We Have A Winner.......or two actually

We have two winners for the Apron Giveaway! Joy was the first to guess an anniversary but was only half right with her guess of 10 years and Tozz also had a guess of an anniversary, labeling it a special anniversary, yep, on the 27th November we will have been blogging for one year, and what a year of beautiful quilts the girls have had to show and share.

As a celebration we will be having lots of giveaways, patterns - from other designers as well as from one of our members, mini packs of hand dyes, and ..................well that's enough to be revealing dontcha think lots of giveaways because there are lots of us

Both Tozz and Joy are Gum Tree Designers, so girls, send me your snail mail addy and a hot pink apron will be scooting off to your homes.  I hope that you both enjoy them.

Its not always just about the quilts,

..although we did have some lovely quilts for Chanetlle (Show and Tell) today, Lorraine started us off with her completed Tessellated T's.

Lorraine has had these Japanese prints in her stash for quite awhile, they were a bit of a mistake she told us, after buying them she discovered that she really didn't like Japanese prints after all, and so they sat at the back of the cupboard, awaiting inspiration, and finally, along it came, the perfect pattern to use her fabrics and create a quilt she loves that will now live on Lorraine's sofa.

As so often happens when a family member spies a goodie that you have created, they want one too, and this was the case with the bag that Lyn made for the Lyn Ballinger Challenge.  This little cutie here,

a request was put in for one just the same, well, Lyn said 'not the same but similar' and here it is, front and back views, can't you just see Lyn and her Daughter out shopping together with their complimentary totes?

Helen had just picked up her Quilt WIP from Fiona, who has quilted it with the cutest little heart pattern.

Helen is eagerly awaiting the birth of a Great Grandson, he will be arriving soon but Helen has promised to bring the quilt  back for us when it is bound. 
The center panel was discovered while Helen was away on Holidays, on the other side of this great continent of ours, when news of the Great Grandson arrived, she popped down to one of the LQS's and there, lo and behold was the matching border fabric! Kismet!

And this is where it becomes not just about quilts, we were rather privileged to be shown these wonderful pieces of history today.

This sampler was begun in 1883, on 26th October, that makes it 126 years old.

 It never did get finished, talk about a wrong colour choice, how hard would that black have been to work with, probably by candlelight, and how long did she persevere? but what neat stitches, and the black does show them off beautifully.

 Then there was this beauty, very fine linen, obviously well loved, well used and beautifully looked after.

I wonder what the story was about the missing letter? was there disappointment? was it perhaps a sampler done by a child and given to a Mother.  Beautiful fine stitches from almost 100 years ago.

Louise was admiring these two bags and she very kindly held this one for a pic.  Went rather well with the Tee don't you think?

 There are the most amazing beaded panels around the center of the bag, and a little V shaped decorative edging, beaded on each side of the shapes, you can see the underneath of one V shape at the top right, the drawstring has beaded tassels on each end and the whole thing is finished off with a circular base and another tassel.

Another example of beautiful beading, looks like the ribbon is a more recent addition for the drawstring. Beautifully formed leaves fold over the looped strings of beads.

What a treat to view such treasures, thank you very much.

These four quilts were bought along for Chantelle by Val and they have a truly amazing story, but firstly a little background, Val leads a small group of ladies who gather each Monday morning to make quilts for  Laurel House, a refuge for abused children.

One of the group is Betty, a lovely lady of 86 years who has a bit of a tough time, she is a Leukaemia sufferer and has to have treatment every second week, so not an easy life.

 

These quilts are Betty's quilts, wonderful quilts, full of imagination and joy.

Betty makes a flimsey every couple of weeks and Margaret, a neighbour quilts them for her and then they are delivered to Laurel House, just the ticket to snuggle into when you are looking for a little comfort.

True Random Number Generator

Notice the True Random Number Generator at the top of our sidebar?

What do you think I put it there for??

Yeah, I know its fun to play around with, but really, there is another reason, a good reason, a fun reason, a downright exciting reason, well those of us in the know are excited and I bet you will be too.

The first one of you dear readers who leaves a comment with the correct guess will win a little something, one of my Hot Pink butchers style aprons, I would post a pic but that would mean using a camera, where is my camera???

The Grandies visited over the weekend, we had a whale of a time, lots of piccies taken, but where is my camera??

I have faith, the camera will re-surface. Yep, it will.


Oh and a little hint: its coming up to an anniversary

Christmas Freebies

Its almost Monday and another Gum Tree Designers freebie will be making it's appearance, so exciting, I can hardly wait, but wait one must.
and to help with the waiting and just for fun, I collated this pic of the 5 giveaways so far, aren't they just the best?, and such a selection of designs, no excuses this year for not having beautiful hand made pressies under the tree for everyone.
Yep I know, there are 6 pics but that is just how it goes, sometimes things have just got to be in even numbers. And why I hear you ask didn't I wait until Monday to play with these lovely pics?, so there would be 6 different goodies, well I know that come Monday I am going to be a wreck, yep the Grandies are on their way as we speak, and this weekend it is going to be a double sleepover............ohh the youngest is going to be so happy, he has been trying to get two sleepovers in a row for years.
So go spoil yourself if you haven't already, and visit the Gum Tree Designers site or any of the 9 designers by clicking on their buttons in our sidebar.

Quilting the Quilts, 2 great ideas

We are all familiar with hand quilting, some of us........or so I've heard.... love it, and one of those is Val, in fact she loves it so much she will even accept commissions! yeah, honest!, all it takes is bucks, oh yeah and that other crucial ingredient, a quilt sandwich.
Val has just finished this commission, hand quilting around all those hexagons, even the little ones, and echoing the hexagon pattern in the border. The back of the quilt is just as stunning as the front. What a brilliant idea to use smaller hexagon flowers to form the inner border.
Unfortunately the border photographed very dark, but here is a close up of the border with it's hand quilted hexagon.
Now with the next pic I have to apologise to you all for missing the pic of Sappho's finished quilt, we saw the flimsy, the hand painted backing, and when it comes to the finished quilt, someone mucked up, thankfully I at least got this pic,the quilt was on the show and tell table, not hanging and as Sheila was in a meeting I thought, oh well I will just hang that and get a pic later...........yeah, right, my brain must have been on holidays because I just forgot, so sorry all, and it is fantastic finished.
Sheila machine quilted around the major design elements on the front of the quilt and took a cunningly different slant on tying the quilt, she has used a pretty leaf machine embroidery scattered over the quilt, it looks ever so sweet, the cute little leaves besprinkled over the broderie anglaise, very feminine, all capped off with the pretty pink binding that Sheila has again used a machine embroidery stitch to sew the binding to the quilt.

Easy Curved Piecing Tutorial

There's such a thing as easy curved piecing?, that was my reaction when an e-mail popped up in my box.
Well being the sucker I am for all things easy I took Scquilter Gillian's advice and popped over to visit Janet on her blog at QUILTSALOTT where I found this luscious quilt Janet has named 'Licorice Allsorts', her take on a Kaffe Fassett pattern from his Quilt Romance book.

You need to scroll down, past that cute 'Pie' pincushion, past....., go back and check it out later..., come on, oh all right............ spend a little time drooling, and then scroll down to Sunday, October 25, 2009 Curved piecing part 1.

This is a wonderful tutorial, well written, easy to read and follow with terrific pics to back up the instructions and with great hints sprinkled throughout. Although the tutorial is for the 'Quilt Romance' blocks the instructions and hints on stitching curves are easily transposed to any curved piecing.Anyway, as we now have two sets of Drunkards path templates in our library what an opportune time to discover this beautifully photographed, step by step tutorial on curved piecing.

Oh, and if you would like to see a pic of the original, here is Kaffe, seated in front of his quilt doing some tapestry, photographed with Sarah from Sewn. (You know, the Red Button on the sidebar)