Special Birthday, Amazing quilts and a very good idea

Everyone was in party mood this week, Lyn celebrated a very special birthday, one of those milestone '0' birthdays.

Of course there was cake, rather a yummy one, orange poppyseed, with candles for blowing out and wishing on.

Karen got the job of lighting the candles, she seemed to be dressed for the job.

Debby is busily working on a pretty new longstitch 'Friends of the Ocean',

Way back at the beginning of the year, Wendy started the Esther Aliu 2018 free BOM 'Queens Garden', its been a lot of fun following the ladies from all around the world stitching this years BOM on Esthers Quilt Blog Group on Facebook

Esther posts a free BOM each year, of course if you decide you want to do the BOM from a few years back you can purchase the pattern from Esther or sign up for next years BOM on her site.

Getting ready for Christmas, Sheila shared her Christmas pillowcases created for her Grandies, she even uses them as christmas stockings, stuffing them with goodies.

Lorraine has been a busy little beaver, she got hooked on the Bonnie Hunter block 'Diamond Tile' and just couldn't stop making them. Result is this quilt, sashed in black with cornerstones.

She also created a lovely set of place mats and runner for the Alfresco dining.

Lorrain had all the info ready to share on her ipad, the block was featured in the May/June 2018 issue of Quiltmaker, there is a digital version of Quiltmaker available here. The block is from Bonnies 'Addicted to Scraps' series, there is even a youtube video by Bonnie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2UnZQxrGxI. It runs for about an hour but Bonnie takes you through all the steps to create your own madness collection.
Lorraine also had this wall hanging to share, a mystery project created on retreat with her other quilting group.

Simple overlay construction and lots of sparkly bling from the paint and beading.

Heather was working on the binding on a christmas stocking for Olivia, mind you, she wasn't getting a good run at it, being part of the arvo tea team, she was a little sidetracked.

Lots of lovely charms stitched to the stocking.

Lastly, the good idea, from Wendy.
Wendy says she is one of those who's sewing table gets a little messy, the more she stitches, the messier. Stuff gets on top of things that hide, the more she looks the more she might.
Frustrated with searching, again, for something or other on her sewing table, a bright idea popped up. Why not have a little box to put everything in? she even took it one step further, a clear little box, see through in fact. The trick is to be disciplined to put everything in the box as you use it, but how easy to glance at your little clear box to find the very thing you need. Sometimes it's the simple things that make the biggest impact.

Charities, and the quilts we make to help them

Quilters, what makes them so generous?
Is it the continual efforts to decrease the stash, if only to make room for new fabric 'loves' or is it the excuse chance to try out a new pattern, perhaps even to refine an old, much loved pattern or is it just their big hearts?
Many of our members make quilts in support of their own fav charity groups as well as the charities that the group supports.
Val purchased the fabric and pattern for this lovely while in Hawaii, reckons it's the hardest quilt she has made in awhile as the turtles and the first border are a single piece of fabric.

Another charity quilt from 'the house of Val'

and yet another.

Lorraine created this 'charity cutie'

Sandy answered the call for hospital baby quilts with this lovely.

While Marie created this little sweetie in answer to the call for kiddies quilts for the hospital.

Marie also had a lovely quilt to support Fae with her charity of choice.

Marie also had this almost completed beauty to share with us, a 50th Birthday gift.

Marion has been bitten by the Bargello bug and bought these along to finish the bindings and share with us, the lovely in mauves and purples for her Darlings cousin's 80th Birthday.

and the stunning Black and White with a different layout for her Daughter in Law.

Pat had this stunner to share, made for her Grandson's 8th Birthday just because he loves all the planets.
Pat even popped the moon phases across the top and bottom of his quilt so that whatever way its on his bed, its the right way up!

Marcia had an ipad pic to share, and ask for an opinion of layout options, the first ever quilt she is making for Oliver....for his 31st Birthday...yep hang in there Oliver, its on its way.

Cheryl flipped her ipad open to share this stunner with us, her quilt posted awhile back on Pinterest has thousands of pins....yep, you read it right...don't you just love Pinterest!?

2017 Quilt Exhibition - Part Five

Our Cottage is holding the Annual Buderim Winter School this week, so no Patchwork meeting for us--sob sob.
To help us all over the disappointment, here are the last of the Exhibition quilts, but before we zoom down the lines of lusciousness, there are more Very Very Big THANK YOU's to Sue Andrew and her team of helpers for the splendid job they did setting up the exhibition and Wendy Tame and her team of helpers for their equally splendid job running the kitchen and suppyling the delicious eats, without these hard workers the Exhibition would not be the success it was.


Sandy King
'Paris Meets St. Kilda'
I made this quilt in a class conducted by Ann Ferguson. I love the design and have since made another one for a friend.
Pattern design by Ann Ferguson
Quilted by Liz Traynor

Karen Wikman
'Teddies At Play'
Everyone loves Teddies! I really enjoyed doing the embroidery blocks. Then add Lynette Anderson fabrics and what more can you ask for!
Inspired by love of embroidery!
I love the result and hope you do too!
Pattern Design by Libby Richardson
Quilted by Karen Wikman

a closer peek and two of Karen's beautifully stitched blocks.

Marlene Hogan
'Poppies'
I had no plans for more poppies until I saw this fabric in spotlight. I saw half of this pattern in an advertisment on Facebook. I took a photo and then did lots of sums
It proved a good exercise for the grey matter.
Pattern design by Marlene Hogan
Quilted by Fiona - 'The Quilting Fairy'

Jackie Swan
'Blue Star'
This quilt looked easy when I saw it on "Pinterest". The best part - I had all the fabric in my stash!
Pattern design by Pinterest
Quilted by Letitica Turner

Lorraine Irvine
'Chain Reaction'
I was reading McCalls Quick Quilts and this one just jumped out at me. I just had to make it
Designed by Audrey Wright
Machine pieced and Quilted by me
Quilted by Lorraine Irvine

Fabric Art, Surface Design, Paper and Fibre Group
The girls from Fibre Art have an exhibition every second year, same as we do, but as the exhibitions are on alternate years the Fiber Arts gals display our annual Lyn Ballinger Challenge at their exhibition and we display their Group Challenge at our exhibition, a great system that suits us all, mind you, over the years these talented ladies have increased the types of mediums they work with and so of course their group's name has also had to expand, encompasing all their many talents

2017 Group Challenge
This year the groups challenge was to contribute to an instillation based on the theme'Seasons'.
Each member had to create leaves or flowers in their chosen medium. These were then used to construct a work which could be used as a window pelment or wall hanging.
The finished work is a credit to the 30 members who contributed. All materials were hand dyed and handmade. Mediums used include, felt, silk, cotton and paper.

Our Mystery Quilt.
On a visit to a local sister quilting group's exhibition many of our members were taken with the display of a mystery quilt the Mooloolah Valley quilters had done, they proudly displayed their quilts on stage showing off the many variations derived from the one pattern. Our members present promptly elected Wendy to co-ordinate and organise a quilt for our group to create, luckily she agreed, mind you, we did get her to say the words 'I agree' before we fessed up to what she had agreed to. Wendy did a stirling job, from a rough sketch of a block given to her by a 'Pinterest' surfing group member she wrote the assembly directions and even gave us a couple of block layout options and quilt sizes. Wendy also decided to make the directions 2.5" strip friendly for those of us wanting to use a jelly roll as well as being easy for those who wanted to do a scrappy quilt. These are the amazing results, we all had a ball creating our quilts. Thank You Wendy, for all of your hard work.

Marion Dempsey
Mystery Quilt
A number of members of the patchwork group at the Craft Cottage were given directions over several weeks by Wendy Tame (Workshop Coordinator) to make a quilt - without seeing the complete design. This is one of them!
Quilted by Marion Dempsey

Yvonne Palmer
Mystery Quilt
This was a fun mystery quilt project by members of the patchwork group under the guidance of one of our enthusiastic members.
I chose Japanese fabrics for this.

Karen Wikman
Mystery Quilt
This was a Mystery Quilt organised by one of our members for the group. It created a lot of interest amongst our ladies.
Portions of the instructions were released at 2 week intervals
A lot of the members participated and we had a lot of fun
Quilted by Karen Wikman

Susan Webb
Mystery Quilt
Along with several others in the group - I followed the instructions given for the Mystery Quilt. I followed the same colour theme throughout and I love the result.
This is a gift for my husband to stay warm during the winter months
Quilted by Karen Doyle

Di Stark
Mystery Quilt
This was a group project that we made over a few weeks
Quilted by Di Stark

Sandy King
The Mystery of Scraps
This quilt was made as a project in our Patchwork Group. I used fabrics I had for the entire quilt and didn't make much of a dent on my stash
Quilted by Karen Doyle

Marlene Hogan
Batik Mystery Quilt
This was a group exercise organised by Wendy Tame over 4 months.
Lots of fun talking and bonding. Thank you Wendy
Quilted by Fiona - 'The Quilting Fairy'

Lyn Solomon
Mystery Quilt
A purely scrappy quilt.
I followed the directions of the mystery quilt challenge.
Quilted by Lyn Solomon

Beryl Darby
Out Of The Stash
Myster quilt from our own Patchwork Group
Helping empty the qulting fabric drawers
Quilted by Beryl Darby

Lorraine Irvine
Mystery for a Service Person
Wendy created a mystery quilt for us to tackle. I found this bundle of gorgeous fabrics from the same fabric range in my cupboard. They had been there for awhile and there was no pattern, no notes or no picture of what they were for.
Because of the different amounts of each fabric with several of the fabrics being the same amount it looked as though I had bought it for a purpose. Well, life gets in the way sometimes and the purpose of these fabrics is long gone. I decided to use them for the mystery quilt then made extra blocks. It will be sent to a person serving somewhere overseas for Australia under the Aussie Hero Quilt program. I hope that someone gets good use from it and knows that they are thought of for the work they are doing for me and everyone else. There is also a matching laundry bag to go with the quilt so it will be easy to find their clean clothes when they come back on the trailer.
Quilted by Lorraine Irvine

Wendy Tame
Mystery Quilt
This is my mystery quilt done with our group in 2016
Quilted by Wendy Tame

Technology, just gotta love it...

Remember Marie's wonderful baby quilt from last week, well, thanks yet again to technology, we get to see another pic of said quilt, this time with the little angel snoozing on it!

Isn't he just darling?!

Of course, sometimes technology just gets a bit too smart for itself.
Lorraine's daughter requested a set of cushions, chocolate, mocha and steel grey were the colours chosen, and they certainly are a stunning set.

To round out the pressie, Lorraine used the back pocket from a pair of jeans to create a really cute and clever pot mitt.  Now the jeans were chocolate but will the pic show that? not on you life, so here, looking decidedly 'denim' is a fab chocolate pot mitt!

You just slide your fingers into the pocket, and the waist band part falls under to protect you palm and thumb.  So clever and innovative....and chocolate...really!
Lorraine was busily brushing at her lovely cushions prior to the pics, and muttering about 'Sunshine', if you're a pet owner, its obvious isn't it? yep, Lorraine shares her home with a loving bundle of fur named Sunshine.

Last week Gwen was tutoring Michelle in hand piecing, well, this week it was my turn, am loving the process but it did have a bit of a side effect, so engrossed in stitching along the line, I missed Show and Tell, yep, sitting right there and missed it! - it's a worry!
We had 3 more charity quilts on show, these are really being turned out at a fast rate of knots.
Of course the challenge is out there to make each one different, even though many of the girls are using the same H.S.T. block designed for us by Sue.
This clever lay out is enhanced by the added applique.

Another variation, with a great idea for the backing.

The blocks were given to Sue to finish and assemble.
While out and about, she had spotted a lovely soft and snuggly throw at Woolies, and decided to use the throw as a combined wadding/backing.  Worked brilliantly, soft, snuggly, F.M.Quilted with a  lovely swirly design, someone is just gonna love snuggling up into this quilt.

Another Q.A.Y.G charity quilt, this one a really pretty pink creation using crazy patchwork.  Lovely hand dyes were used to back each square, making this a truly reversible quilt.

Deanne was busily stitching in the back room, creating more Q.A.Y.G. squares that will eventually be assembled into Charity quilts, lots of lovely browns are making their way into some of the quilts, all thanks to the very generous donation of fabric from Derrick.

Jackie has been busily stitching up a special quilt, for a very special and lucky lassie who's name just happens to be Zali.  

Jackie used a Jigsaw pattern on the front and incorporated Zali's name into the backing of the quilt, she tells us that it took the best part of a Sunday arvo to work out the lettering and Zali is just lucky her name only has four letters, otherwise there would just have had to be a different backing design.

Along with the lovely fabrics donated by Derrick, we have also been lucky enough to receive some really great books for our Library and Jackie, who does a fantastic job as our Librarian has been as busy as a one armed paper hanger getting them all processed into our Library.  All the hard work and time associated with this endeavor has earned Jackie one of our coveted 'Star of the Month' awards.

Our Leader, Sheila came up with this idea a few years back, you have to earn a 'Star' with an extra effort for the group,  they are not given out lightly, and they don't get awarded every month either, so you can understand why Jackie immediately proudly pinned hers to her tee.