by the added applique.

Another variation, with a great idea for the backing.

The blocks were given to Sue to finish and assemble.
While out and about, she had spotted a lovely soft and snuggly throw at Woolies, and decided to use the throw as a combined wadding/backing.  Worked brilliantly, soft, snuggly, F.M.Quilted with a  lovely swirly design, someone is just gonna love snuggling up into this quilt.

Another Q.A.Y.G charity quilt, this one a really pretty pink creation using crazy patchwork.  Lovely hand dyes were used to back each square, making this a truly reversible quilt.

Deanne was busily stitching in the back room, creating more Q.A.Y.G. squares that will eventually be assembled into Charity quilts, lots of lovely browns are making their way into some of the quilts, all thanks to the very generous donation of fabric from Derrick.

Jackie has been busily stitching up a special quilt, for a very special and lucky lassie who's name just happens to be Zali.  

Jackie used a Jigsaw pattern on the front and incorporated Zali's name into the backing of the quilt, she tells us that it took the best part of a Sunday arvo to work out the lettering and Zali is just lucky her name only has four letters, otherwise there would just have had to be a different backing design.

Along with the lovely fabrics donated by Derrick, we have also been lucky enough to receive some really great books for our Library and Jackie, who does a fantastic job as our Librarian has been as busy as a one armed paper hanger getting them all processed into our Library.  All the hard work and time associated with this endeavor has earned Jackie one of our coveted 'Star of the Month' awards.

Our Leader, Sheila came up with this idea a few years back, you have to earn a 'Star' with an extra effort for the group,  they are not given out lightly, and they don't get awarded every month either, so you can understand why Jackie immediately proudly pinned hers to her tee.

Baby Quilts, just love 'em...

...but some just go above and beyond.
And this quilt from Marie is one of those.
But before I let you drool all over your computer, you need to know the quilt is gone, yep, off to it's darling little owner, and all we have folks, is pics of pics on an iPad...but...you do have to love technology.

This is one heck of an amazing quilt.  The fabrics have lots of little pics of bugs, beetles, butterflies and other bits of nature.  Talk about taking 'I Spy' to a whole new level.

Marie took pictorial squares and appliqued them around the border, interspersing the little panels with gem cuts - well - they look like little gems of living colour - in between the squares.
The lucky little guy who was given this quilt is only 2 weeks old, he has many many hours of pleasure in front of him with this wonderful quilt. (Ignore all those wonky liney little thingies across the fabric, they really aren't there,  it happens when you take pics of screens)
 
We had another fab. baby quilt for show and tell, Lainey, who seems to have a whole heap of family & friends who all expect baby quilts, bought along an unfinished quilt to share, more than a flimsey but still not a quilt....racing against the clock is Lainey, Christening on Sunday....3 days and 2 bits of days away....Her good friend is finally a Grannie, and yeah! happy dancin' in her neck of the woods.
New Mum is not a fan of pastels, so Lainey made this darling quilt in New Mum's fave colour scheme...great job, not pastels, but undeniably a baby quilt.

and the backing is just amazing.

The lucky little one who gets this quilt gets the ABC up front and all the fun of the beach on the flip side, all bases covered!

Courtney had something to share today, yep the finished long-stitch, last stitches this morning Courtney tells. Makes you smile just looking at those Dolphins,

Courtney plans to get this lovely framed, hope we get to see it when that happens.

Spotted Inge with a crochet hook and red wool playing in and out of her fingers, just look at those fingers fly!

So what is she up to?
Red Poppies is what.
This one just sitting there awaiting it's 'eyelashes'

 

Yep, eyelashes, Inge will be  using those fluffy, curly cute little crocheted 'eyelashes' to create the black center of the poppy.

And just in case you are wondering why crochet poppies? pop over here to the 5000 Poppies site to learn all about this great endeavor, and perhaps be inspired to pick up a ball of red wool and a crochet hook.

Gwen is not only busily hand quilting for others but is also 'Hand Piecing Queen' in residence, she is currently teaching many of our group the intricacies of hand piecing.

Michelle is learning the skill, and just look at those vibrant pieces....she shared a closer look.

Michelle found this vibrant fabric range on a trip to New York, and has enough for a complimentary border and backing for what is going to be a vibrant 'Bow Tie' quilt...and....she is thinking of learning the art of hand quilting on it, with Gwen as Tutor of course.  

Hand piecing and embroidery seems to be all the go at the mo.  

Denise is also into hand piecing, she has been caught up in the romance of Jen Kingwell's 'Green Tea and Sweet Beans' quilt pattern that so many of the Thursday evening gals have been immersed in.  Just look at the size of that tinsy piece Denise is working on! yeah, that tiny smidge of hot pink between her fingers!

Sue W. bought along a lovely wall hanging with quite the story attached, all about seeing a lovely quilt way back in 2000 that she thought would be special done with Liberty prints, but considering herself more of an applique quilter as opposed to a piecing quilter, she filed it away in the 'one day' box.

Well, long story short, realising that the Liberty stash was growing, Sue decided to launch into the world of piecing and created this lovely wall hanging.  A simple but stunning pattern created by Churn Dash blocks on point.

Sue then shared that this will be one of the quilts on show in our upcoming 2015 Quilt show and Sale.  

It is our month to use the Display cabinet to show the other Cottage group members some of the works and pieces that Quilters create.  Using the display cabinet this way is a great idea, the display changes every month with a different group showcasing their crafts, although it's always a bit of a challenge to get quilting pieces small enough to display to advantage.

This time round Deanne volunteered to do the display.

The cabinet looks a treat Deanne.

Did you notice the work going on in the Atrium behind Deanne?

Well, the Calligraphy and Papercraft group are just starting to set up for their exhibition, 'Taking Tea'.

It promises to be a great affair, the guys and gals have an astounding array of goodies and there were even a few already hung so of course, just had to grab a sneak peek.

Pastel to vibrant, something for everyone.

Now if you remember the tale from last week of Heather and the lovely black and white piece....well it was on the wall, really, I couldn't believe it either!

Sad bit though....had to stand so far back to get it all in that the pic doesn't do it justice.  Just when you need a decent camera.....

The wording? 'Butterflies are self propelled flowers'

Pop in to see it for yourself, you won't be disappointed

The exhibition opens on Friday evening 5th Sept. and runs through to Saturday 13th Sept.

Scroll down to the bottom of the previous post for more info on what this exhibition has in store for you.