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.

Bon Voyage and Farewell

 Groups are fluid, members join and members move on, for a myriad of reasons, sometimes the group members keep the ties, sometimes not, but quilters seem to be more inclined to keep the ties, and although it is with some sadness we say 'Bon Voyage' as well as 'Goodbye Friend' to Lorraine H, we feel sure that Lorraine will keep in touch with her Buderim Patchwork friends with the odd piccie of her trip, especially if the hunt for a special Antique quilt is a success, and her new life in Tassie.
Lorraine is off on a wonderful trip to the US but on her return to dear old Oz, will be settling down in our southern state of Tassie (Tasmania).
I would like to thank Lorraine in her role as Thursday Night Group leader for her reports on the Thursday night gals achievements, and of course the great piccies.  Hopefully another lovely lady will step forward to continue this vital part of sharing our group's news.

As it was Lorraine's last night with the Thursday night group, Marleens's daughter Maureen, made a special trip to Buderim to bring along her completed Row x Row Challenge quilt from last year. 

 Marueen chose a 'William Morris' theme for her quilt, and all the girls were delighted to see all their individual contributions to the quilt now that it has come together so well.  The quilt was custom quilted by Fiona, and it really looks beautiful with lots of fussy cut applique.

Maureen also brought along her latest quilt which contained several horse theme panels and interesting log cabin construction. 

The quilt is for Marueen's 15year old daughter who absolutely adores horses.  This lucky young girl has already received several horse themed quilts from her talented mother over the years.  Fiona also did the quilting on this quilt for Maureen.

For Lorraine's last night, the girls all brought along lots of yummy cakes and slices, and Janice's mother made Lorraine's favourite - a 'Wobbly Cake' which was delicious.  Debbie presented Lorraine with a farewell gift and chocolates, and everyone had a great time demolishing the supper.

Quilts galore.......... for families and our Easter Fair

So exciting, the very first thing to be spotted when entering the Cottage today was 'Love is all Around',  Sheila's quilt for her DS and DIL, we have seen some of the blocks in progress as Sheila worked on them with a deadline in mind, the quilt is for her DS's 40th Birthday and will be presented to him at a family celebration.

Sheila designed each of the 9 blocks, although based on Drunkards Path, to have a meaning for the family.
Top Left is Crazy Patch, not sure if Sheila said for a crazy Mother or a Mother who is hooked on Crazy, but it is full of love, see the cute line of machined hearts?
Center is the Turtle for the favourite family holiday spot of Bargara and top Right, the gum leaf, is for Dad the Forrester

The middle blocks are Rockets for the Rockhampton Rockets basket ball team,  the Rockhampton Customs House, easily recognisable to any Rockhamptonite as the chatter around the table confirmed, and then the Angel is for DIL, 'she is an angel and her name means angel'

and lastly the bottom 3 blocks are for the 3 children, the basketball and sports lover, the little guy who is so into diggers and tractors - as all young boys seem to be and their daughter, a star who loves stars.

Sheila is not a hand worker, although 25 years ago she said she would never make another Drunkards Path so maybe sometime in the distant future this too could change, but she did hand stitch the binding down......the whole 9 meters of it!

Betty had several quilts for us to drool over, firstly the finished Teddy Bears, that we have seen in the works

 and the cute little hearts quilt, both of these beauties are for Sale at the Easter Fair. 

Sometime ago Betty made a very nice quilt for her son, her Grandson the pilot clapped eyes on it and wanted one for himself, so Betty will be presenting him with this lovely quilt she made and quilted herself for Easter.

Christine, who is on the WIP warpath, bought this lovely wall hanging along, 'finally finshed' she bought the pattern at the Quilt show in Brisbane, but when???...........who's telling!

Wendy spotted this really cute yarn and just had to give it a go, she knitted 2 rows of the yarn with the bobbles and then 2 rows of plain yarn alternatively, it is for her Grandson, Wendy was a bit disappointed that the pink was so obvious but we all came to the conclusion that the little Guy will just love it to bits as the texture is so soft and yummy.  Marcia suggested a flannel blue border to bunk up the blue content, we will see, probably next week at the rate that Wendy zooms along.

Of course while we are all having fun down the back, there was some hard work being done in the other rooms, signing in the piles, yep piles of quilts, runners, wall hangings, bags and numerous other goodies for the fair. 

 Maureen took a 2 second break to smile for the camera and then tell me to go play somewhere else or she would give me a job..........I was gone in a flash.

And then it was time for Arvo Tea, just as the hoards arrived to start setting up their tables and goodies for the Easter Fair.  It promises to be a beauty...............again..........of course - Just a little biased there folks.

The Darling is waiting to whisk me off to Brisbane to see a show, James Taylor and Carole King no less.........so for any typos, or other silly things, sorry, gotta go........will fix 'em tomorow.

Lyn Ballinger, and how our Challenge came into being.

This post is proving difficult to write, as unlike the majority of our group members I did not actually know Lyn Ballinger, but I do know of the high regard and the affection with which members of our group and the community held her and the immense sadness when she lost her battle with Cancer.

Lyn was a very sharing and energetic lady, there is a wealth of stories from crafters whom she either encouraged or helped with practical advice, both here on the coast and previously in her home town of Toowoomba.

Back in 2001, Lyn was talking to members of our patchwork group about a quilt she was entering into a competition and suggested that a few of the others also enter an item.  The general comment was "my quilt is not good enough", Lyn believed that everyone's quilt was good enough to put on show, and as such, she suggested a group Challenge.

The challenge title was 'Rainforest' and each member was given a piece of dapple green fabric and a piece of sweet pea fabric.  Lyn knew that sweet pea fabric would proved a challenge, and to date I haven't heard one person say 'Hey, I liked the sweet peas', nope, it was uniformly found to be a bit difficult to incorporate into a rainforest theme, with the result that many of the group used as little of the fabric as possible, some using so little and in such a disguised way, that led Judge Rose to comment that the fabric just wasn't used at all!!

Marguerite was the winner of the Rainforest Challenge with her 3-D depiction of forest vines and life,she used the reddish pink of the sweet peas to create her butterflies...........a great disguise.

When Lyn asked Marguerite what her plans were for her winning wallhanging, and got the answer of 'oh, probably pop it into the back of a cupboard' (or words to that effect), Lyn just couldn't accept that as a life for this winning treasure, she promptly organised a swap, her 'Forest Frog' wall hanging for Marguerite's.

Lyn's Forest Frog' hung in Marguerite's home until recently when Marguerite decided to donate Lyn's wallhanging to join the Challenge winners on the walls at the cottage.

These are some of the other entries in the 'Forest' Challenge.

Ailsa wasn't one of the minimisers, using the sweet pea fabric as her border as well as the 3 appliqued flowers on the tree trunk in her wallhanging that is chock full of forest wild life.

Maureen used a large swath of both the dappled green (3rd stripe from left) and the sweet peas in her 'Snakes' wallhanging.

Barbara, who is also a member of the pottery group, decided on a definite 3-D effect with this fantastic rendition of the challenge, enhancing the 3-D effect even more with the addition of a gecko pin on the tree trunk and buttons used as mushrooms and other fungi, hiding the challenge fabric in plain view as triangles in the borders.

 A closer view of the 3-D caterpillars at the bottom of Barbara's wallhanging.

 Dorothy used a blended vertical collage of fabrics as her background and added embroidered forest life.

 Judge Rose commented that Dorothy's colour scheme was the closest of all to a rainforest.

Miriam really took the project to heart, traveling up to the Hinterland Rainforest park to suss out the trees, leaves and general wildlife, and as an Irish touch stitched 3 golden fairies dancing in the sunbeam to remind her of home.

 While we were gathered around, admiring Miriam's work, she mentioned the inspiration and enthusiasm that Lyn imparted with the 'Rainforest' challenge and that she had never before put so much thought and effort into creating any of her other work - it was a statement that all around the table agreed with, many telling their own stories of the extra effort made for the challenge.

Sheila was one of the many gals who did minimise the sweet pea fabric, Judge Rose was unable to locate the fabric at all........can you?

 yep, that's it, some of those itsy little bits inserted into the binding......Well it was the first challenge and no one had stated how much fabric you had to use...........of course now that has been rectified with a strictly enforced % rule, I've even seen Judges get out the ruler.........true!

In 2003 the Lyn Ballinger Challenge was created to honour Lyn and the wonderful work that she had done for our Patchwork Group, the unstinting encouragement of other members to be proud of their own work and for being a driving force behind establishing our ever so successful Biennial Quilt Show.

We have since added a perpetual trophy for the yearly winner of the Lyn Ballinger viewers choice award, a quilt display stand, and let me tell you, it is fiercely contested, everyone wants their name on one of those little plaques on that stand!

Row x Row Reveal for Thursday night girls

Another wonderful bundle (well several actually) of lusciousness to drool over made their appearance with the last group's row x row reveal.  The Thursday nighters had 9 participants in their row x row, hence the later reveal date.
 The night started off with Marleene and Lorraine scooting the screens from storage into the Atrium and pinning up each flimsey to be, Marleen had them all sorted and arranged in order to cut down on time and she quickly got down to work.

It was a bit of a different story with Lorraine though, she just couldn't help herself, picking up her bag, and trying to sneak little peaks, Marlene gave it up and let her pin her own reveal, 

 

I can tell you there was some excitement in that Atrium............and it was catching, just ask any of the arriving Botanical Gardens members.

Finally all the rows were pinned, and the girls allowed in to find and admire their Row x Rows, there were such gasps of delight and much ooohhing and aaahing but one comment came over loud and clear.  'Yes, I like that!', it was a sentiment echoed around the room.

DIANE.

 

 Di was more than delighted with her rows, they are to be a wall hanging in her sewing room, her own row at the top says it all, 'I love sewing,'

A closer look at that cute embroidered sewing machine and the Teddy.

JENNY
Jenny started her rows off with appliqued teapots for a high tea theme, her last row of hearts has the sweetest little stitchery as a center pannel.

 

 

Just had to show you those cup cakes, they had Jenny rubbing her tummy they look so yummy.

MAUREENE

Maureene, started her rows off with a traditional floral design appliqued across the width of the row, the theme was continued througout,  with the last row being a lovely vine with heart shaped leaves and these rather beautiful fussy cut flowers with the vine spilling over onto the tiled side blocks.

JANE B

Jane B chose an interesting pointed pattern to applique across her row, at first glance almost a Grandma's Flower Garden, but coming to points in the center instead of the traditional hexagon shapes. The flower row used the traditional Grandmas Garden along a vine, the shape of the leaves being echoed in the 9 Patch blocks on the next row.

LETITIA

Letitia,  started her rows with beautiful angels on the wing, her second row is the cutest flowers using suffolk puffs and buttons with a beautiful sentiment stitched among the blooms.

JANE

Jane wanted a quilt to celebrate her Daughters 21st Birthday Party, Jane had used a blue and silver colour scheme with the theme of 'Masquerade'  for her Daughters party, and asked for it to be repeated in her rows.

 

A note book was supplied for the girls to record their thoughts and design elements as they went, a wonderful idea that everyone took full advantage of.

 

 Lorraine's entry and sketches

 Debby went full on for her page in the book. 

Chatting of Debby, she wasn't able to make it to the reveal, but here she is at the Breast Cancer Fundraiser.

  and here is Debby's lovely lemon row x row.

 

More Suffolk Puffs in the flower boxes, cared for by Teddies holding hearts.

JUNE
There was a great deal of merriment around June's quilt, with many a story, but the one that stood out was of a Christmas party game, where you were able to lay claim to anothers present, a piece of fabric, June really wanted one particular piece and managed to pounce on it early on in the game, but disaster...........it got claimed.......but then, sneakily, Marleen re-claimed it as her turn at the end of day and gave it to June, all's well that ends well, June put the piece to good use in her row,

here they are, having a good laugh over the memory

Marleen then told us about getting inspiration from one of the girls in the Wednesday Row x Row to fussy cut a picture for the center of her star row that she did for June.
Marleen didn't do a row x row as such, she was backup for anyone who was away on hols and did several of the rows.
The row above the stars, is a 9 Patch row, how cleverly disguised, look carefull and you will see the huts are the 9 patch!
June was very excited about her rows, wouldn't mind betting the quilt is just about done by now!.

LORRAINE

And of course some one has to be last, sorry Lorraine, you did a beautiful job of pinning your rows up, wonder if that will be the finished layout?.  Lorraine's own row is the row running vertically down the side of the screen.

A closer look at one of Lorraines rows, how neat are those tiny 1" squares on point.
Hope you all enjoyed looking at these wonderful quilts to be, cant't wait to see them all finished next year.