Great Hints and a little silliness

Two posts in one this week, firstly we had the free motion quilting class presented by Pat, lots of tips, a great info sheet with some online sites to check up on including Lori at 'The Inbox Jaunt, who coincidentally has this great post on stippling- well worth the read. 
Pat had us starting out with a few curves and points and then moving onto more adventurous designs finally finishing up with writing our own names.  A great class, thanks Pat.
Lyn and Christine had a great time, Lyn was one of the first to stitch her name.

 

Jackie was really into the curves, doing a great job on her name.

Wendy and Marcia really nailed the F.M.Qing, Wendy then decided to give free motion circles around applique a go.

Diane with some help from Fae worked on names and hearts.

Denise concentrated on F.M.Qing around the icons on this lovely quilt to be.

Queen of the Gizmo's for the day was Marie, she bought along these pads for us to all try, they are called Grip and Stitch quilting disks from Clever Craft Tools, an online search will bring up sites that you can buy them from.  Lots of muttering on the day about 'gotta get me some of these', they make quilting close to the edge of your quilt a lot easier and are so restful on your hands if you have a problem with arthritis.

 

Marie also had '50 Styles of F.M.Quilting' by Helen Godden a nifty little book that pair's with your smart phone or tablet to bring a video of Helen and a 'live' presentation of some of the designs, or as Helen describes it 

"My first Free-Motion Machine Quilting book, 70 pages with 50 advanced quilting styles plus bonus 20 embedded demonstration videos using the free Aurasma app for tablets and smart phones giving you your first taste of Augmented Reality!

Yep, hover your tablet or phone over the sketch (L) in Helen's Book and up pops Helen on a video (TR)- I know, blew us all away!!  If you haven't seen Helen's work before, pop over here but make sure you have a drink, a snack and lotsa time. Amazing just doesn't cover it.

One of our group, who I have to get permission from, created this lovely 'I Spy' crazy log quilt for the Uniting Church Fair.

They have their fair the week before our Easter Fair and our very own Ailsa is one of the stall co-ordinator.

Found another little pile of these, pretty aren't they........

 Hmm, wonder what they are for??

Val has been busy again....still, with these quilts for Laurel House.

Just right for a little boy off the land.

A cheerful flower applique 

The third quilt is a lovely soft girly quilt.  The white blocks were orphan blocks given to Val, she cheered them up with a little floral embroidery and off set them with one patches of a pink floral given to her by Beryl.  

Val uses her machine embroidery or fancy stitches for a lot of the quilting on her charity quilts, for this lovely she has teamed some free motion daisies and swirls on the border and for the quilting in the large pink blocks Val sketched a daisy onto tissue and stitched the design out following the sketch lines, she then just tore away the tissue to reveal a great quilted block.

There is a nephew somewhere who has just got the bestest birthday pressie, this fab bag with a bottle of scotch. 

Marcia is pleased to be giving and I bet her nephew is pleased to be receiving.

Using the large 'Drunkards Path Templates' from our Library, Sue created this great quilt, not only does the path meander around the quilt, a bit of a more modern take on the design 

but Sue has also used quilt as you go techniques with a little simple echoing in the center of the blocks.  

That bit of silliness spoken of earlier?

how 'bout this.....

next thing you know some bright spark will work out how to put lipstick on 'em.