A W.I.P. of a different kind

A different take on that old quilters saying, er..that quilt saying that's been around for awhile, W.I.P.'s It's not only for work in progress but today it was a workshop in progress.

Lorraine was the mistress of controll, making sure that the bags are all of a uniform size and construction, well not so much size, Sue and her electric scissors had alread cut out dozens of them, thanks Sue.  More on the workshop with a few pointers on the bag construction at the end of the blog.

Courtney has decided to take a break from stitching with a needle and is giving her machine a run by creating a table runner, and just because she could, Lorraine was also helping Courtney out with some basic lessons, starting off with 'Thou shalt never cut crinkly fabric', yep Courtney was give an iron and told to go for it.

Stella bought her flimsey along to get some advice on what fabric to use for the binding.  Dunno what the joke was but boy those gals had the giggles up.

One of our library books, 'Black and White & Pieced all Over' was the inspiration for Stella's pattern, with the addition of corner stones in the sashing as a variation.

Fae was busily pinning her binding to yet another of her charity quilts.  Didn't want to share, well truth is, we have had some heavy rains over the last couple of days and last night was a cracker of a downpour, so of course the humidity today took us up to sauna like conditions and really... all that unfolding, holding and re-folding... she has promised us a 'look see' next week.

Some of the gals who did the Jan Phillips workshop a couple of weeks back bought their W.I.P's to date along to share, everyone seems to have a different layout design and quilt size.
Beryl was sharing her lovely when we almost got run over by Jackie...oops.

Grabbed a pic of the back of Beryl's for a peek at the seam construction, mind you, Beryl wasn't fussed on sharing, "It hasn't been pressed yet, ran out of time"!

Jackie's work to date was in two strips, so she used her verandah to help showcase her work, almost as good as another hand she reckons, others just reckoned she was doing a bit of skiting!

Val chose some lovely desert colours to go with her aboriginal design fabric, along with yet another layout.

Now as we know, Marlene doesn't do small, and this is definitely no table runner.  While stepping outside her box, Marlene went for sashed large cuts to create these blocks and using yet another layout has created this full sized quilt, along with an innovative use of two of the quilt fabrics she has created an unusual mitred border for her quilt.

We have promises of more quilts next week, looking forward to them.
AND.....
Talking of promises, there is a jolly good chance we will see Michells beautiful crazy all finished and framed next week as well.  A real treat to be looking forward to.

Now we all know how prolific Val is, so if you are wondering why she hasn't finished her quilt, perhaps this will shed some light.
Yep, another two charity quilts, assembled and quilted.
Val unearthed this beautiful needleturn block from the stash donated to us by Derrick back in 2014, she attached several borders, sandwiched, quilted and bound it for another charity quilt.

Her friend made 13 of these 'Shadow Star' blocks and then lost interest, (how often does that happen?!) she found the perfect recycle answer by passing them on to Val, who promptly assembled, sandwiched, quilted and bound them for one more charity quilt.

Of course, block no. 13 has found itself in the orphan drawer!
There is a link to the Karen Combs pattern Shadow Star here
or a variation named Star Shadows on Punch with Judy's site, here 

Irene, who hails from London, is visiting the Sunshine Coast to visit family and will be joining us for a number of weeks,  she was spotted working on this lovely fairy quilt, which coincidentally she purchased some years back here on the Sunny Coast.

Irene also shared this quilt she made for her sister using the 'Lovers Knot' block.

Inspired by Irene's claim that it is a simple block, a net search turned up a you tube tutorial by that wonderful quilter Elenor Burns from Quilt in a Day fame.
If the link fails, just open youtube and search for 'Elenor Burns', there is a squillion of her informative videos to be had.

Lorraine's instructions on assembling Najidah toiletry bags.
For uniformity of size, Sue has cut dozens of bags in the correct size for us, just take what you need from the stash.

For the cord casings you will need 2 strips of fabric, one front and one back,  the width of the unseamed bag fabric and 3" deep.
Janice demonstrates just how exact these measurements have to be. No rotary and rulers needed here!

1.  Take one casing strip and double fold the ends in by 1/4" each fold.  Stitch ends closed.
2.   Fold casing strip in half lengthwise, raw edges even.

3.   Lay the casing raw edges along the top front edge of the bag, equidistant from the side edges.
4.   Stitch casing to bag using a 1/2" seam.  Fold casing up and press seam down towards the bag body.  Topstitch a 1/4" down from casing seam, catching the seam allowance to the bag body to form a flat seam.
Repeat for the second casing on the back of the bag.

If you want to decorate your bag with a bit of tizz, an orphan block or pocket, now is the time to do it.


5.   Turn the bag fabric inside out and with top edges level, stitch both of the bag sides together, making sure not to catch the casing into the side seams.  Double stitch the top edges for strength.
6.   Box the bottom corners of you toiletry bag.
There is a corner boxing tutorial from Lazy Girl designs here
or a youtube video tutorial here
 

 There will be a working bee at the cottage to insert the cords in the near future.

Job well done, thank you.  Now sit back and feel good about being a part of this worthy enterprise.

While all this hard work was happening, Sheila, Loraine, and Pat were spotted doing a spot of sandwiching, or as one lass piped up, she was more into a spot of slacking....

Nothing wrong with takin' a break girl, nothing at all.