It's Christmas! again....

...gee, it just seems like a couple of months ago when we were all busily getting ready for the 2011 Christmas Fair, and now the 2012 Fair has been and gone - and what a wonderful Fair it was!
Now before we get to drool over some of the wonderful works done by the Patch Gals there is a pic courtesy of Heather, remember the monkey suit she created for her Grandie?, well here it is being modeled by one very happy little lad.

Patricia and Pat got their act going early, before the doors opened just to make sure all was as it should be.

Sheila was decked out in one of her clever patchwork skirts, all ready to assist the Fair patrons, as you can see, the Cottage fills fast, this was about 2 mins after the doors opened!

Some of the 'theme' quilts presented for sale.  The 'John Deer' wall hanging with 2 cushion covers (hiding behind the bags) was snaffled up early and is winging its way to Japan to live with two lucky young boys.

Lots of stunning cushions in various styles, and two very different styles of quilts, both stunning.

Quilts of all sizes and styles, some terrific table runners and a circular table cloth, lots of little gifts and a really cute half apron, Louise tells me they are called Fat Quarter Aprons, they just cover your top down past the waist.  Brilliant!

'What colour is an elephant'? well any colour you choose would be the answer to that one!

This is it! proof that Jackie just isn't one to sit around, ever on the go, dashing by and tidying the displays.

There was a mountain of goodies for sale, from little personal gifts such as earring carriers, to food carriers to toys, books, throws...you get the idea. Something for everyone, no matter their age or boy or girl.  A wonderful array.  Take a bow Patch Gals, you did yourselves proud - again.

Gearing Up for our Christmas Fair.

Would you believe it! it is only 8 days to the Christmas Fair!, boy did that come up in a rush!.
Anyway, if you are in our neck of the woods on the weekend of Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th November, pop on in, and grab yourself some lovely goodies for Christmas Gifts.
The Fair will be open from 4p.m. to 8p.m. on the Friday and from 8a.m. to 3p.m. on the Saturday.  We will not be open on the Sunday this year.

If you are unfamiliar with our Cottage and the myriad of goodies available from our various groups, pop over here to the Buderim Craft Cottage web site for all the info you could need, either on where we are, upcoming showings, our Atrium Gallery hours; where a selection of goods from all groups are for sale, and also contact names and numbers if you would like to be part of a vibrant and talented group of crafters and artisans.

Now if you are a little tyke, and you're off to your very first Christmas party at day care what do you do? well, you ask Gran to make you a Money Suit of course! (Being as how monkeys are your bestest fav. right now)
Heather whipped this beauty up for her Grandie.

 

It even has a little head piece/hat complete with monkey ears (the hat is being modeled over one of our thread catchers, so just ignore the little snippet of lace)

Bet he is the best dressed little tyke at the party.

On the subject of kiddies, Janice has added to her menagerie of stuffed animals for the Fair, here she shows off two of her dinosaurs.

We were privileged to a viewing of a very special quilt yesterday, and yes, it is for a very special gift, a wedding quilt for her Darling Husbands Nephew and his Bride. 

Gwen gave herself 6 months to design and hand quilt this Whole Cloth or Durham quilt, working on it a little every day and was able to finish it in 5 months

The design is a central circle enclosing a star and then ever widening with rows of quilting designs, surrounded by cross hatched diamonds and finally a wide feathered cable border and finally a narrower cable.  Stunning just isn't a big enough word to describe this quilt.
Gwen will be delivering this wonderful quilt on a visit to Scotland in the not too distant future.

Don't forget, for a closer look, click on the pic and a bigger version will open in a new window.

Lyn was leaving our meeting and jumping on a plane for a family visit where she will be presenting this dolls quilt and matching patchwork handbag to her little Grandaughter.  Another lucky Grandie.
Sorry I didn't notice the bag isn't turned to the front, as you can see Lyn is trying to swallow a grin, there was a little shenanigans going on at the time!

And our final pic is a W.I.P. from Lorelei, using a silk based 'wool'? (should that be a silk?) and an open pattern, this scarf is going to be something really special, don't want to wax poetic but the term 'gossamer web' immediately sprung to mind when handling this beauty.

August comings and goings...and a Mothers Love.

..and there certainly have been some comings and goings, lots of holidays as everyone pops off to escape the colder months of where we live, not that the colder months are all that cold in reality.

Our most exciting 'finish' for the group was Courtney's first quilt, this has been Courtneys 'bring along project' to work on at group meetings.
Made using her favourite colours in a 9-Patch design Courtney surround her cute 'Sunbonnet Sue'  embroidery with appliqued hearts. 

Some time back, (well quite a whack of time back - see the receipt date in the pic!)  Marcia purchased a lovely 'Amish Style' quilt kit, and to make sure it stayed in pristine condition she packed it away carefully in a zip lock bag.
A few days back Marcia though it would make a lovely 'bring along' project for meeting days, on opening the pack she was met with all the points falling off the triangular pieces.  Further investigation showed that all of the fabric had rotted, tearing apart with the tiniest bit of pressure!

The baggie is being blamed, and perhaps it's so, but I have bits of quilts and patterns all stored away in ziplocks and there is no sign of damage (.......yeah......you bet it was the first thing I did after rushing home - had a good look through the stash, and yeah again, some of my stuff is at least as old as Marcia's wasted quilt!
However - there is a bit of reorganising going on I can tell you!
Anyone else ever had this problem - the kit was from a reputable company in the U.S., so shoddy fabric to start with isn't suspected!

Now about that Mothers Love, the Darling Daughter wanted Mum to make her a quilt, so D.D. chose the design, 'Hidden Wells' and popped off to buy the fabric - not really Mum's colours but the quilt was duly made, quilted, bound and delivered.......now here is the Mother Love bit.
D.D.'s response was.........'its lovely Mum, and you did a good job, but...it's a bit yellow!!!!
So Sue fixed it!   -  How I hear you ask over the sound of all those jaws dropping.
She unpicked the quilting and hand appliqued strips of blues on top of the yellow dots!  yes! she did!

The revamped and re-quilted quilt, cute huh?!

and here you can see where Sue appliqued a blue chevron over the yellow dots, creating a yellow, blue, yellow stripe.

On this block Sue appliqued a blue square over the yellow dots to create a square, in a square, in a square.

Now scroll back to the quilt pic and just see how many of those chevrons and squares there are!!
Now if that isn't Mother Love, I don't know what is.

Our in house workshop for August was a repeat of the workshop done on our first retreat, the ever handy 'Tie Pouch'.
Made from a re-cycled men's tie, it is just the thing to cart your mobile around in, especially at meetings or similar places where you put you handbag down and then wander around, greeting friends, having a sticky at what they are working on and of course nibbling on something delish from the arvo tea table.
Janice, Sheila, Louise, Lorraine, Sue and Aila show off their pouches.

Marie bought along her latest 'Grandies Quilt' to share with us, a striking combination using a mix of a busy 'Batman' fabric and panel with plain fabrics in the borders.  Very effective use of colour to create a stunning quilt.

Val is still busily creating simple quilts for the kiddies at Laurel House, and although she generally uses simple construction methods, the quilts are always beautiful.  Val was just popping the binding on this, her latest, a Q.A.Y.G block set into a diamond pattern on the front and sashed strips for the backing, all quilted with a decorative machine stitch.

Yvonne's Trunk Show

Another wonderful Trunk Show from the Thursday Night Group, this time featuring the lovely and varied work of Yvonne, a new member to our Patchwork Group
Thanks again to Debby and Letitia for making it possible for us all to share Yvonne's treasures.

Yvonne has had no formal sewing lessons. She did sew for her children when they were younger and this is her first quilt that she made for her daughter 15 years ago.

Yvonne said it's a bit faded but her daughter has it on her bed & it's well loved.

A very large log cabin quilt. it belongs on her queen size bed & reaches the floor.

Yvonne's first embroidery quilt, a quilt as you go that Yvonne quilted on her sewing machine.

A closer view of some of the beautifully worked machine embroidery.

Using bali pop prints, Yvonne created this innovative design.   Yvonne said
she doesnt like it, she only liked the middle pattern so she just kept adding!!!

This puffy 'heart' quilt is a favourite of Yvonne's grandson, he loves to  lie on this ever so soft quilt.

This quilt started as a knee rug with some machine embroidery. We don't think Yvonne can do small!!!

This is a smaller quilt which has been recently done - cot size - Yvonne is hoping for twin grand daughters one day

A Table Runner in a design that many quilters have made but with the clever use of colour Yvonne has created a completely different effect.

With clever use of embroidered trees & farm scenes Yvonne created this small blue and green quilt. Very interesting.

More machine embroidery, two lovely machine embroidered cushion covers.

Beautifully embroidered and sprinkled with sequins, a Xmas stocking for grandson Jake

Machine embroidered Washer and tea towel, and a doylie that Yvonne created when she was at high school, hand embroidered with crocheted the edges .

Lace work done on the embroidery machine - just beautiful work & more gorgeous doylies.

Yvonne has also made lots of baby things but has given heaps away.  
Thank you so much Yvonne for sharing your lovely quilting with us & welcome to our group as well. - Debby.

Civil War Fabrics, and another take on Q.A.Y.G.

Civil War Quilts, as soon as someone says those words you know exactly what to expect, the muted colours, the simple designs with a small amount of quilting, these quilts were generally made in a bit of a rush, to be ready to go off to war with loved ones.
Well not so long ago, while on a trip to the U.S., Pat visited an exhibition of Civil War Quilts and was inspired to create this lovely 'Grandma's Flower Garden' quilt using a bundle of fabrics she purchased at the Museum.

Pat teamed her new purchases with some fabric from her Stash for the block backgrounds, The 'flowers' are English paper pieced, Pat's first experience with paper piecing, and then appliqued onto the background squares, and of course the quilting is hand done, a simple design of quilting around the outer edges of the hexagon flowers.

Marie needed a quilt for her B-I-Law's 80th Birthday, so created this quilt from a piece of fabric from her Stash.  Her B-I-L is a country gent who mows lawns for a lot of people - hence the mowers on the fabric.  The circles on the border are edged with bias.    How clever is that!-A

And while we are on the subject of clever, here is a wonderfully clever hint from Sue.  Another use for those thin plastic cutting mats we all buy from the 'cheapie' stores, when they become a little worn and tatty give them a new lease on life by using them for templates!.........I tried this yesterday with a flower shape for quilt marking, works a treat! - Thanks Sue.

And here's another 'clever'.........one of the lovely ladies from the China Painters group happened to be wandering past with this wonderful tiered cake tray in hand.
It will be one of the pieces for sale at the upcoming ARTEXPO that the Painting and China Painting groups will be holding next weekend (the 11th and 12th August)

For more info and a sneak peek on what will be happening pop over to the Buderim Craft Cottage site.  Click on the Blue 'Exhibition Painting Group' button and read of the innovative art that Olga and Rod will be working on throughout the exhibition, or for some peeks at the delicate work done by China Painters, click on their button on the left hand side of the screen...go..enjoy...but don't forget to come back, lots more for you here.

Sue made this quilt for one of her charities and bought it in to show us.  It's a new take on Q.A.Y.G. without having that very obvious join and binding running down the joins.

Constructed in 4 segments, Sue appliqued the fabric squares to each background piece, sandwiched each quarter and quilted with the red stitched lines.  The four sandwiches were then machined together at the front.  Next, Sue appliqued extra fabrics overlapping some of the joins and finished off with extra quilting, still using the machined red lines.  The backing seams were then slip stitched together for a lovely flat almost invisible finish.

As you all know, Janice was the winner of the Viewers Choice in the recent Lyn Ballinger Challenge, but as she was out of town for a bit wasn't at last weeks meeting to collect the trophy.
Sheila took the opportunity to make sure the engraved plaque was in place and presented the quilt stand to a happy Janice on Wednesday.

Julie and Marie were spotted with their heads together over a collection of blocks.  Investigation found these!

Yep! we are going to have a workshop on these cute little 'Cathedral Window' style blocks, can you imagine an entire quilt??

Left the sad til last.  Sad but still a lovely warm story.
Back in 1997, the patchwork group were doing some lovely Friendship Quilts for each other, as groups do, but May didn't really want another quilt that she would only bring out occasionally, she hit on the idea of a 'Friendship Wall-hanging' something that she could hang on her lounge room wall and look at every day to remember her Cottage friends, and that is how this beautifully worked piece came into being.

May's family, knowing her strong ties with the Cottage and her friends there,  has donated her much loved wall-hanging to the Patchwork Group.  It will be hung in the Garden Room where we can all enjoy it and remember a very special lady.

CONGRATRATULATIONS Janice!!!

Janice is the prize winner of the Viewers Choice category of our Lyn Ballinger Challenge.
All the Challenge entries were on display at the recent exhibition held by the Fabric Art and Surface Design group, which was by the way an outstanding success.

Visitors to the exhibition were given the opportunity to vote on which entry appealed to them the most.  The results were a landslide in favour  of Janice's Coral, and we can see why, very realistic and imaginative, but a simple design  using bandages to create her coral.

While surfing the net Janice spotted a pic of a coral formation, polyps withdrawn. and it stuck with her.  While playing around with some bandages, inspiration struck and she created version 1 of her entry, why version 1?  well, a certain miss, who shall remain nameless, took a liking to Janice's creation and decided it needed to go home with her.
So version 2 had to be created, and here it is!

The Challenge perpetual trophy of a quilt stand is now Janice's to use for the year, to display some of her beautiful quilts.

Congratulations again Janice.