Our Local Volunteer Fire Brigade and our Raffle Quilts

Remember that 'last Australian Quilt' of Catti's last week?, well it may be the last finished Aussie quilt but there is another quilt in the offing...Cattie bought along this flimsey to share.  Buttonhole applique and made from an Ella & Skysie pattern, one of a series of Hats, Bags and of course Shoes.

Best Wishes for a safe flight Catti, we will miss you.

Julie has been busy creating these two quilts for the Sales section of our up-coming TREE-mendous Quilt Show.

Both quilts are simple designs (so says Julie) with a stunning look.

Judy created this lovely using Japanese prints from her stash for a very special person in her life.  It's to be posted off as a surprise in the next week or so, so not too much can be said at this point.

Each Cottage Group takes it in turns to place their works on display in the Atrium display cabinet.  This month it is the Needlework gals turn to skite and share.

 Fran, who had been to lunch with some of the girls bought these tiny beauties back to pop into the cabinet

The proceeds from our wonderful Raffle Quilts will be going to a very worthy cause, to help support our local volunteer Fire Brigade, the Ilkley and District Rural Fire Brigade.  These worthies, along with many other volunteer Brigades throughout Australia, give their time, energy, and experience not to mention fire fighting skills to help protect us from the devastation that a fire can bring.
Sheila invited Harold Baxter, the First Officer of the Ilkley and District Brigade along for us all to meet and for Harold to give a very informative talk on what is involved with the running of a volunteer group and how they have to go about raising funds to keep themselves viable, since the slashing of Government funding.
Harold mentioned just how hot the fire retardant suits are, and after a little bit of a try on, I can tell you, he's right!

 So after another yummy arvo tea, we waved bye to Harold and some of us got down to work at sandwiching a quilt, this one Ailsa's Hidden Wells, started in the recent workshop the group had.

 Some people do, some watch and the rest of us just offered vital advice......some of it was even listened to, not acted on mind, but listened to.

And why is this post sooo late?, well here's a little hint.

 Yep, a family wedding..the Bride was radiant, everyone was Glam but this little treasure stole the show.

A last Australian quilt...

We have been privileged to have such a wonderful, productive and giving member in Catti, she has kept us in stitches with her stories and greatly amused us with her astonishment at good 'ole Aussie sayings, but sadly Catti will soon be flying home to her native land, something that came home with a bit of a bang yesterday when she presented her last Australian quilt for show and tell, and I suspect she kept the best for last, showing off this superb quilt to us at yesterdays meeting.

 

 Catti was glowing in her praise of Gwen as a teacher and very grateful to have had the opportunity to learn all the different aspects of quilting in the series of workshops presented  by Gwen last year.  

That favourite day of the year for many came around last Sunday, yep, you guessed it, 'Mother's Day', lots of flowers and pressies made an appearance but Janice reckons she got one of the best.  Her Daughter, who does lovely cross-stitch inserted a native kangaroo paw flower into this sewing compendium as her gift.  Janice has just about worn it out with pats!!

 A closer view of the cross-stitched flower and a flimsey of our next workshop that Janice will be presenting.

 and when she wasn't strolling and patting, Janice was stitching down the binding on this lovely quilt, the top was a donation, and Pamela Jones from Kimz Sewing and Patchwork Center in Warana very kindly did the beautiful quilting in between the chains, the finished quilt will be raffled at the Biggest Morning Tea being held at  'Craft in the Chapel' in Nambour next Thur.19th..  Pop along for a cuppa and a chance to win.

 Maree bought along a 3-D wall hanging that she made about 2 years ago through Quilt University, just to show some of the gals what is available as quilting courses with Quilt University.  '4 Elements' is a very textural wall hanging, with silver lightning bolts shooting throug 'Air',and even tiny shells stitched to the sand in 'Water'

http://www.quiltuniversity.com/ is the link if you would like to check the site out for yourself, lots of talented tutors, and there is always a Forum set up for each course so students can communicate with each other and the tutor.  Thank you Maree.

Quite a while back, the gals that generally sit at the noisy err...end table, found a rather enchanting quilt with pattern and directions in one of the quilt magazines from our library, they were so entranced it was decided to do a 'friendship' challenge quilt.  Sadly some have fallen by the wayside but Wendy has finished the first of the challenge quilts with promises of more to be shown at our up-coming (more like up-rushing) TREE-mendous Quilt and Sale Show in July.

 Betty has been working on a Japanese Fabric Hexagon quilt, and bought in the finished flimsey to share with us "Just something I ran up in my spare time" she commented when asked what her inspiration was,  ....and then added "and just something to use up my spare money", bit tongue in cheek.

Heather has been knitting up a storm for her new Grandie to be, the first babe for one of her daughters.  Bub will be born in the middle of winter in Sydney so those cute little cardies will be just the ant'z pantz.

 We were also give the chance to grab some goodies courtesy of Ruth and the lovely folks at Neuendorf Interiors. Ruth came along with boxes and bags of fabric offcuts and ends, just the thing to make loads of cushions, and other house-hold bibs and bobs.  One of our more energetic gals even had the idea of re-upholstering her day bed in a patchwork design!  Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

 Thank you for bringing all those lovely 'treasures to be' along for us Ruth.

Marcia is busily crocheting a knee rug for friends she and her Darling will be visiting next week, yep, next week!, and although she was busily telling a rather hilarious tale from her last holiday, as you can see, those fingers didn't stop for a second.

 Crocheting is really 'The Thing' at the moment, Marguerite is also making a knee rug, sadly I chopped her head off in the pic!........no I didn't!, I just had a flat battery in the camera and by the time I took a pic of Marguerite everything was way way fuzzy, but heres the goodies anyway.  Sorry Marguerite.

 And as some of us know, Lorraine is an apiarist, she often supplies us with lovely local honey, always a different flavour and colour, depending on the flowers and seasons, well, long story short, the talk yesterday got around to bees and our local blue banded bees, yep blue bees, or blue bottomed bees, or even Amegilla Cingulata if you want to be flash!, however you say it, it's a bit of a startlement when you first clap eyes on one I can tell you, so if you have never seen one - here is a pic

 Took the pic (and a few dozen others) out through the window the other day.  Pleased to see them back and active.

Jenny's Trunk Show

Yes, another month has rolled around and it's time for another Trunk Show from the Thursday Night Girls, this time it is Jenny's turn to astonish and astound with her many beautiful quilts, bears and cross stitcheries.
Be warned, the Trunk Show posts by their very nature are photo heavy but well worth the viewing.
Words and Pics bought to us courtesy of Debby with help from Letitia.  Thanks Debby and Letitia.

Jenny had lots of lovely art work which she has bought from people selling on the side of the road in South Africa.  The Zulu women raise money for Aids.

Bead work is done by Zimbabwe instead of Zulus.  Unfortunately the women don't make as many of the beautiful items today.

Jenny started quilting 25 years ago when fabrics and books were very scarce.  Her 1st quilt is in South Africa with her Mom.  Jenny loves paper piecing and hand quilts all of them except 2, and Jenny has made a lot of quilts.
This quilt is her 2nd quilt, there wasn't much fabric due to apartheid.

 Jenny made this star quilt on the machine.

 This quilt is paper pieced by hand, its very worn and has been very loved over the years.  It used to be very bright.

This quilt is a polyester scotty dog quilt made for her daughter

 Jenny created this quilt using the strip piecing method, standing rows of pastel flowers, all with lemon centers

A Kaffe Fasset quilt, foundation pieced, love the colours

 A birthday quilt made for Jenny by her friends for her 40th birthday, naive red hearts, surrounded by a log cabin variation.

 Jenny used Margaret Rolfe foundation piecing patterns to make this story quilt for her Son.

 Hand Pieced Hexies in a 'Grandmothers Flower Garden', Jenny has pieced this quilt since arriving in Australia.

Love this one, Jenny has collected lots of Doilys and made a doily and denim quilt.  Doilys are hand embroidered.

Jenny made this 'Nelson Mandela' quilt.  One of her friends in South Africa made some of the fabrics.

 Jenny has said that she actually likes the back better.

Another strip pieced quilt.

 An around the world variation quilt with the addition of a 'Pies and Tarts' border

 Jenny took a long time to finish this quilt as she didn't really like it.  It's a paper pieced kite scrappy quilt.

 This is gorgeous, another paper pieced pastel quilt with beautiful appliqué flowers.  Jenny loves paper piecing.

Jenny created this soft pastel quilt using elongated hexagons.

 Jenny made this suffolk puff quilt last year, it is sooo cute and her dog George just loves it.

 Another hexy quilt Jenny started last year after visiting the Ipswich quilt show, where she saw the worlds longest quilt.  Yes, they are 1/2" hexies done in reproduction fabrics.  Jenny is just finishing it off.  It is a wall hanging.

 This is a raffle quilt she made and was quilted by our quilting fairy, Fiona.

 Another quilt made for a class that Jenny teaches at the Angel.  The flowers have raw edges, looks great.

 Jenny loves making mini quilts for her laundry.

  

 This was Jenny's first crazy patch bag and this is what got her hooked on crazy.

 More of her crazy quilting, 4 patch, crazy bags, small crazy wall quilt used as a teaching tool.

Oh my gosh, Jenny also loves making these gorgeous tiny winny cute teddy bears.  How adorable!

This motor bike has been made out of wire, very clever.  Another piece of art work made by a very clever man and sold on the side of the road in South Africa.

  Thank you so much Jenny, your Trunk Show and Tell was enjoyed by all.  You are a very clever lady, thanks for sharing with us  :)

All the Show and Tell are WIP's..

Yep, not a single completed article for Show and Tell on Wednesday, the Girls are all gearing up for our up coming TREE-mendous quilt show, and were all busily starting new projects or finishing off bindings etc.

Lorraine is stitching 'Love Is..' a freebie from Paula Stoddard, a link to this cutie is in our side bar.

 After many weeks of having her arm in a sling it was great to see Fae slowly getting back into her stitching, and Winnifred has tamed her paper pieced 'octopus', so named because it kept curling around her arm.  She is turning it into a European sized cushion cover.

Do have to confess though, there was an awful lot of skylarking going on, especially with Julie chasing around selling raffle tickets to our quilts, she got just about everyone, and not just a ticket mind you, a book a go!

Judy was about to launch into the binding on this vegetable themed stack and slash place mat, Innes is just finishing off the binding on her runner while Marguerite, Fran and Betty all had busy fingers but were enjoying a bit of a goss while hard at it.

Sheila is working on a requested Blue quilt for her Granddaughter Zoe, based on the Jan Mullins square in a square design and using motifs of all the loves in Zoe's life, her music, love of animals and marine creatures, and of course, a big X, love from Grandma.  Sheila is working on the quilt in sections and will join them after the quilting is completed.