Tent Makers of Cairo...

...we have heard so much about them over the past few years thanks to the promotion of their work by Australian quilter/tutor/textile artist Jenny Bowker, and today we got to see a piece 'in the flesh' so to speak. 
Anike bought along her smaller piece to share with us, it has an envelope backing so was probably a large floor cushion cover.

 The pieces are stitched very quickly, and are not made as heirloom pieces, rather more of the everyday and not designed to be kept longterm, serving the purpose of background hangings for celebrations and even funerals.

The tentmakers, all male, stitch these intricate pieces for all and any celebrations  but as is so often the case these days, this ancient craft is being overtaken by the fast, cheap, easy with printed polyester that you can buy by the yard such as this meterage Anike also bought along to share

Jenny talks of her work promoting the tentmakers and there work here while this link will give you a glimpse of modern day applications of the tentmakers work - great pics of celebrations and some of the works.  Both these links are to pages on Jenny Bowkers blog.  You can visit the Tenmakers community facebook page 'Stitch like an Egyptian' here.
Listen to Jenny talking about the tentmakers while watching a father son team and their amazing stitching speed here.
Enjoy!

Irene had a lovely to share with us, made back in 2011 from a layer cake using a disappearing nine patch design, as Irene said, a simple but very effective design, perfect for showing off beautiful fabrics.

Irene hand quilted around each block and placed a watermelon and square design in the larger squares with a string of hearts in the borders.

Remember all those squares Lainey had been chopping into existence?, well she stitched some of them into this rather lovely charity quilt.  A combination of white & patterned H.S.T's with solid squares stitched together in lines, either vertical or horizontal, doesn't matter but Lainey reckons a design wall or floor is 'very necessary' for the stepped placement of the solid blocks.   Machine quilted in vertical lines

Lainey also quilted these two charity quilts, assembled by Val from Derrick's darlings stash.  The Cathederal windows was an assembled piece that Val simply bordered with fabric from the stash.

All three of these quilts will be donated to the Rockhampton womens shelter in the very near future.

So, would you be upset to loose this cutie in the making?

Val was!, helping with the charity quilt pics she inadvertently bought the block along, placed it on a chair and forgot where it was for a minute.  Erk!  All ended well with Santa back where he belonged.

So so many more of the toiletry bags bought in this week, there will be quite a tidy number ready to be filled next month.

They look so pretty with their pocket trims. (Was thinking gay and pretty but well, I guess that just shows my age, I really miss using that word, it was a goodie! spoke volumes)

Courtney is getting stuck into the stitching part of her table runner, all under the watchful eye of tutor Lainey.  Just look in the background, another roll of wadding, my goodness you gals are churning out those charity quilts!

A new gadget

Di was beavering away at finishing the binding on this quilt at the beginning of the day, created using a layer cake and drunkards path template - yep we do have it in our library, Di had Fiona from the Quilting Fairy longarm a continuous design over her quilt.

 

To make the binding task a little easier, Di had lashed out on a Clover desk needle threader and was a bit dismayed to find that it didn't perform as promised.

Not to be defeated by a little thing like that, Di did a bit of research and found that Clover recommends you use Clover brand needles, (of course) something to do with the oval eye of the clover needles.  So, a dash into the store on her way to quilting and Di had her required needles but hadn't actually got to the stage of needing to re-thread her needle.  So, does it work or does it not? more on this cliff hanger next week.

Anike was setting up to continue 'free hand quilting' or as we would term it free motion quilting on half of her quilt.

Inspired by a quilt spotted in a magazine, this is Anike's own design, the reds in the layout form large hexagon shapes that will be quilted in an allover circular design with straight line quilting in the black background.  Anike opted to do the quilting in two pieces so as not to have too much bulk in the throat of her machine.

Debby was threading up her needle in preparation of button hole stitching around some really cute farm animals on a baby quilt for her God daughters new baby.

Janice is quite a prolific quilter and usually has her quilts quilted by a long arm quilter, or if her own quilting, has gone with the stitch in the ditch approach.  With the continued support of a friend who convinced her to give it a try she has been pleasantly surprised to find just how easy it is to get a great result using gentle curves and straight lines.

The above quilt and this one below are just two of the quilts that Janice will be offering for sale at the upcoming Easter Fair on Saturday March 26th.

As promised, Michelle bought along her lovely crazy patchwork squares, all framed up and looking beautiful.

some closer peeks at some of Michells blocks and yes, the background fabric is black, not blue as in some of these pics. 

Heather was inspired by Michells work and also joined the happy little gang of 'crazies' who gather at Patchwork Angel to be tutored by Jenny.

Although we have a copy of Jenny's book in our library, Heather chose to buy her own copy.  It's a great reference and inspirational book.

We had two gals visiting with us today with a view to joining our group, Karen and Carol.
Karen chose to bring a piece of Sashiko along to work on.

Carol bought along some 1/2" hexies that she will be using on a quilt for her bed using her own design of Cathederal Windows with a hexie in each window.
 Carol was originally enticed to start on the 'Insanity' quilt by this gift from a friend, a cute mini

sewing kit.  Val identified the fabric as being from one of Lynette Anderson's ranges.
'Insanity' is an award winning quilt by Australian quilter and tutor Rhonda Pearce and uses over 10,000 hexies.  After making a number of the hexies, Carol decided 10 thousand was just a few more than she wanted to create, hence the new design of a quilt for her bed.   The pattern for 'Insanity' was featured on the front cover of an old Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine, pictured below if you are interested in your own little piece of insanity


More on the quilt creations from the Jan Phillips workshop held recently.
Jackie, Denise and Val, carefully separating fabrics after one of those breath holding free form cuts.

Heather with her tablerunner, not quilted yet but in the works! - It's all that crazy stitching she is doing - only so many hours in a day!

Marlene's sweetie is at home on her 'design floor' but she did bring us a pic on her phone,
Dots and spots added, coming along nicely.

Marlene is also the first to bring along her finished Najidah toiletry bags, with a handy pocket front for added colour.

New member Karen D. was also working on Shashiko.                         
 

While Lorraine L. was sitting back, taking a break from her hand pieced stars.

 Sandy has almost completed another embroidered block.

and Val has selected just a few fabrics from Derricks donated stash to help in the creation of more charity quilts.

Karen is also working on little hexies that she will be turning into a pretty little make-up bag for herself.

Marcia was given a fat quarter pack and a commission to create 'a rug for the floor for her grandson in law to watch t.v.'

She opted for a pattern sourced from Moda Bake Shop, not unlike this pattern here. to create a very masculine quilt, just perfect to roll around and wrap yourself in for a tellie marathon.

Marcia had her quilt longarm quilted by local lass Carmen, who, whould you believe, only had the quilt for 2 days before returning it to Marcia, talk about speedy.  We will be able to share Carmen's contact details with you in the near future - (it's a holiday thing!)
Update:  just to hand, Carmen's new e-mail contact
 carmensquilting@gmail.com.
So, if you are interested in having Carmen quilt your latest lovely, shoot her off an email, she will contact you and soon you will have a snuggly lovely!