Mail was waiting for us to-day, from Marguerite, did she send us a pretty view of the countryside? no, a street scape showing the shopping we are missing out on? no, .....we got a lesson on pronunciation! yeah! true!

see......
Hi Marguerite....  big waves from all of us.

Show and Tell today started off with a burst, a star burst..
Lorraine, who, by the way, describes herself as a self taught beginner, has only been quilting for 2 years and has never heard of the quilt police, as such she is absolutely fearless, will tackle anything! and here's the proof

Lorraine with 'Thousand Diamonds'.  A piece of sage advice was given to Lorraine when she first stated she was going to make a Lone Star quilt, and that was to choose your star center fabric very carefully, the eye will immediately travel to the center first, so, not a big print, not too fussy or cluttered and not too light.  Great advice

Marcia has completed the disappearing 9 patch  flimsy she started at the Retreat, and mentioned that she is more a fan of keeping the cut center patch in alignment as opposed to the random twists and turns she used assembling this top

It was then time to share some really beautiful Friendship quilts, some live permanently on beds, some reside in cupboards but are considered treasures and some are still blocks, patted and petted, they bring back memories of quilting friends from our past.
This beauty was sent along by Betty who was not able to be with us today, it lives on Betty's bed, a lovely 3-D applique quilt, it was fun trying to find the cleverly hidden signatures and remembering past and current members.

Fran bought the quilt along for Betty, so of course, had to click another view to show off Fran's handy-work, yep bottom left block, laying so prettily on the table.

Lorraine H bought her Row x Row along to show us, done as a group project last year, there certainly were some astounding quilts made.

Janet's friendship quilt was done with her previous quilting group, before moving to the Sunshine Coast, she and her Darling then spent quite some time sailing on the ocean blue, and for a take along hand project, Janet constructed more blocks and hand pieced and quilted this lovely.

Janet pieced hexagons for the backing, using some of the left over fabrics for a splash of colour.

Lyn had this cute little house panel in her stash, perfect as a center for her round robin friendship quilt, bit hard to see, but those are more little pieced house blocks in the various borders.

Ailsa finished the binding on her Row x Row  at the Retreat,and bought her treasure along to share with us.

Lorraine's friendship flimsy, yep, still a flimsy, and why you ask, well it was made specifically for her waterbed, and just about the time the last stitch went into it, Lorraine and her Darling decided to change beds!!!!!
Lorraine now needs to add about another 2' or even 24" to her quilt and is stumped for ideas.
Got any suggestions?...........Lorraine would be grateful.

Fae showed us her lovely quilt, lots of hand applique, Sunbonnet Sues and 3-D Flowers, Fae had this lovely sitting in her cupboard for quite awhile, until her Grandie decided to take it and hand quilt it for her.

peer closely and you can see some of the beautiful stitching done  on this lovely quilt, again, it was fun trying to find the signatures or initials and remember the gals who had made these blocks.

Dorothy's friendship quilt lives on her spare bed, and has seen thousands of emergency toiletries packed into bags made by various group members to help those who suddenly find themselves homeless.

Dorothy worked the Cottage symbol as the basis for her Friendship Label.

Australian flowers was the theme for Janice's friendship quilt, the red bottle brush (bottom row, center) was stitched by a Japanese lass who created tiny tassels to form the red brush.

Jackie has a novel Friendship quilt, its a project bag, with her name embroidered onto the front

The bag was a treasure trove of Friendship blocks and even a little wall hanging, although not assembled they still give Jackie pleasure to go through and remember the gals from past groups.

Beryl had a number of Friendship quilts from various groups, a beautifully vibrant sashed 9-patch, 

This lovely round robin with some special memories.

and this little wall hanging, made over the Christmas break with a group of friends.  Proving not all Friendship quilts have to be large.

Marie bought along another one of her show winning quilts, this one with machine embroidered animals and lovely textured blocks.

A closer view of two of Marie's animals with some of the unusual crinkly textured blocks,

And this is how Marie achieved the texture, a product called 'Shrinking Sheet', you can see some of the quilt underneath and a test piece of fabric that Marie bought in to show us on the right.

 
Lorraine was wanting to finish the binding on this Linus quilt, to hand it in at the next Project Linus Meeting.

Closer view of the simple alternating1 patch / 4patch design that Lorraine has used. These quilts give great comfort to the children in hospital, going with them to and from treatments.

Sadly, we are told that 2 out of 3 children suffering from Cancer in hospital are boys, the same goes for Autistic children in hospital, hence Lorraine making mostly quilts in boy friendly designs and colours.

The Sunshine Coast chapter of Project Linus is newly formed, and meets at the Patchwork Angel in Forest Glen on the first Monday of the month.  Pretty easy to find the Angel, it is housed in an old church painted a nice cheery yellow, situated on the main street of Forest Glen.

Judie Bellingham, well known quilter, tutor and Quilting Editor for Bella Online, has a huge stash of everything needed to make these quilts, lots of lovely fabrics to choose from and the wadding used is a double sided fusable, so no pinning of quilt sandwiches.  You don't have to be a quilter or even a sewer to be involved in this worthwhile project, there are plenty of other jobs on offer and of course, you get to meet some lovely ladies.

Here is a sneak peek of a quilt being worked on, its a secret so can't tell you who but aren't the fabrics lovely?, all the animals dressed and ready to board Noah's Ark.

Arvo Tea was the usual wonderful, delish tinsy little sangers, but instead of being late for the plate, I was early! yep those two plates were filled with biccies and there was a lovely moist ginger cake being sliced off to the side.  Major yummo.

Nambour Show Winning Quilts and more......

.....much more.  A thrilling day yesterday, even though, as happens in the midst of winter, members decamp in droves, off on wonderful holidays all over the world as well as Oz. Nevertheless we had lots of 'Chantelle' and some very exciting news from Marie.
This fiery beauty 'Rainbow Serpent' won 1st Prize in the Wall Hanging section at the recent Nambour Show.  Marie based 'Rainbow Serpent' on a pattern she had but decided to change the spiral design.

Marie and her Darling really cleaned up at the Show, her Darling grows and shows both Roses and Hibiscus blooms.  Which brings us to Marie's next award winning quilt, aptly named 'Show Time'.

'Show Time' won 2nd Prize at the Nambour Show, it was designed by Marie to honour her Darlings prize roses.  They spent quite some time together, researching the net for just the right design for Marie to create these beautiful machine embroidered roses on her quilt.

A closer look at the lovely roses

Marie then used her Machine Embroidery skills to make her own quilt label for the back.


Two other quilts entered in the Show by Marie also won prizes, she will bring them along next week to show us.

Val has been busy with her Charity quilts as well as creating a cutie for our Christmas Fair..........yeah, Christmas, its just around the corner you know! will be on us before we have time to blink!
Val practiced her 'Crazy Patch' quilting skills with this denim creation, using various denim scraps from a vest she had previously made herself.

A peek at some of the different denim fabrics Val used, including one with lovely bronze stitching.

The inspiration for Val's creation of this girls quilt comes from the fabric used in the first border and the nine patches, pretty little pink and blue ballerina slippers.  Someone is going to be really happy when they see this lovely at the Fair.

Lorraine arrived and promptly got to work, attaching handles onto a bag she made from Sues Machine Pieced Hexagon Tutorial.  Lorraine wanted to convince Sheila that it was possible to machine piece the hexies together, and keep them flat, as well as create them by machine. 

This is the result, one cute bag.  Butting the hexies together, Lorraine used her machine's Feather stitch to attach two rows into a circle, she then formed a base using 3 hexies.

 Attaching the handles to the inside of the bag, Lorraine then stitched small hexies over the join for neatness, decoration and strength. 

Next on Lorraine's list of must do's at our meeting was to finish the binding on this cute quilt for Judy Bellingham's Project Linus. The newly created group meets on a Monday, once a month at the Patchwork Angel in Forest Glen, everyone welcome, there are many jobs that even non sewers can help out with, and it really is such a good cause.  Creating little 'blankies' for Children with Cancer. 

Another giftie Lorraine was creating for her family is this great table throw - now doesn't that sound so much more vibrant and young than tablecloth? table throw......love it.  The nifty thing about this throw is the way Lorraine is finishing it off, not unlike a cross between a border and double binding, the weight of the doubled fabric makes the throw lay flat on the table, and able to withstand a light breeze outdoors.

But with all the things this clever lass had to show and share yesterday, this was to her the most exciting.  She has hit on the idea of creating her own gift cards to give with her many wonderful creations, using a blank plain card, obtained from that rotten shop that won't give you a bag for your purchases......(I'm sure to find blank cards elsewhere - will let you know!)...........sorry, stepping down off soap box now.....to continue....using a blank plain card, some fabric scraps from your creation, a little fusible web, and a letter template, - Lorraine got one from an embroidery book.  Transfer the letter to the fusible web paper, iron the web to the fabric's wrong side, using a low heat, press it onto the card and then stitch around the letter using a small zig zag or other decorative stitch, doing the same with a bar of fabric down the side of the card.  How Easy Is That!!

How Effective!!  How Pretty! and just how personal to get your very own card, not another one in the whole world like it!  Thanks for sharing Lorraine.

Betty had this very cute beanie that she has knitted to welcome the newest Great Grandie, the Booties were made by one of the needlework ladies and Betty was lucky enough to snaffle them to go with the beanie.

Janice presented a workshop on various ways to create Bias Binding strips.  Lots of experimenting and steaming went on up around the ironing board I can tell you.  It's amazing that what one person takes for granted as 'oh just something everyone knows' and is brand new knowledge to another.  Janice did discover that the old tip of using pins on the ironing board to create bias might work beautifully on closer weave fabric cut on the straight, certainly presents a bit of work and a bother if the fabric is cut on the Bias!! "Where's that Bias maker" was the catch cry!

Arvo Tea was not only lovely, but presented by just one Member, one lass bought us along delish egg sangies, chocolate biccies (went fast)  custard filled iced bun, another fave, and for the wheat intolerant who usually miss out, rice crackers and dip! and she did enjoy them - see those little fingers going in for seconds!   ;o)

The Quilters Store - Brissy

The Quilters Store in Brisbane is having an internet sale, ends of bolts ranging from min half meter to maximum 2 meters.
Idea is you buy what is on the bolt, fabrics are from all over their shop and the discount is 35%.

Sale starts on Saturday June 19th. at 6.ooa.m. AEST on their website, and will run until Monday June 21st. There will be a new button appear at 6.00a.m. on their site.  go to http://www.tqes.com.au/

The e-mail with all the info is rather long, so if you need more info give me a tingle, my number is in our phone list, or phone the very nice and ever so helpful Karen from the Quilters' and Embroideres' store on (07) 3875 1700.

The fabric can be collected from the store in Salisbury, Brisbane if you want to save postage. Just let them know in the comments section.

Show and Tell from the Thursday Night Group

There has been much talk about Fiona's Hexagons and in the mailbox this a.m. courtesy of Lorraine, lucky us get to see a piccie, .

"At the Thursday night Patchwork Group meeting this week, we had three new quilts to enjoy.

Fiona brought along her completed hexagon quilt top which  looked wonderful with its appliqued darker border really setting off the gorgeous flowers.  All that hand stitching and not a stitch in sight!

Jane brought her adorable dresden plate quilt top made with fabulous pastel fabrics.

She has done a tremendous job of all the hand stitched paper pieced dresden plates, with an interesting mix of fabrics.

Lorraine has finished her "shirt" quilt which she has made for a family member undergoing chemo treatment at present.  This quilt has been made from seven old cotton shirts and it has a lovely "worn in comfy" feel to it.  The quilt is for a 40yr. old male, and it seems to appeal to all the men who have seen it so far.  They like it because "it does not seem like a blanket"

Thank you Lorraine for sharing your pics and the doings of the Thursday night girls, all lovely quilts, the pic of your shirt quilt just oozes 'comfort'.  The very best of luck to the recipient, hope he recovers soon.

Show'en off, catchin' up and spreading the good times.

Well lots of showing off all the finished goodies from the weekend Retreat today, Ailsa and Fran did a 'model walk'  to show off their caddies, Fran decided that a 'sporran' wasn't what she wanted after all and put some pretty little tucks in her neck band to shorten it.

Some rather cute reversible coasters from Sues Sunday tutorial, cunning huh! they are very flat, not gonna get a glass to wobble on these beauties.

Remember Lorraine and her 'running away from home' bag?  the beautiful Log Cabin butterflies created at the Retreat?, well here is the quilt that inspired the bag, now we know why she needed such a big bag, when Lorraine said Queen size, I think she meant the 'giant economy' Queen size!!!

Sue is under that quilt,...somewhere,... helping to hold it up for the piccie....

Lorraine has used a pink Toile as the very center of her quilt, and is hand quilting the design lines to pick out the detail.

Lyn has created an 'I Spy' Quillo for her Grandie, using the disappearing 9 patch design and some left over 'I Spy' squares from previous quilts.  She was zooming off to watch him play sport after a quick cuppa, but Grandie has to wait for the Quillo......why?, well Lyn has to make a label..very important things, labels.

When Lyn got home with the backing fabric, she found it to be 2" too narrow....arrgh, what to do, well Lyn solved the problem brilliantly, she used some more of those 'I Spy' patches to put an 'I Spy' line down the back of the quilt, with a smaller line of blocks down the center of the Quillo pocket.

Sheila had a bit of a change of heart about her doggie mat for Julius, poor poor Julius, its the cold floor for you mate, after having success with the machine quilting and following lots of encouragement and advice from the girls, Sheila has decide that this should be a throw for one of the family, not a family pet...Good decision!.

 But I really wanted to show you Sheila's Jacket, now isn't that the best winter wear for the Sub-tropics?, we do get cold up here........and today was! brrrrr....


Arvo tea was a bit of a quiet affair, there had been a sumptuous Luncheon at the Cottage to celebrate the life of Silversmith Leader Irene Marshall who sadly passed away last week.

Lots of variety and some really delish slices.