A Fond Farewell and a Welcome to Newbies

 Spotted Sheila hanging this balloon on the way into the Cottage, gotta know something is up...

Di was surrounded by a group of gals all admiring this great wall hanging.

Sandy and Di spotted the pattern for the Advent Calendar at the recent Brisbane Craft Show and judged it perfect, all that was missing were decorations for the little heart shaped pockets, and that's when they spotted the buttons, lots of lovely wonderful buttons.  Bliss!  It wasn't long however until they realised just how those button dollars were adding up and was perhaps a little a lot on the side of over capitalising for a Christmas wall hanging so settled for some really lovely glittery velcroed christmas motifs.
Di's own design modification is the addition of tinsy little wooden pegs she has numbered for the advent dates.

New member Nelly is working on her own design of appliqued poppies on a pieced backgound.

Nelly likes to up-cycle and has the eye to get a lot of her fabrics and pieces from various local op-shops.

The flower stalks are couched heavy threads and Nelly has used a combination of freemotion embroidery and beads for the poppies and leaves.

Courtney arrived sporting an eye catching bag, actually a lunch bag but such lovely vibrant colours and constructed from that wonderful invention of foam backed fabric that one often sees beer coolers constructed from...have heard a rumor that the beer coolers are made from leftover bits from making wet suits, can't vouch for that though!

Other bags spotted were this tote in a lovely poppies fabric and a blue toile sewing compendium.

Back in 2013 our group visited the QAGOMA 'Quilts 1700-1945 Exhibition' at which Wendy managed to snaffle a copy of the book 'The Rajah Quilt',  no mean feat as copies were in very short supply!  So when Wendy spotted this pattern by quilter Lessa Siegel she decided on making her own 'Rajah Quilt'

Wendy has opted to use a modern twist and pencil in the tiny designs of the central medallion while needle turning the other blocks.

After winning the Expertise Events 'Rajah Award' Lessa Siegele was inspired to create her own version of the Rajah quilt, albeit a much smaller version.  Lessa was then encouraged to sell the pattern of her version.
The Rajah quilt is one of, if not the most important Australian textile artifact and has had many interesting articles writted about it and the convicts credited with it's creation.
Some interesting links are:
'Stitches in Time' an Australian article
Rajah's Grandaughter - a blog by a 7th generation decendent of a Rajah convict
Lessa Siegel's story by 'Addicted to Fabric' blogger Brenda Wood
a story of Lessa Siegls pattern release by Michell Hill
all very interesting reading.

Marcia was busily trying to put the finishing stitches into the binding of this sweetie, destined to fly away to Sweden in the near future, but she kept getting sidetracked.

A 'Star of the Month' award, for so many many reasons, not the least of was the great job done as our Cottage Rental Officer and group deputy leader while Sheila has been away.

Roslyn came along to join us for the day, a very new newbie and planning her very first quilt.  Roslyn was given a few lessons on the importance of ironing and accurate cutting by Pat and Sue.

Mary has been working away on her lovely blocks, applique, needle turn, couching and embroidery, a real smorgasboard of needle crafting.

Julie was a bit shy to share her WIP, being just a few lines to practice on.  Well that's fine, but a few lines of what??  No, not Hardanger.

Slowly the story emerges, and we get a tinsy glimpse of what Julie is aiming to achieve.

Punto Antico.
You can read all about it here at Nordic Needle.
Julie has ordered a book and is working through it, just because she wanted a bit of a challenge -  like Hardanger isn't a challenge?
Helen decided to hit the net to show just what all the excitement is about.

It seems that Gwen is also learning Punto Antico.

Now have you noticed those white LED lights the girls have? they are like rabbits, really they were all over the place, its a Triumph Desktop Magnifying Lamp, ( Thanks Di) tracked them down to a Janome sewing center in Everton Park and guess what? they also come in black, pink and purple but wait, there's more, (chanelling a T.V. shopping ad.) it's freight included, and on sale at $33 was the best price I could find, mine will be here day after tomorrow....service plus! can't wait.  Been on the lookout for something like this for ages. Thanks Gals.

Betty is feeling both hot and smug, yep the temp was up there today but Betty had a head start with a very cute Chinese fan.

Lorraine shared her latest finish, a double sashed H.S.T. lovely that Lorraine will be giving to charity.

The backing is as stunning as the front of the quilt.

Now where is Sheila off to???

Yep, It's cake and song for Marcia

Could be it's one of those Big '0' birthdays

Sadly, Jenny, one of our Thursday night gals and a co-author of this blog has decided that she isn't able to be a part of our group any longer.  Jenny has a very busy career teaching 'Crazy' at various local quilting stores, writing quilting books on crazy patchwork and is of course author of her own blog Sew So Crazy.
Thank you Jenny for the input to our blog of all the work done by our 'Thursday-nighters'.

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.

'Forrest' Quilts...one step closer, and some interesting quilt stories....

...to go with some really beautiful quilts.
As some of you have noticed there has been a bit of a rash of the disappearing 9 patch quilts being created in our group, although a couple of quilts have not quite made it to the Show and Tell Table..........who would ever have thought those little suckers could look so wayward unless lined up just so!
Gwen wasn't at all happy with the way hers turned out, won't tell you how she described it.  While still grumbling thinking over her 9 patch, and looking in her various scrap bags for 2.5" strips, (for a totally different project) she found a pile of 2.5" squares........the immediate thought was, "Well maybe I can have a go at disappearing 9-patch using 2.5" squares - and this time get the layout right!"
Well, she did, she created this beauty.

And now the sad part of this story, Gwen has created many quilts in her quilting life, so for her to really love a particular quilt it must be a special one.  These 'leftover' fabrics were also used in her special quilt, a quilt that was sent on consignment to a store and was stolen from that store, at first it was thought that her quilt was simply misplaced, but no, never heard from again!  This little treasure was made from some of the leftover fabric that was used in the stolen quilt and as such holds a special place in Gwen's heart.

Gwen also had two other quilts for us today, the first was created from stitcheries she fell in love with at a quilt show, and thinking the new 'Great Grandchild To Be' just might be a lassie, she created this beautiful quilt.

Having finished the stitcheries, Gwen was going through her stash looking for some inspiration when 'out fell all these left over squares', Perfect!

Gwen's third quilt, a lovely 'bright pastel' in a cunning design, is another donation for Project Linus, one of the Charities that our group actively supports.

 When Lorraine mentioned that the Project Linus group had diversified, with the group now also using up a lovely large donation of wool and the local hospital requesting drainage bags for recovering breast surgery patients Catti was moved to create these two very pretty bags from soft fabrics for the patients.

 Guess what else Catti had stashed away?  her Show and Tell from the Needlework Group, these tiny ribbon embroidered flowers in a pretty green frame.

Beryl bought along this stunning quilt she made in a Judy Hooworth class back in 2002, the class members all made the same quilt design and layout, but with very different fabric choices, the resulting quilts were then displayed on stage at her then group's quilt show, creating a stunning display.

Beryl pieced a label for her quilt, and mentioned she might get around to 'finishing' the label with a little embroidery one day, but not one day soon.

We had both of our 'not quite finished yet' Quilt Show raffle quilts on display today.  With the 'International Year of Forests' theme, they are progressing nicely, Fiona has finished the quilting on Sue's creation with an edge to edge leafy design

The design shows nicely in the border, Julie has volunteered to bind the quilt so it will be finished soon.

The second raffle quilt is up to the flimsey stage, having been pieced together by Lorraine H.
The appliqued squares were made by various Cottage members 15 years ago in a Friendship swap and were recently donated to the group.

After some discussion it was decided to assemble the quilt to be one of our Quilt Show raffle quilts.  Sheila asked Lorraine to assemble the quilt with the brief that 'they be assembled on point and with a design that reflected our Show theme of  'International Year of Forests'.
Lorraine choose forest leaf prints for the random placed sashings to give the quilt a fresh and modern look, leaving the setting triangles clear for quilting motifs.
The border, which is machine pieced, was selected to reflect the design of the quilt blocks, with the lighter square appearing to be appliqued over the darker squares.

There are 2 more unnammed squares left over which could perhaps be made into cushions.  Lorraine I. is endeavouring to track down the creators of these 2 blocks.

The outside border fabric is from the Robert Kaufman 'Fusions range' and was purchased locally at Brian's so more could easily be purchased for cushions. 

Lorraine is moving to Tassie in a couple of weeks and as a parting gift to the group she very kindly donated the fabrics she used to make the applique blocks into such a stunning quilt.  Thank you Lorraine.

 

Lorraine was busily attaching the 1st. border onto her Hexagon quilt, but as we will not see it finished she gave us a sneak peek, pretty 30's fabrics for the flower petals and for a different take on an old favorite, Lorraine has used the background fabric for the center Hexagon.  Hope we get a piccie of the finished quilt...hint hint..

Judy thought the saying on the coffee cup was apt, it reads 'Life's Short, Eat Dessert First', lots of nods of agreement around the arvo tea table....of course, if there was a Grandie around it would be a different story, betcha! Snaffled myself a piece of the lemon coconut slice in the foreground, Yummo.....wouldn't mind the recipe for that little beauty!

More to the story.....

Remember this quilt??

of course you do, 'Roses and Magnolias' is in yesterdays post, but there is more to this quilts story, lots more,  Lorraine I continues Lorraine H's story.

Lorraine H. is taking 'Roses' to Arizona to give to her friend as a gift, she is a quilter who likes bright quilts.

Lorraine and her friend will be celebrating Lorraine's 60th birthday and 50 years of being penpals.  The quilt will travel in a suitcase so there will be a nice big space left to come home - hopefully filled with an antique quilt Lorraine is hoping to find in her travels.

News from our groups...

...bit of a catch up for the Buderim Patchwork Group, with two Lorraine's giving us the low down on what the girls have been up to.  Firstly, from last Thursday, some words about the Thursday night group from Lorraine H.

Thursday night this week was a hive of activity with 4 large quilts all being pinned ready for quilting.  

Our newest member, Ivanka, bought along her gorgeous applique quilt and her the whole group are admiring her beautiful hand stitched work and lovely soft colours.

Many hands make light work, and with lots of help, we all managed to get four large sized quilts pinned ready for quilting. This pic is shows three of these - Ivanka's applique, Marleen's black and white scraps, and Lorraine H.'s latest - Roses and Magnolias which is destined for USA next week!

Thank you for the lovely pics and your words Lorraine, your beautiful quilt will surely be greatly admired when it reaches it's destination. - Andrea

Lorraine I,very kindly took these great piccies with her phone!.....are you old enough to remember when a mobile phone looked like and weighed about the same as a house brick??....and now you can take a pic, a video, and surf the net with a tiny little thing you can hold in your palm! - Forget about Dick Tracy and his wrist phone, we have gone way way beyond that!

From Lorraine I, ....

It was a small group today. Maybe the wet weather kept people away, although we really need the rain.

The Queensland Quilters raffle tickets of a quilt designed by Jennifer Chivarini (Elm Creek Quilters fame) were snapped up very quickly.

Sue Andrew was seen to be busy searching through books looking for some scrap quilts.  Is she trying to empty out her stash or just researching for a workshop she has promised to run?

Janice brought in the bag she will be showing in the workshop in a couple of weeks.  Not quite finished but it sure looks good.

Lorraine Hunter showed us the quilt 'Roses and Magnolias' made with a new fabric range from Moda.  It is a very American style quilt but that will be fine as it will be off to America next week.

Catti has made a gorgeous baby quilt with farm animals embroidered on it.  A bit of trouble reading the labels until Catti told us the animals were labelled with their Latin names.  Catti doesn't have anyone to give this quilt to yet but is hoping for a grandchild in the future.  Hoping for an early start in botany maybe?

A couple of close ups of Caitti's quilt for you.  Cropped from the pic above, the phone did a great job of capturing the detail of those ever so cute little animals.

Thanks for the pics and words Lorraine - Andrea

Quilts, Classes and how we use our language

There was a bit of a startled 'look around' last week when someone was talking of using orphans to make a quilt, don't know if the thought was more along the lines of  'what a good idea'   or   'is that allowed?'.... of course it was orphan blocks that were being referred to, well... that was all sorted and we had a bit of a giggle, well not as big a laugh as when the girls were getting ready for Gwen's class today........one of the items on the requirements list was a compass.......Catty, for the life of her couldn't see why you would need one, but it was on the list, so..........

she bought along a compass!!
One of the cool uses for the compass.....the other kind of compass, was how to draw up hexagons,

now where was that little bit of knowledge when I needed it??, You make the radius the same measurement needed for the side of the hexagon.  Cool huh!?  Looking forward to learning lots more tips from Gwen as she takes us through her Beginners Hand Quilting Classes.

Some of the girls, wrestling with the creation of templates, all agreed by the end of the day that it really was easy, once you got the hang of it.
While some were learning new skills, others were enjoying their friends company, Louise was researching ideas to use those pretty circles she has in front of her, and Sadie was really getting stuck into those black hexies.

while Fae was way ahead with her Pink Hexies

all will be revealed at the Christmas Fair, yep, the gals are gearing up for Christmas.......

Fran crocheted two cloche hats, a white one and a steel blue one, both decorated with cute little yarn flowers.  She bought them along to show us, so of course, had to ask her to model one for us...

Innes donated some offcuts from a quilt backing to Val, who promptly added some plain fabrics and turned them into another charity quilt using the disappearing 9 patch design.

Janette bought along her ditch quilted 'I Spy', looking for some inspiration for further quilting on the blocks,

The backing was bought before the quilt was assembled and there just wasn't enough fabric (how often does that happen?!) so Janette was rather thrilled to find a purple and orange that toned in beautifully,

With such a pretty and vibrant backing this is truly another reversible quilt.

Lorraine has finished her 'Orphan' quilt, who would think it was orphans??

The flying geese and strip blocks were from a paper piecing class that Lorraine did, the toile center of the medallion was from a hand quilting class...

and the double 9patch blocks were from last years Row x Row, after making 16 of them, Lorraine then changed her mind and decided on different blocks for the RxR, moral to the story?  when doing classes always use some of the same fabric!  you can then turn the orphans into a stunning quilt! Lorraine even practiced her new embroidery stitching skills to make the label for her quilt.
She then used this continuous quilting design to practice her machine quilting skills in the medallion border.

Arvo Tea saw us scoffing down smoked salmon, yummo, lovely date cake, a buttered slice (didn't manage to get even a crumb of that one) lovely biscuits and some of Fran's shortbreads.