Hand Quilting....don't you just love it

Talking with quilters about the one thing they most love about quilting, the thing that captures the heart, is more often than not, hand quilting.  Those tiny little stitches, so uniform, creating such intricate designs.  Our group has many hand quilters of note but the one whom we all look up to is Gwen, who volunteered to quilt the central design on this beautiful W.I.P. for Dorothy.

 

There is quite a saga attached to this quilt, Dorothy began creating it with her son and his bride in mind, but life changes and for various reasons the quilt was packed away for a number of years, until chatting with the other gals she was encouraged to bring it along.

Helen, one of our long time members and a quiet achiever,got the ball rolling on this lovely by volunteering to do the remainder of the needle turn applique, which was promptly followed by Gwen volunteering to do the central medallion quilting, by this stage Dorothy was getting quite excited and wondering what exactly to do with the quilt, her Grandson promptly asked to be the recipient, so, a family heirloom, with a story, in the making.

More Charity quilts are being created and Beryl in the spirit of waste not, want not, decided to clip apart the trimmings from the string quilt blocks into crumbs and useable triangles.

Now that's the spirit!
Mind you, the guilt then hit and I popped my trimmings into a covering thinking the dog might like it for a bed, nope, he wanted the whole shebang...

30 seconds, I kid you not, between flinging the quilt over the couch, turning to pick up the camera and finding him scrunched up on that tiny little overhang - and no he's not asleep, he is just pretending! the big furry quilt snatcher!

Sue W. created this lovely hand quilted wall hanging for her friend of many years in memory of the times they traveled to Japan with their work.

And another lovely applique quilt from Sue W, inspired by Sue A's show quilt, which in turn was inspired by a quilt in a magazine Gwen was perusing, and so the creative juices flow.

A wedding quilt with a special story. 
Janice's long time friends were at one time Strawberry farmers - and Janice was one of those intrepid souls who helped out at Strawberry picking season, not a job for the faint hearted - said friends are now raspberry farmers. 
As soon as Janice spotted this black and white floral she thought of Raspberry flowers, disappearing 9-Patch and the upcoming wedding of her friends Son - Viola! Wedding Quilt inspiration!

Janice had the quilt machine quilted and added a striped binding for extra pazazz!

A big thank you came the way of Fae, Marlene, and Estelle.
Laurel from the Buderim Garden Club popped into last weeks meeting to thank them, return the quilts loaned and present the three with a lovely potted plant.

If you were one of the many visitors to the Garden Festival in the Memorial Hall you would have seen the quilts on display.  Made for quite the stunning entry.

Birthday Cake, a quilt beginning, News and lots of hand work...

Happy Birthday Inge!!
Yep, Inge had a rather special Birthday with lots of lovely celebrations including a fab afternoon tea at the Cottage courtesy of her lovely Daughter Betty.
The Birthday Cake was a yummy affair with slices of fresh strawberries over the top...

plates and plates of wonderful goodies to munch on and some of the best curried egg sandwiches I've fanged since....well since the last time!
Betty then popped herself up on a chair to take this great 'Birthday Party' Pic of the group.

Debby, one of the Needlework group, joined us for Patchwork, she is starting on a cute floral applique quilt for her bed, 3 blocks done so far, great job Debby!

The Ladies on the Top Table.......is that is 'top of the class' table? 'top gals table'? or the table at the top end of the room?.. or all three?......anyway, they are all busy beavering away for the Big Tree-mendous Quilt Show that is coming up in a rush, Winifred is creating a lovely cushion, appliqueing a pieced tumbling blocks to the cushion front.  Louise is also creating a cushion, lots of lovely hand quilting going on there! and Dorothy is knitting up a storm with a squiggly scarf, lots of little 'fingers' down the side that will twist and turn as the scarf grows.

We were all very sad when Lorraine H decided to re-locate back to Tassy, Lorraine was a very involved group member, taking on Leadership of the Thursday night group, and always happy to share her knowledge and tips, lots of which she learned from the many local classes and retreats that she attended.
Although Lorraine has been able to keep up with all our news and work by accessing our blog through her local library, we have just had little snippets now and again, so it was a wonderful surprise to finally get an e-mail from her, yep, finally on the net...well it takes time to get connections and cables laid when you live in the middle of a National Park on a Tassy coast!   ;)


The most exciting bit of news? remember the stunning  Lone Star quilt Lorraine shared with us before she left?, then a flimsey, it has since been finished and entered in the Annual Quilt Guild of Tasmania's show....and won 4th Place.  Congratulations Lorraine!!

Lorraine also entered her 'Friends of Buderim' row x row Friendship quilt.

 and....
yeah, there is more....
she also entered her Hexagon sampler 'Start of Something Big'

 and for those of you who want the details, Lorraine has also sent us pics of the show notes.

 And to fill you in on what she has been up to, some of Lorraine's email....

 "However, I have been able to keep up with all the Buderim Group news when I travel into town and visit the Library using their computers. It seems like you all are still producing lovely work and having a lot of fun. As soon as we arrived here, I joined the local Patchwork Group - Wynyard Cottage Patchwork - and I have really enjoyed attending their meetings. They are a lovely group of around 25 members who meet 3 times a month in each others homes. There seems to be a big emphasis on hand work down here with lots of beautiful applique and hand quilting everywhere! I have also joined the Quilting Guild of Tasmania and recently went to a wonderful retreat with them - 5 days of unlimited quilting in the middle of Tasmania in a lovely mountain setting. A few weeks ago, the Annual Quilt Show for the Guild was held in Launceston in conjunction with the Craft Fair. I had some quilts entered, and was lucky enough to win an award! My blue and white lone star quilt was awarded 4th place in the Amateur Traditional Section. As this was the largest section in the whole show, I was really surprised to get an award. It was so exciting to be at the show and see all the wonderful quilts there, and one of mine with a rosette on it ! I have attached some photos of my quilts at the show." 

Thanks for the update Lorraine, and once again congratulations on your Show win.  How about some pics of the work done by your new quilty friends?, I am sure we would all love to share. - A.

It's all about purple.....

Wendy shared this lovely quilt with us and gave the girls a demo on how to cut and assemble the blocks, really, its easy when you know how....well, that's what Wendy said.

Marie thought the quilt was so lovely she wanted it as a backdrop to showing off her bag that she made in Sue's workshops.

It was the Mooloola Valley Quilt group's Show and Tell day and Beryl won one of the many raffles, this pretty pansy cushion, in, of course purples.....Beryl even wore a purple bracelet to go with her purple top.....

Estelle has made two quilts for the pediatric intensive care unit where her little Grandie was treated.

Sue shared this stunning Celtic knot design table runner

Wendy was showing her almost finished UFO to Fran, bought as a kit a wee while back, lots of lovely lacy ruffles and ric rac.

Dorothy bought along the cutest little sewing box to share with us, take off the lid and the sides fall down to reveal a complete sewing kit, even has a special spot for your thimble and the top of the lid is a pin cushion.

A pretty in Dorothy's sewing world.

Mail was waiting for us to-day, from Marguerite, did she send us a pretty view of the countryside? no, a street scape showing the shopping we are missing out on? no, .....we got a lesson on pronunciation! yeah! true!

see......
Hi Marguerite....  big waves from all of us.

Show and Tell today started off with a burst, a star burst..
Lorraine, who, by the way, describes herself as a self taught beginner, has only been quilting for 2 years and has never heard of the quilt police, as such she is absolutely fearless, will tackle anything! and here's the proof

Lorraine with 'Thousand Diamonds'.  A piece of sage advice was given to Lorraine when she first stated she was going to make a Lone Star quilt, and that was to choose your star center fabric very carefully, the eye will immediately travel to the center first, so, not a big print, not too fussy or cluttered and not too light.  Great advice

Marcia has completed the disappearing 9 patch  flimsy she started at the Retreat, and mentioned that she is more a fan of keeping the cut center patch in alignment as opposed to the random twists and turns she used assembling this top

It was then time to share some really beautiful Friendship quilts, some live permanently on beds, some reside in cupboards but are considered treasures and some are still blocks, patted and petted, they bring back memories of quilting friends from our past.
This beauty was sent along by Betty who was not able to be with us today, it lives on Betty's bed, a lovely 3-D applique quilt, it was fun trying to find the cleverly hidden signatures and remembering past and current members.

Fran bought the quilt along for Betty, so of course, had to click another view to show off Fran's handy-work, yep bottom left block, laying so prettily on the table.

Lorraine H bought her Row x Row along to show us, done as a group project last year, there certainly were some astounding quilts made.

Janet's friendship quilt was done with her previous quilting group, before moving to the Sunshine Coast, she and her Darling then spent quite some time sailing on the ocean blue, and for a take along hand project, Janet constructed more blocks and hand pieced and quilted this lovely.

Janet pieced hexagons for the backing, using some of the left over fabrics for a splash of colour.

Lyn had this cute little house panel in her stash, perfect as a center for her round robin friendship quilt, bit hard to see, but those are more little pieced house blocks in the various borders.

Ailsa finished the binding on her Row x Row  at the Retreat,and bought her treasure along to share with us.

Lorraine's friendship flimsy, yep, still a flimsy, and why you ask, well it was made specifically for her waterbed, and just about the time the last stitch went into it, Lorraine and her Darling decided to change beds!!!!!
Lorraine now needs to add about another 2' or even 24" to her quilt and is stumped for ideas.
Got any suggestions?...........Lorraine would be grateful.

Fae showed us her lovely quilt, lots of hand applique, Sunbonnet Sues and 3-D Flowers, Fae had this lovely sitting in her cupboard for quite awhile, until her Grandie decided to take it and hand quilt it for her.

peer closely and you can see some of the beautiful stitching done  on this lovely quilt, again, it was fun trying to find the signatures or initials and remember the gals who had made these blocks.

Dorothy's friendship quilt lives on her spare bed, and has seen thousands of emergency toiletries packed into bags made by various group members to help those who suddenly find themselves homeless.

Dorothy worked the Cottage symbol as the basis for her Friendship Label.

Australian flowers was the theme for Janice's friendship quilt, the red bottle brush (bottom row, center) was stitched by a Japanese lass who created tiny tassels to form the red brush.

Jackie has a novel Friendship quilt, its a project bag, with her name embroidered onto the front

The bag was a treasure trove of Friendship blocks and even a little wall hanging, although not assembled they still give Jackie pleasure to go through and remember the gals from past groups.

Beryl had a number of Friendship quilts from various groups, a beautifully vibrant sashed 9-patch, 

This lovely round robin with some special memories.

and this little wall hanging, made over the Christmas break with a group of friends.  Proving not all Friendship quilts have to be large.

Marie bought along another one of her show winning quilts, this one with machine embroidered animals and lovely textured blocks.

A closer view of two of Marie's animals with some of the unusual crinkly textured blocks,

And this is how Marie achieved the texture, a product called 'Shrinking Sheet', you can see some of the quilt underneath and a test piece of fabric that Marie bought in to show us on the right.

 
Lorraine was wanting to finish the binding on this Linus quilt, to hand it in at the next Project Linus Meeting.

Closer view of the simple alternating1 patch / 4patch design that Lorraine has used. These quilts give great comfort to the children in hospital, going with them to and from treatments.

Sadly, we are told that 2 out of 3 children suffering from Cancer in hospital are boys, the same goes for Autistic children in hospital, hence Lorraine making mostly quilts in boy friendly designs and colours.

The Sunshine Coast chapter of Project Linus is newly formed, and meets at the Patchwork Angel in Forest Glen on the first Monday of the month.  Pretty easy to find the Angel, it is housed in an old church painted a nice cheery yellow, situated on the main street of Forest Glen.

Judie Bellingham, well known quilter, tutor and Quilting Editor for Bella Online, has a huge stash of everything needed to make these quilts, lots of lovely fabrics to choose from and the wadding used is a double sided fusable, so no pinning of quilt sandwiches.  You don't have to be a quilter or even a sewer to be involved in this worthwhile project, there are plenty of other jobs on offer and of course, you get to meet some lovely ladies.

Here is a sneak peek of a quilt being worked on, its a secret so can't tell you who but aren't the fabrics lovely?, all the animals dressed and ready to board Noah's Ark.

Arvo Tea was the usual wonderful, delish tinsy little sangers, but instead of being late for the plate, I was early! yep those two plates were filled with biccies and there was a lovely moist ginger cake being sliced off to the side.  Major yummo.