Like water dripping on a stone...

eventually you get there.  Well, that's what Michelle likened it to.
Many moons ago, when Michelle first moved to the Coast, she tried to enroll in Jenny's crazy class at the Angel, after many requests she was told that basically you had to wait for someone to die to get a place.......well, guess what? you don't!! no, the answer was obvious, Jenny just needed to run more classes!

Michelle is so happy and is working away on some really beautiful squares, as well as embellishing an advent calendar,

oh, and don't forget those cute bow tie blocks she recently started, as soon as they are together, the plan is to learn hand quilting from our lovely expert, Gwen.  Not planning on running out of projects in the near future is Michell.

Lyn's gift to her friend of the 'Elephant' quilt went over really well, Sonia was thrilled that the quilt tied in so well with a previous gift of a cushion, which also featured - of course- and elephant!
Back in the August 28th post, there is a lovely scrappy blue star quilt that Lyn bought along to share with us, well as it happens, there were blue stars left over, and not being one to waste a star, specially not a scrappy one, Lyn created this lovely for her Daughter.

The sailboat backing works a treat, but, and there is always a but, the fabric was a little coarser woven than normal and proved a challenge to quilt.  Lyn quilted circles over the star blocks and squares along the borders.

Estelle is one of the many who brings her own mug along to meetings, and why wouldn't you with a show piece mug bag like this one?

Estelle collects notions from various events she attends and pins them to her bag, as you can see, there is quite the history on this little wonder.

Helen has been busily stitching motifs to create this lovely pastel quilt for her Grandaughter.  Quilted on the diagonal with an embroidered angel in each corner.

Spotted Julie showing a couple of the gals this piece, not a flimsey, no, just part of a flimsey.  

Julie explained that she has another piece at home, slightly larger that will eventually be joined to this piece, there will then be a border, another row of pieced blocks and then it will be a flimsey!  Next step with be to hand quilt it!

Of course there were more Charity quilts making an appearance, yes, its just fantastic isn't it.
Some with their creators and some flying solo.
The Cats quilt was created from panels by Marie, she also used a cat as part of the backing.

 Wendy had two offerings, and although we have mountains of donated fabric, Wendy still used some of her own fabric, such as the girly garden panel.

This very striking red and white Q.A.Y.G was I think stitched by Lorraine C.  now if I am wrong I humbly apologise, it's beautifully stitched and will be a lovely quilt to snuggle under.

Arvo Tea was all about Chocolate!, scrummy!

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.

It's all go at the Cottage.........

...as the saying goes, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and boy oh boy, do we have broken eggs!! lots of upheaval while the cottage renovations and extension take place, and just to keep things interesting, the Council is sealing the car park!  Thankfully there is a temporary car park created across the road.

One of the first positive things to come from the renovations is the relocation of the Potters wonderful wall mural from inside the Atrium to the external wall by the side entrance, the most often used entrance where it will be visible to everyone passing  from the car park into the cottage or through to the Church next door.  It looks terrific and was certainly the object of much admiration from some school kids and adults yesterday. 

Created by the Pottery Group in 1984 and dedicated to Jeane Cameron it 'Depicts the joining together of the people of Craft Cottage in the love of their craft - the fellowship it creates - and the beautiful environment' - a lovely and so true sentiment!

The Quilts at Show and Tell were all so very lovely, firstly we had two charity quilts from Val made for  'Laurel House' an 'Angels' quilt in vibrant colours....

and a larger string pieced Q.A.Y.G.

Lorraine took over 9 months to get this one from idea to completion, she blames the colour selection!, made from scraps it was originally a 'Take Along' project for her quilting groups, Lorraine tells us that although the blocks were from scraps and therefore 'free' the borders and backing cost a bomb!

Helen also had two quilts to show us, both originated from the one idea in that she bought a lovely Layer Cake and proceeded with stitcheries in complimentary colours.  However, once the stitcheries were completed the Layer Cake colours were far too heavy! which of course meant.............yeah, of course, more fabric had to be purchased...........now isn't that a sad story - not.
Helen's beautiful stitchery quilt, made just for herself, and inspired by a similar quilt made by Julie.

 A closer view of some of the lovely stitcheries by Helen

 The Layer Cake fabrics were much admired by Helen's Stepdaughter, so taking the 'Crossed Kayaks' pattern, Helen created this beautiful quilt for her.

It was day one of June teaching the 'Hidden Wells' quilt, all those doing the quilt bought along their fabric stacks for colour selection help from June - and of course all the other gals had a say as well, great fun was afoot in the front room colours discussed, patterns drafted, and a wee tad of homework to be done.
June also bought this wonderful African inspired quilt that she had made for her 16 yr old Grandson along to show us, all of his favourite earthy colours with animal prints.

June has appliqued tigers across the borders into the quilt body, a very effective and fave trick of hers.

Men at work.........well Men discussing work, 3 Builders/Tradies working out the best way to attack the next step.

and then there are the guys taking out the post and rails edging the car park in preparation for the next step.

You can see the stump from one of the many lovely big shade trees that have been removed in the foreground.
When I think of Buderim I think of lovely big shady Camphor Laurels and Poinciana trees along the streets, sadly these are being phased out, but that's a whole different story!

Christmas is in the Air

...with lots of Show and Tell of a Christmas theme, but first I'd like to share this pic of the Grandie with you. 
He loved visiting the Cottage at our recent mini retreat and taking pics of the girls working on the mystery project, a wall hanging with an innovative way of displaying your Christmas Cards (slip paperclips over bright small buttons - Cool huh?!) 
As soon as we got home he raided the stash, choose his fabrics and asked, 'Grandma - show me how'.  Little did we know that a couple of days later he was to break his wrist, so here he is, in his black plaster showing off his wall-hanging.

 

Entrance to the Cottage is through the Atrium where we have a lovely glass display cabinet that all the groups take it in turn of filling and displaying their craft, this month it is the Patchwork groups turn and as Christmas is just around the corner we decided on a Christmas theme for our display.  

Lorraine bought in these lovely tree decorations, prairie points folded from wire edged ribbon.

 Janice bought along more of her Suffolk Puff tree decorations.

Christmas stockings that we have seen previously, but they are so cute another viewing won't go astray, we even unearthed a fourth one at the other end of the table - Thanks Ailsa.

Sets of Hexagon placemats with contrasting backing, some with matching coasters from Janice.

Sue has another take on her machine assembled Hexagons, these coasters with a cute star being formed in the center.

The bags have been finished from Sue's workshop, Louise and Ailsa helped display them for the pics - Thanks girls.

Helen bought her latest flimsey in to share, Crossed Canoes blocks that form several secondary designs of propellers and circles. 

Sue shared this really cute little quilt, in fact it was so cute we were all standing around, gooing and ga-ing over it so much, we made Susie go all cutsie.

Sadly, laughter and photography don't really go together all that well, the pic is a bit blurry, and its the best of the bunch!

Sue found the designs on Vicki's blog, Tozz's Corner,  as a freebie BOM.  Thanks Vicki, its a lovely design.

 

Went to thank Louise for her help and found her with this.....

 

a pretty in Louise's stitching world.

given to Louise as a gift many years ago but still in use.

Its not always just about the quilts,

..although we did have some lovely quilts for Chanetlle (Show and Tell) today, Lorraine started us off with her completed Tessellated T's.

Lorraine has had these Japanese prints in her stash for quite awhile, they were a bit of a mistake she told us, after buying them she discovered that she really didn't like Japanese prints after all, and so they sat at the back of the cupboard, awaiting inspiration, and finally, along it came, the perfect pattern to use her fabrics and create a quilt she loves that will now live on Lorraine's sofa.

As so often happens when a family member spies a goodie that you have created, they want one too, and this was the case with the bag that Lyn made for the Lyn Ballinger Challenge.  This little cutie here,

a request was put in for one just the same, well, Lyn said 'not the same but similar' and here it is, front and back views, can't you just see Lyn and her Daughter out shopping together with their complimentary totes?

Helen had just picked up her Quilt WIP from Fiona, who has quilted it with the cutest little heart pattern.

Helen is eagerly awaiting the birth of a Great Grandson, he will be arriving soon but Helen has promised to bring the quilt  back for us when it is bound. 
The center panel was discovered while Helen was away on Holidays, on the other side of this great continent of ours, when news of the Great Grandson arrived, she popped down to one of the LQS's and there, lo and behold was the matching border fabric! Kismet!

And this is where it becomes not just about quilts, we were rather privileged to be shown these wonderful pieces of history today.

This sampler was begun in 1883, on 26th October, that makes it 126 years old.

 It never did get finished, talk about a wrong colour choice, how hard would that black have been to work with, probably by candlelight, and how long did she persevere? but what neat stitches, and the black does show them off beautifully.

 Then there was this beauty, very fine linen, obviously well loved, well used and beautifully looked after.

I wonder what the story was about the missing letter? was there disappointment? was it perhaps a sampler done by a child and given to a Mother.  Beautiful fine stitches from almost 100 years ago.

Louise was admiring these two bags and she very kindly held this one for a pic.  Went rather well with the Tee don't you think?

 There are the most amazing beaded panels around the center of the bag, and a little V shaped decorative edging, beaded on each side of the shapes, you can see the underneath of one V shape at the top right, the drawstring has beaded tassels on each end and the whole thing is finished off with a circular base and another tassel.

Another example of beautiful beading, looks like the ribbon is a more recent addition for the drawstring. Beautifully formed leaves fold over the looped strings of beads.

What a treat to view such treasures, thank you very much.

These four quilts were bought along for Chantelle by Val and they have a truly amazing story, but firstly a little background, Val leads a small group of ladies who gather each Monday morning to make quilts for  Laurel House, a refuge for abused children.

One of the group is Betty, a lovely lady of 86 years who has a bit of a tough time, she is a Leukaemia sufferer and has to have treatment every second week, so not an easy life.

 

These quilts are Betty's quilts, wonderful quilts, full of imagination and joy.

Betty makes a flimsey every couple of weeks and Margaret, a neighbour quilts them for her and then they are delivered to Laurel House, just the ticket to snuggle into when you are looking for a little comfort.