Christmas Fair - today is the day

Yep, the Buderim Craft Cottage Christmas Fair opens today (Friday 27th Nov) at 1.00 p.m.

Craft Cottage will be joined on Saturday by the Buderim Libray and the Lions Club with over 50 Market Stalls for the Annual Buderim Christmas Fair.
The Fair spreads from around and through the Memorial Hall, into the Library and across the lawns to the Craft cottage, where you can sit on our patio for a refreshing cuppa and snack or lunch before wandering through the Cottage rooms.
There are some amazing articles for sale and even if you aren't in the market for a gift, a visit will be well worth your while just to see some of these beautiful and sometimes quirky pieces.

Patchwork Group have something for everyone!

Cute little stuffed toys, this little Miss has her family with her.















Christmas stockings in all sizes and styles. 

So, so many bags, there are beaded and fringed totes, pouffy bags and Santa Sacks

Beautifully created bags with a Japanese theme and a quilt to match.

A range of kiddies summer clothes, the cutest little frilly nickers but this outfit stole my heart.

I know a Grandie that will pop into that rather nicely, after all, you have to be a bit formal for Chrissy Dinner.

Talking of Chrissy Dinner, there is a huge range of mats, runners, coasters and trivets to dress your table, from the traditional to the modern.

Check out the cross over coasters, just the thing to deal with condensation on a hot summers day. - bottom left pic, the one with the demonstration champers glass.

Of course there are lots of quilts for you to view, everything from small modern,

Kiddies, Geometrics, Traditional and a Christmas wall hanging.

Here, a pictorial panel in pastels and a sloth of appliqued bears.

How neat are those button hole stitches! and yes, they are hand done, never ceases to amaze, the consistency of those stitches.

A Traditional pieced, a printed panel with loads of sparkle and a quilt for a princess, birds, butterflies and elegant bird cages.

Those are just some of the patchwork goodies for sale this year.

Walking back through the Cottage, gals and guys were busily working away at setting up their displays, even so, they very kindly gave permission for some pics

Fabric Artists have another delightful range of dyed silk goodies, nic nacks, note books, jewelry, scarves, (oooh the scarves, so much luxury for such a reasonable price!) totes, bags, wearable art and even the most lovely framed silk paintings for your wall.

Two more wearable art pieces frame this beautiful under the sea wall hanging.

Caligraphy Group have a range of goodies along with the all time favourite greeting cards and notebooks, such as this ever so delicate verse written as the ocean waves carrying a tiny yacht on the crest, little wonder this work won it's creator a first prize ribbon, you will have to visit to enjoy the beauty of this piece.

Jeff of the Mixed and Multi Media group does stylish work using stainless steel, timber and cutlery.

This piece is
'Stiletto-Diaz'

 While new member Silvia has created some rather whimsical homes for little critters using gourds.
Cobweb Cottage and Mudcrab Manor are just two of her creations.

Cobweb Cottage is home to a tinsy little mouse who keeps the cottage spotless with her little broom.

Needlework Group have many of the ever popular beautiful creations as well as some lovlies with a new twist.
Beautiful lace work on linnen, beaded and embroidered wall art, sweet little doilies - always a favourite.

Christmas Angels, lavender and lace sachets, lace and embroidery trinket boxes, sweet little embroidered mice, and you can just see a tiny slice of a delightful embroidered white bear.(bottom left-wearing a pink bow ;0 )

Another favourite that generally sells early, beautifully stitched and embroidered lawn nighties, just the thing for our hot summer nights, baby smocked dress, elves and bears. Just a few of the many delightful needleworked items for sale.

Potters Group have turned out some whimsical and some stunning work .
A murder of crows and an amazing banksia pod.

The final pic - 'Season's Greetings' replete with stunning candles, from the Potters,  just how special would this be in your entry?.

Hope you can visit our Christmas Fair, it's promising to be truly spectacular.

It's All About Christmas and a 'Heads Up' for Bailey

Yep, the 2015 Buderim Christmas Fair is almost upon us.

Today was sign in and set up day, with groups busily scooting around and moving in display props it was all excitement and go go go.

Show and Tell started off with Marcia presenting a lovely 'Thanks for being Leader' gift to Sheila.

Sheila is zooming off on a holiday with some of her family members, so what better pressy than a travelling bag, and yes, her ipad will fit beautifully!

    

But wait, there is even more.
Lainey created Sheila's bag and
having a little fabric left over
added a cosmetics bag,
a foil lined security wallet
and a coin purse.
All in Sheila's fave colour of blue.

Have a great trip Sheila, and don't forget to e-mail us some selfies now you have that ipad under controll.









Lots of Charity quilts have been donated, Estelle stitched two of these.

Two other sweeties from the previous week but no details on who created them, so if they are yours - let me know so I can update the pics and give credit where it is due!

Michelle has finalised the lay-out of her beautiful crazy squares and sashed them but as yet hasn't started the quilting.

and why hasn't Michelle started quilting this darling?

Her daughter is getting married in the near future and Michelle has been working on these.

How special for your wedding day, stitched by Mum

This one is for the flower girl, palest pink

Next project of course is the Bridesmaid/s bags, then a deep breath and perhaps a start to quilting.

Now Bailey, this is what your Gran bought along to share with us today.

Isn't it just the cutest?!

and Bailey, Gran was heard to say "I'm not sure I will use it"....well it that isn't an opening to get yourself a pretty new tote I don't know what is.

Betty presented a workshop to us recently as a fundraiser for Movember making these cute little 8 point folded stars.

There was lots of ironing involved at the beginning, but Pat was right on the ball there.

Betty was as busy as a one armed paper hanger, the only pic was of her speeding past.  Boy that gal can move!!

There was quite a bit of waiting for instructions after the first step.

 But then everyone was off and running

Some lovely stars were created, some to be used as Christmas gift cards, some will be sold at the fair.
Hope to see you there.

Decisions on Thursday

Sheila popped in to visit the Thursday night gals and found Michelle with a bit of a dilema, organising the layout of her beautiful crazy squares.

 A couple of Michelle's squares from an earlier post

When it came to time for show and tell Yola had this lovely piece to share, appliqued Australian native fauna wall hanging, soon to be winging it's way overseas as a gift for two lucky little girls

Just a little something for you all to start thinking about,
Yep,
Christmas is coming....
and so is our fair...

Pencil Ink it into your diary's folks, not to be missed!! a wonderful day out for the entire family, so much to see and so much to buy.

A Fond Farewell and a Welcome to Newbies

 Spotted Sheila hanging this balloon on the way into the Cottage, gotta know something is up...

Di was surrounded by a group of gals all admiring this great wall hanging.

Sandy and Di spotted the pattern for the Advent Calendar at the recent Brisbane Craft Show and judged it perfect, all that was missing were decorations for the little heart shaped pockets, and that's when they spotted the buttons, lots of lovely wonderful buttons.  Bliss!  It wasn't long however until they realised just how those button dollars were adding up and was perhaps a little a lot on the side of over capitalising for a Christmas wall hanging so settled for some really lovely glittery velcroed christmas motifs.
Di's own design modification is the addition of tinsy little wooden pegs she has numbered for the advent dates.

New member Nelly is working on her own design of appliqued poppies on a pieced backgound.

Nelly likes to up-cycle and has the eye to get a lot of her fabrics and pieces from various local op-shops.

The flower stalks are couched heavy threads and Nelly has used a combination of freemotion embroidery and beads for the poppies and leaves.

Courtney arrived sporting an eye catching bag, actually a lunch bag but such lovely vibrant colours and constructed from that wonderful invention of foam backed fabric that one often sees beer coolers constructed from...have heard a rumor that the beer coolers are made from leftover bits from making wet suits, can't vouch for that though!

Other bags spotted were this tote in a lovely poppies fabric and a blue toile sewing compendium.

Back in 2013 our group visited the QAGOMA 'Quilts 1700-1945 Exhibition' at which Wendy managed to snaffle a copy of the book 'The Rajah Quilt',  no mean feat as copies were in very short supply!  So when Wendy spotted this pattern by quilter Lessa Siegel she decided on making her own 'Rajah Quilt'

Wendy has opted to use a modern twist and pencil in the tiny designs of the central medallion while needle turning the other blocks.

After winning the Expertise Events 'Rajah Award' Lessa Siegele was inspired to create her own version of the Rajah quilt, albeit a much smaller version.  Lessa was then encouraged to sell the pattern of her version.
The Rajah quilt is one of, if not the most important Australian textile artifact and has had many interesting articles writted about it and the convicts credited with it's creation.
Some interesting links are:
'Stitches in Time' an Australian article
Rajah's Grandaughter - a blog by a 7th generation decendent of a Rajah convict
Lessa Siegel's story by 'Addicted to Fabric' blogger Brenda Wood
a story of Lessa Siegls pattern release by Michell Hill
all very interesting reading.

Marcia was busily trying to put the finishing stitches into the binding of this sweetie, destined to fly away to Sweden in the near future, but she kept getting sidetracked.

A 'Star of the Month' award, for so many many reasons, not the least of was the great job done as our Cottage Rental Officer and group deputy leader while Sheila has been away.

Roslyn came along to join us for the day, a very new newbie and planning her very first quilt.  Roslyn was given a few lessons on the importance of ironing and accurate cutting by Pat and Sue.

Mary has been working away on her lovely blocks, applique, needle turn, couching and embroidery, a real smorgasboard of needle crafting.

Julie was a bit shy to share her WIP, being just a few lines to practice on.  Well that's fine, but a few lines of what??  No, not Hardanger.

Slowly the story emerges, and we get a tinsy glimpse of what Julie is aiming to achieve.

Punto Antico.
You can read all about it here at Nordic Needle.
Julie has ordered a book and is working through it, just because she wanted a bit of a challenge -  like Hardanger isn't a challenge?
Helen decided to hit the net to show just what all the excitement is about.

It seems that Gwen is also learning Punto Antico.

Now have you noticed those white LED lights the girls have? they are like rabbits, really they were all over the place, its a Triumph Desktop Magnifying Lamp, ( Thanks Di) tracked them down to a Janome sewing center in Everton Park and guess what? they also come in black, pink and purple but wait, there's more, (chanelling a T.V. shopping ad.) it's freight included, and on sale at $33 was the best price I could find, mine will be here day after tomorrow....service plus! can't wait.  Been on the lookout for something like this for ages. Thanks Gals.

Betty is feeling both hot and smug, yep the temp was up there today but Betty had a head start with a very cute Chinese fan.

Lorraine shared her latest finish, a double sashed H.S.T. lovely that Lorraine will be giving to charity.

The backing is as stunning as the front of the quilt.

Now where is Sheila off to???

Yep, It's cake and song for Marcia

Could be it's one of those Big '0' birthdays

Sadly, Jenny, one of our Thursday night gals and a co-author of this blog has decided that she isn't able to be a part of our group any longer.  Jenny has a very busy career teaching 'Crazy' at various local quilting stores, writing quilting books on crazy patchwork and is of course author of her own blog Sew So Crazy.
Thank you Jenny for the input to our blog of all the work done by our 'Thursday-nighters'.