Treasure Found, Sneak Peek at a W.I.P and other lovelies

Christine bought along her 'blue' quilt to show us today, she started collecting the blue fabrics a few years back, about 20 of 'em actually, the idea being that she would make a quilt for her Son, well she has made a stunning quilt with some advice and following a pattern from Monica down at the Sewing Basket.  DS has sadly missed out on this one.

Christine had envisaged that the quilt would go rather nicely in the spare bedroom......a.but her Darling had other ideas, its now proudly in use in their bedroom....I guess you could say he rather likes it!

 Christine had her quilt machine quilted by Fiona using a variegated thread in a swirly edge to edge pattern.

As a bit of a change from the blue and black, Christine ventured into the world of the vibrant with this bright quilt,

all sandwiched up and ready to go, she bought it along today to ask for quilting ideas.  Louise very kindly helped hold the quilt out while we all put in our tuppence worth.  Christine went home with quite a few designs, books and ideas.  We will all be interested to see the finished quilt and what Christine decides as the final quilting design.

Sadie, back from some time away bought in her flimsey from the Tessellation workshop she started with Val, soft apricot in the blocks is echoed in the border print fabric.

Caitti made good use of the Q.A.Y.G. demonstration that Beryl shared with us last week, creating her own version of the Q.A.Y.G. table runner,

The runner is destined for use on the patio table, not too far from the flower bed with blooms of the same colour palet as the runner.  Catti also made a wine bottle coaster and two coasters to complete her table setting.

Spied this rather unusual piece being worked on, just a little peek at a WIP,

Can't wait to see the finished.......(well that would be telling, now wouldn't it!)

Fran, famous for her one quilt every 10 years philosophy, started this beauty in Val's first Tessellation workshop, she finished the blocks at home, but assembled the flimsey at our Retreat and has since had it beautifully professionally quilted by Wendy.

It will be put to very good use for the Grandies to snuggle under when they visit.

The show and tell table had quite a collection of Christmas goodies,  they are all samples of what we will be working on in our upcoming mini Retreat,

Lined Christmas Stocking, tree baubles, and machine pieced and assembled hexies for a christmas table runner, oh yeah, and a mystery project.........no sneak peeks on that one yet!

Caity has been off to the Op-Shop, and found this little cutie, an embroidered linnen drawstring bag, cost her the princely sum of $1, don't you just love a bargain??

The Napkin holder is all Catti's own work, beautiful silk ribbon embroidery.
There is a matching book mark in the making as well,........ just picture it, lounging back reading a book with a beautiful marker to keep your place, sipping a pleasant cup of tea from the finest china, munching on the tinsiest little cake or pastry and helping yourself to a napkin from this beautiful napkin holder....Bliss!!

Well, its a girly-er (is that a word??) scenario than the actuality, trying to peer around a cat that has just discovered that sitting on the computer desk and snuffling into your coffee is really quite rewarding....it really makes the hooman snitty!

Arvo tea was Mud Cake, Ginger Spoges and choc bikkies, all on pretty plates on a white cloth. 

Busy Ladies with wonderful quilts to show

Thursday night saw a small but very busy group meeting with 13 ladies present.  June kept some of the group busy making the 22 charm square bag and also helping Heather with a panel quilt, while others of the group were busy working on their paper piecing projects.

Show and Tell saw some lovely quilts being displayed.
Dianne with her Japanese Quilt top. Showcasing a center medallion and other fabrics with an innovative sashed layout

Elaine with her sashed quarter square triangle quilt.  Elaine used a Moda 'Garden Party' layer cake and jelly roll to create this lovely quilt and had Fiona quilt it for her.

Leanne with her flimsey 'Nostalgia', Leanne found this pattern in a back issue of Aust. Patchwork and Quilting.

June showing her latest 'Hidden Wells' quilt.  June incorporated folded and gathered flowers in her borders and pieced her binding.

 Thank you Marlene and Maureen for the lovely pics and report.  - A

Great Demo from Beryl, lots of Quilty Goodies and one very lucky Grandie

Some time ago, Beryl bought in a rather innovative and reversible QAYG table runner.

Today she gave us a demo on how to create our own, below Beryl is demonstrating the stitch and flip method she used for the QAYG blocks, which then have a quarter circle cut from one corner to create the runner design.

 Some closer views of the runner, as the background and two pics of the blocks. Perfect project to use up some of those left over strips.

Some of the Machine Embroidery girls have been mucking about with a couple of rather inventive templates, Marie used the small template to make blocks for the front and back panels on a carry bag she has created.  The bag is to house the cute little sewing machine she has bought for her 6 yr. old Granddaughter, there are also pockets on the bag's inside, for extra storage.

The machine has a press button start/stop function, runs on batteries, and also has a foot controll. Perfect for a little sewer to be.  Marie has also added a sewing notions carousel with lots of threads and gizmos for her lucky little Grandie.

Christine has finished her beautiful pink and mossy green tessellated quilt and bought it along to share with us.
Colour co-ordinated for the showing in her pink T - how often does that happen?, lots I can tell you!

Catti has also finished her version, adding an extra border with tessellations in the cornerstones.

We are all making fabric 'leaves', these are some of Catti's...........why leaves? well that little secret will be shared with you next year!, yep a project in the making.

Marcia has a new project in the offing, this little lady was part of a recent wedding and Marcia had her Darling copy the piccie onto a pre-treated fabric sheet, the plan being Marcia will do some of her lovely stitching and then give the finished embroidery to the little one's Mum.  Hope we get to see the finished article.

Marguerite spied this lovely bright bag, with all it's felted flowers and leaves, while holding it up for a pic and to find out who it belonged to - It's another one of Marcia's - Guess who flew by behind her.....

Yep, Lorraine, she is back from the U.S. and will be with us for some weeks before decamping to live in Tassie, we all hope she will be coming back for visits, and we already have plans to go visit for a quilting retreat.....v.e.g. (remember those pics of her Tassie holiday home??!!)

Marcia has almost finished her stitchery, just these two to go and then it will be assembly time.......so, Leanne, Put those Puppies down and get stitchin' girl!...yeah! we know, 9 weeks and not a needle touched!   (Gee don'tch just hate a dobber!)

On her way out the door at end of day, Wendy spied Catti with another bag, made from 2 tea towels she told us, Wendy was very taken with the little fans.  Cute as...

Sadly, arvo tea was just about over by the time I made it to the table, so much talkin' (read gosspiping) to catch up on, after all, it's been a week!

June has returned with quilts to show

News from the Thursday night girls from Marlene Via Maureen....(it's always good to have a DD who can forward on the piccies - Thank you both for the news and pics.

Small group met on the 9th.  Many of the girls are on or going on holidays over the next few weeks.

June Salzberger was back after a busy time with family and gardening.  However she still managed to finiish off these 3 quilts!!

The jungle one (above) is for Grandson Shawn's 16th birthday, a 'Bentobox' style.

An old favorite 'Hidden Wells' is in sea prints and is a Mary Hopkins design originally taught to us by Julie. 

The scrappy is from our Jenny's workshop from 2008

Thanks to Ivanka for all the magazines, some going back to 1988!!

Logan's Patchwork

Logans Patchwork is having a 'Spring Sale' fabric from $8.00 per meter to $12 per meter
postage is about $5. for 2.5 meters of fabric or $10 for more than that.
Pop over to see Margaret Kirkby and the team at http://www.patchworkfabrics.com.au/fabrics.html
No affiliations or brown paper bags, just got the e-mail.

Lotsa Goss, chit chat, and generally what we have been up to...

A wee tad back, few weeks at least, there was a bit of a conversation on, would you believe it...hair.  How long between haircuts.....the law as laid down by cutters on how long/short the time between visits etc. etc.....
Fran mentioned how many moons ago, she used to have very long hair, swept up in a bun....in fact, she had that hair style when she launched a ship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!            
Well, we all wanted to see a piccie, and today was our lucky day.
Fran bought along a couple of pics from her past, an official  pic  photo by Roland Bryant of the 'Latrobe' in the shipbuilding yards and a pic of Fran, sporting beautiful upswept golden locks when she launched the 'Latrobe', in the pic she is with the Shipbuilder (middle)  and the c.e.o of the shipping company that commissioned the ship, sorry, forgotten the name...ooops.

Now I had to apply a wee tad of pressure to our Star Hostess with the Mostest to capture this pic, but what the heck!!, happy to pay the price.....(Hope you all appreciate the sacrifice....)

Before the meeting began, some of us were out the front enjoying our lunches when along came a couple of lovely 'new to the area' ladies,  looking for info on the Cottage, we convinced Sue to stay and sample one of our meetings, her DDIL had to pop off and attend to other things, but was happy to scoot back to collect Sue at end of day.
Now Wendy, being a bit of a fast thinker, was more than happy to take Sue under her wing, and soon we discovered why, see all those little hexies Wendy is working on???

 Now here is Sue beavering away on Wendy's hexies

heck, if you're committed to a hexie project, wouldn't you want a little help along?  Sue, a real trooper, was more that happy to help out with those little Hexies.
And the flowers that Catti is working on?, more of those sitting by her side, she has ruched flowers and suffolk puff flowers, from Janice's in-house demonstrations.  Wonder what these will turn into?

Sheila bought along some mending, a request from her DDIL. When DIL was just a youngster, she made a dolls quilt from any scraps she could find, pieces from her sisters fave skirt, some P.J. fabric, velvets etc, all which now evoke lots of memories.  The quilt was later extend into a lap quilt, again using more scraps, but over time some of the fabrics have just plain worn out, hence the mending request.  As we all know, Sheila is not a fan of hand stitching, so this is truly a labour of love to hand piece those replacement squares.

The quilt is a two layer quilt, top and a lovely soft lambswool fleece backing.  Sheila has folded back the top  to show the lambswool.

Barbara has been working on this 3-D cat for a few weeks, not being happy with the original layout of the faux fur fabric, she disassembled poor pus and re-assembled him back to this proud creature, with his cross stitched green eyes and gold thread whiskers.  Puss will be making his home with Barbara.

Fae has turned a UFO into a finished item.  She saw this book panel a couple of years ago, and decided to make it up for her Grandson,

He will be turning 22 next week!!, we all think she should give him the book for his birthday,after all it was bought for him, he can give it to his first born.......or it may make it to the sales table for the Christmas Fair. 

Val was commissioned to make a lap quilt, and made up this beauty using directions from one of our Library books, "Kaleidoscope ABC's by Marti Michelle, all straight seam sewing but giving an illusion of circles.

A Kaleido Ruler is needed to construct the quilt, and yes, we do have that ruler in our Library.

Wendy has finished her quilt from Val's tessellation workshop, the pattern is in the Christine Porter book 'Tessellation Quilts'

Sorry I had to cut you in half Wendy, there was such a glare on the glass of the pic behind you it was just too yuck to fix.

Catti was just packing up to go home when Wendy spied this really lovely bag, beautiful silk roses,

'oh', says Catti in a very off hand manner, 'that was just a cushion I found'..........WHAA!, a cushion.  We all scrabbled around for a look and Catti showed us the inside of the bag and sure enough, there was the back zip!

Who would guess, this lovely bag is a cushion cover?

Catti then pulled another bag out from under and showed us this one, she got the fabric from our 'Bring and Buy' table for $2, and the lining for .50cents

A very swish bag for $2.50, well not the handles of course, but you can see the clever way that Catti has attached the handles, they can be interchangeable!
And so as the early birds pack up to leave, our hard working leader is just settling down to put a few stitches into her mending project, and no doubt wondering why Catti didn't have those bags out on the Show and Tell table, as did the rest of us.

Oh, almost forgot, Arvo tea was delish....again....Fran's ginger shortbread bikkies, ginger cake, other biscuits and a plate of lovely fresh rockmelon slices.