2016 - really, what happened to 2015?

My goodness time just keeps marching along at an ever increasing pace, while feeling smug that it's a new year - lots of time ahead to organise oneself - some smartie pointed out that over 10% of the new year is gone!!! and some of us haven't got a start on yet!

Well, many of our group didn't let the grass grow underfoot over the break, as you will see, lots of projects started, and even more finished, but firstly we would all like to pay homeage to a lady who helped our Cottage run smoothly for many years.
Sadly Betty passed away over the Christmas break.  There will be a memorial service for her this Saturday 6th at 3p.m. in St. Marks Anglican Church - next door to the Cottage - to farewell Betty and to celebrate her life.
She was an amazing woman, meticulous in all she did. Betty did the most beautiful needlework and patchwork, a display of some of her pieces is now in the glass cabinet at the Cottage, thanks to Needlework Group leader Pam.  The photo in the cabinet was taken at the Patchwork afternoon tea to celebrate Betty's 90th Birthday a couple of years back.
Betty was our Cottage Treasurer for many years, she not only looked after the Cottage finances, keeping us in a sound state but also mentored many of the group treasurers, making sure that all was correct and balanced.  She also wore other hats while treasurer, rental officer and maintenance officer being just two of the extra jobs she did with such aplomb.  In fact, when Betty resigned as Treasurer, the Cottage had to call on 4 volunteers to fill the positions she had held.

Lyn and Sue W were having a good old catch up first day back, Sue working on an applique piece, part of an alphabet quilt.
Lyn was working on 2/3rds of a quilt that will eventually be for a special someone.  A design rework of 'May Flowers' a pattern from one of our library magazines.
Lyn opted to strip piece the alternate blocks as opposed to the flowers, prefering instead to use the border fabric as the flower centers, fussy cutting some and leaving the others to chance.

As Lyn said, some lost their heads, some their tails but some worked out perfectly, like the lime cat in the lime flower - cute!
Lyn used a Q.A.Y.G. method in three pieces that she is now joining together and bordering.

Marlene is still working on her paper pieced blocks, got half of them done so far, looking foreward to seeing the final creation.  Beryl is involved in a group quilt, everyone making a block topped with a layer of crystal organza. Makes for some interesting stitching.

Jackie has been inspired to do a 'Jacks Chain' design using some of her Kaffe Fassett fabric stash while Marlene looks thoughtfully on, inspiration??  working out a simpler way??

Courtney has made a start on her new embroidery piece - well 3 pieces really, fresh out of the packaging to begin a new year.

It seems that needlework is the current rage, some to be used in quilts, some not.
Sandy is working on a 'Red Brolly' design, Inge is taking a break from that ever increasing pile of hexies while Heather and Stella are playing with thread, yep that is Stella's armies being held captive there, Karen is working on beautiful stitcheries that will find themselves in another of her quilts and new member Rita is doing some white on white embroidery.

So, what is the story with Heather and Stella?
Well you remember that georgeous crazy patchwork piece Michell did last year?
Heather has been bitten by the crazy bug and is taking a crazy class to create her version in white with jewel tone threads, ribbons, buttons.....

We have had a few crownings lately, Fae was crowned as Miss Prolific, a hard earned title for bringing along two finished charity quilts last week...

and another one this week.  Wow!!, she is really giving that new sewing machine a work out!

Lainey has been crowned - literally - as Queen of the Scrappy -
This she tells us is the last strip Q.A.Y.G quilt she is going to make, yeah, right!, anyway, not being one to waste any size fabric offcut (not a scrap in Lainey's eyes) she had all these funny shaped bits left over from squaring up the Q.A.Y.G. blocks, so what to do? well make a ipad pouch of course, complete with cute button tab, or you could call it a crown...if you want to...(Sheila had to hold it up, kept falling over Laineys eyes...)

Debby had a great find at the Needlework 'Bring and Buy', this lovely tapestry barely begun, lots of work for Debby to continue with.

Talk about the never ending story, Lyn was doing a fair imitation with her Christmas table runner story.
Lyn bought a table runner pattern at the Quilt and Craft show last year and made table runners for all her family members, just like the one she is showing us here.

You would think that would be the end of it wouldn't you...but no.

One daughter reminded Mum, 'My table is square", so a square runner had to be created, still using the basic pattern.

Lyn was a wee tad taken with the square runner and ran herself
up a version.
But of course, you can't have Christmas runners on the table
all year round - the answer?


Another version.
Talk about getting value from a pattern.

 

Gwen is taking a little break from quilting and becoming more involved in her needlework, she started this lovely by doing just one block to see how she went, fell in love with it and went on to create this beautiful runner.

Val kept herself busy over the break, she created these 4 flimseys for charity quilts using a combination of donated fabric and orphan blocks. They will be quilted by other group members.

Pat bought this adorable little girls quilt along to share with us, its for her Grandaughter.

The pattern was purchased at the Quilt and Craft show last year, but sorry, don't know who's pattern it is.

Machine appliqued and F.M.Quilted.  Pat shared that she lowered her machine speed and just took her time with the applique.  A beautiful quilt for a special lady.  Pat used the cute bumble bee fabric shown at the pic. bottom for the backing.

Janice is our Afternoon tea co-ordinator, to keep our napkins tidy she made us a couple of these.

 Napking holders, pretty and practical.  Thank you Janice, it's nice to have the napkins nicely waiting and not blowing around.

Lastly, a pic for those who have asked about out darling little Ollie.  He is doing great, blitzes his medical checkups and tests.  He started crawling the same day he got his oxygen tube removed and is off like a rocket, has no patience with staying still with his feeds, Mum has to trail him around making sure everything is well or Olls just drags the whole kit and kaboodle along behind him.  He is almost 18 months old now, the world is his oyster and he is having a darn good chew on it.

This was taken a couple of days after the family moved into their new digs, yep the lawn has been mown since and yep, Olls is all over it!

CONGRATRATULATIONS Janice!!!

Janice is the prize winner of the Viewers Choice category of our Lyn Ballinger Challenge.
All the Challenge entries were on display at the recent exhibition held by the Fabric Art and Surface Design group, which was by the way an outstanding success.

Visitors to the exhibition were given the opportunity to vote on which entry appealed to them the most.  The results were a landslide in favour  of Janice's Coral, and we can see why, very realistic and imaginative, but a simple design  using bandages to create her coral.

While surfing the net Janice spotted a pic of a coral formation, polyps withdrawn. and it stuck with her.  While playing around with some bandages, inspiration struck and she created version 1 of her entry, why version 1?  well, a certain miss, who shall remain nameless, took a liking to Janice's creation and decided it needed to go home with her.
So version 2 had to be created, and here it is!

The Challenge perpetual trophy of a quilt stand is now Janice's to use for the year, to display some of her beautiful quilts.

Congratulations again Janice.

A Special quilt and a Show Winner

Sheila recently bought her latest creation in to share with us.  It was packaged up the next day in Birthday Wrapping for someone special, one of her lucky Granddaughters!

The center panel is a piece of Nottingham Lace that Sheila has been treasuring for quite a few years, surrounded by memory blocks, such as the T's for an initial and hearts for love of course, all surrounded by a very unusual pieced border that Sheila designed.

It's always a thrill when one of the group gains outside acknowledgment with a win at a show, be it Agricultural or Quilt.  Congratulations to Janice for her win at the Nambour Show with her 'Musical Quilt'
Janice has made several Musical Themed quilts and they are always a popular seller at our Fairs, each one different but all with that musical theme.

Our group recently had a visit from Pauline Rogers, also known as 'The Gadget Queen'.

Marie, who organised the visit also took pics and did a report for us.  Thank you Marie - I was sorry to have missed the show but school hols always chuck a bit of a curve into one's plans.

Pauline explains many ways to use Bias on quilts.

On this example Pauline has used a striped fabric to create bias.

And on this example she has created a most unusual floral design.

A quilt made using bias and many different techniques of using fabric.  The quilt was put together with a variation of quilt as you go which Pauline demonstrated.

Two different effects on the Butterfly wings.

More methods of construction to create the flowers, some are created by different folds and others using a folded suffolk puff.  The Butterfly's pink wings were created by uniform tucking then folding the tucks back on themselves and stitching in place.

The backing is done using different fabrics pieced together.

Here Pauline shows how to use the mesh transfer canvas and Karisma glue pen and pencils to transfer your designs then glue them in place with Roxanne glue.

Demonstrating how to use the Binding Tool to make finishing off your binding easy with no hassells.

Pauline demonstrated her version of how to do quilt as you go, using the bias makers.

And lastly, Pauline demonstrated how she folds and pins her fabric before cutting.

Everyone had a most enjoyable time, lots of stories told about a fun day with lots of damage done to the plastic and some gals even finding exotic ways of 'hiding the purchase'....don't we all just love to do that!