Christmas Fair and our Blog's Anniversary

Well there was certainly a lot of excitement in the air today, mountains of patchwork goodies were arriving for the Christmas Fair, fabric leaves were being cut out, and hopefully the cotton ends snipped off those that needed it (sorry girls, bit slack there) and Sheila had a big surprise for us all,

This wonderful cake to celebrate our blog anniversary.
Can you believe it, another year has rolled around, and over us, honestly I have no idea where the last 3 months disappeared to.

Heather and Sue, busily snipping those leaves apart for Caity to count.
Gwen, Wendy and Marcia stitchin up a storm.
The cake getting it's first cut.........can you make a wish when cutting a group cake? I did, for a very successful Christmas Fair, well, it was a no brainer really, I love to say I made a wish and it came true! don't you?
Betty telling Sheila all about her flimsey she bought in to share with us, since retiring as Cottage Treasurer and the myriad of jobs that that entailed, Betty now has time to make lots of quilts, and a good thing she has lots of time too, this little treasure was created after Betty discovered that she had cut a whole pile of squares ....the wrong size, dontch just hate that!

Lyn bought along her finished friendship quilt.  It didn't get finished in time for last Christmas due to a packed calendar - read gadding about on a wonderful holiday - but its all ready to go for this Christmas.

Sheila had a great idea for a Christmas gift for her Grandies, Pillow cases to match their quilts!
Some of the inspiration came from one of our recently acquired library books, lovely kisses on a case to go with the hugs and kisses quilt for one Grandaughter.

  7 pillowcases made, and only one to go, brilliant idea.


Betty and the troublesome flimsey, Betty shared that she has made a pattern for the next attempt, and it will be right!

Jackie shared her latest quilt, made with wonderful Kaffe Fassett Fabrics,  and all ready to have the binding attached, a little job for the holiday break.

Last week we all thought it was pretty impressive to have your long arm quilter deliver your finished quilt, well guess what,  same happened this week, yep Judy bought Jackie's quilt along to the meeting, now that's service!
Showing the girls the  floral quilting design.

and here is a bit of a closer view.  Judy used a lovely variegated thread in reds for the quilting.

Jackie had another quilt to share with us, a lovely soft 'Shabby Chic', simply quilted with a cross design

Sadie stitched these lovely Princess skirts with glitzy tiaras as a donation to Val's charity group.  Val and her Monday group have been making charity quilts for some time now.

A couple of weeks back Lorraine gave us a demo on QAYG methods, Wendy, who is also a member of the machine embroiders group, decided to have a go at the technique using some lovely Babushka doll stitcheries that she has created.  Showing us how easy it is Wendy had to pause to remember just how to deal with those corners.

Lorraine's demo pics and instructions are on one of the 'stand alone' page links just under our banner, just click on 'Tutorials and Directions from Members' and scroll down.

If perchance you will be in our neck of the woods this weekend, please pop in and say 'Hi' to the Patchwork Girls, we would love to see you.  The Fair gets off to a start on Friday night, and will run over the Saturday and Sunday.  With 13 groups of crafters and artisans there is always an enormous range of quality goods for sale.

Leafy Workshop and the countdown begins...

well there wasn't a whole lot of quilting being done yesterday, we had a workshop to create leaves for our quilt show,Heather and Beryl fused the fabrics together, just look at how hard Beryl was working, all that paper backing on the floor.....Sadly, no pic of Heather, she was slaving away getting a great arvo tea together for us.

It was a real team effort, some were using templates to draw leaves onto the fused fabric, and some were out the back stitching around the shapes while others were then cutting out the leaves.  Catti wants us to make hundreds - yep hundreds -  of these little darlings - and she is keeping a tally!
Oh and what are all those lovely leaves for I hear you ask.......well, you will just have to wait and see...

Jackie had the only quilt for show and tell, she was very surprised to have it personally delivered to her, hot off the quilting frame, by Judy.  Judy has a long arm quilting business, Furball Farm quilting and is a returning member.

Jackie was thrilled by the great job that Judy had done on her quilt,

Frankly, we were all pretty impressed, Judy had used a lime green thread on the back that showed the quilting of beautifully.
How unusual to have both the quilt maker and the quilter both available for a pic of their work, had to make the best of this opportunity.

Good thing I took another pic of the quilting,  (vbg) this one is on the wrong angle to show off all that wonderful stitching

Meg, who hand dyes the most beautiful silks was the first to donate some of her lovely work for the 'Donations Tent'.

a lovely silk pieced bag, lined and with silk rope straps as well as a dyed silk scarf in wonderful autumn colours.
There is also a donation of a rather cunning pin cushion/holder, perfect to keep your pinmoor's in the centre and the pins in the cushion.
Hope there are more of these on the sales table.

The Cottage management committee is trying something different for our Christmas Fair this year.  All members have been asked to donate a sample of their craft, all donation proceeds will go to the Cottage Building Fund......yep the Cottage is expanding again.  This time for some modifications including a new foyer and to expand our kitchen space as well as update some of the kitchen equipment.
So if you would like a really great gift bargain, not to mention get yourself something hand crafted and created by one of our many artisans, come along to the Cottage for our Christmas Fair weekend after next....yep it really is that close.
. Starts Friday evening  at 5 p.m. onto 8 p.m. and continues Saturday 27th November 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 28th November 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
There is always a great and varied range of goodies for sale, from very inexpensive goodies for the littlies to buy from the Needlework Groups novelties table, to some very large creations.

Just to give you an idea of the variety of goodies that will be available here's a list of the various Cottage Groups, we have Patchwork, of course....lovely bunch, there is also Painting, Life Drawing (there was a great pencil drawing last Fair from this group, aptly labeled 'Hot Buns', some of us were very taken with it - but wondered how the hubby would view such a purchase......sorry I digress) Then there is the Potters, Lace and Tapestry, Machine Embroidery, Sliversmiths, Needlework, Porcelain Painting, Spinners and Weavers, Mixed and Multi Media, Silversmiths, Fabric Art and Surface Design, and Calligraphy
I could go on endlessly about the wonderful works from all these groups, but really, there is only so much time in the day folks, so here is a couple of links for you.......
Firstly, the Buderim Craft Cottage website, lots of info here...  http://www.buderimcraftcottage.com.au/
then pics of the 2008 Christmas Fair
http://buderimpatchwork.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas%20Fair%202008The 2009 Christmas Fair
http://buderimpatchwork.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas%20Fair%202009 
http://buderimpatchwork.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-fair-goodies.html
 
and lastly, didn't get a pic of something lovely in the stitching world, but couldn't resist this pic,
sent to me via phone, there is an all year Christmas store in Melbourne and this wacky candelabra is in the window.......I just love it, would look great as the centrepiece on a Christmas Buffet Table

sadly, with a price tag in the thousands it isn't going to be on my Buffet Table this year.