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'.