Marcia bought these Kaleidoscope blocks along looking for a little inspiration and a few ideas on how to lay them out and use them, Wendy had a great idea of patchwork blocks between the circles and a piccie to boot, Heather lay the blocks into this layout which had a lot of approval, nicely balanced, and Marcia kind of liked the idea of a darker plain background.
Wendy thought a lighter background would be the way to go and proceeded to demonstrate, bit hard with only 2 small pieces of fabric but you get the idea.
Sue came along at this stage and asked Marcia if she realised she had holes. Marcia thought that there is always one in the crowd. I really can't report where the conversation went from that point, but I can tell you that some were laughing so hard tears were shed.

This is some of the original fabric for the Kaleidoscope, very pretty in its own right.
There seems to be a bit of a Kaleidoscope and Hexagon madness going on within the group, there are hexagons of all sizes spread around the tables and Kaleidoscope quilts galore. Sue made this Kaleidoscope variation in a method she named Twist 'n' Stitch, as she stated 'Its a simple quilt because I'm a simple girl', or did she say it was an easy quilt?......oh well.........whatever!
There was the odd thread or two still dangling around on the flimsy and Sue murmured something about them reminding her of someones chin, that started a bit of a rush to the ladies for some serious peering into the mirrors I can tell you, and some people were just mean and hogged that mirror mercilessly.
Found this great piece on the display table and no sign of the creator, but after a bit, Lorraine came back from Lunch and laid claim to it. It was started at the Lorraine Carthew workshop we did last year, as Lorraine said, about 6 months overdue. But heck, its not a UFO anymore so that can only be a good thing.
As is the case so often with a UFO, little bits get mislaid or used either in error or just because we think 'what the heck - I'll never finish that and I really need that little piece of perfect fabric' and that is what happened to Lorraine with this little quilt, the piece of fabric for the top left hand sky went walkabout, .... what to do??
Lorraine solved the problem by using plain white fabric and colouring it with her pencils. Clever girl!, and if I didn't dob, you would never have known, now would you?
Lorraine with her wallhanging saying 'don't you dare dob!'.......oopsie, sorry Lorraine
Now what on earth is Inge cutting out tiny hexagons for?, well she is getting a little take along project ready and the finished hexagons are going to be used in the world's biggest hexagon quilt challenge that will be held in Gatton, Queensland in May 2010, a n d, get this, everyone who participates in the challenge will go into a draw for a Fabric Bundle Prize valued at $250.00 WOW!, wouldn't you just love to win that. All the details and the story are at the end of the post.
Did you notice those cute little cathederal window cushions on the box lid by Inga??
Yes these little cuties right here. They are little Christmas Tree Decorations, how precious are they!........and who was making them?
why, Betty is making them, she was just sitting, concentrating, stitching and churning these little lovelies out, hope they are for the Christmas Fair, the Grandies would just love them.
This is the information for the World's Biggest Hexagon Quilt Challenge, seems that you can make as many or as few of these as you like or are able.
And do scroll down to the next post to see the pics of Carol Wilks and Svenja's information cards on their Gallery Showing.

Morphology with Carol Wilkes and Svenja

They arrived!, they came!, they are here!,
yep, the excitement has been building waiting for these to arrive.
The front and the reverse of the cards advertising the new Carol Wilkes and Svenja Showing.
Carol, who was one of the Tutors in the recent 'Winter Workshop' at the Cottage just happened to mention that she was ever so busy getting ready for a Gallery Showing, well of course we all wanted the details, a chance to view more of Carol's work isn't something to be missed.
Carol was most enthusiastic about Svenja's work, and now we can see why, this is stunning, Carol's references to fungi now make sense, very beautiful sense.
And a sneak peek of Carol's work, there are more of Carol's pieces featured in the June 28th posting for you to check out although Carol hinted that the Gallery pieces were all different to the work she had to show us at the Workshop, just can't wait for the opening.
For all the info I have cropped the back of the card as well as the front. See you there!!

O.K., Show is over, time to get a move on for Christmas.

This was the sight that greeted you on arrival at the cottage Wednesday after the quilt show, new projects to be researched and inspiration to be culled from our rather excellent library.
Some were busily stitching already, although someone, who will remain nameless - yep there was a promise of pain if she was named managed to have two threads and two needles on the go at the same time, bit of an oopsie there, but she soon sorted it out.
Then there was the big announcement of the Winner of the Lyn Ballinger Challenge Viewers Choice and presentation of the trophy, and prize voucher. But why was Shiela whispering, not so secretly, to Ailsa?, well that stayed a secret, neither would fess up.
and they certainly thought it was a good secret, we weren't to know the joke until next Wednesday as it happened.
As Heather had been away, lolling around on Frazer Island and just generally having a good time with family and friends, the presentation of her Best of Show prize was made this Wednesday, and now we found out the Sheila / Ailsa joke of last week, the prize envelope was empty!!.
Proof positive of what a good sport Ailsa is.

Heather is telling us an amazing story of Judy's commitment to quilting her quilt. The lady had just pinned Blue and Gold Beauty to the quilting machine and was rushed off to hospital for an operation, she was barely out of the sick bed when she started quilting, Heather was shocked! but as Judy explained 'Beauty' was her therapy, what an uplifting story.
Sometime ago, there was a 'B' challenge, make a small pictorial block with as many 'B' items in it as possible, the blocks were given back to the makers today and just for fun I thought you might like to see how many 'B's' you can see.

Sue and her friends are off on a Red Hat Lady excursion in the near future, these cuties are to be part of their outfits, bet they have a whale of a time.
This lady popped in to collect the Lyn Ballinger Challenge Bag that she was lucky enough to win.
And at the end of the day, a special afternoon tea, your scribe had a big birthday, one of those that ends in an 0. Thank you all for a wonderful day and especially to Marguerite for organising the tea. I was rather overcome by it all.

A sad tale with a caring ending.

On the morning of the Quilt Show, while the girls were setting up for the Devonshire Teas, they noticed a group of three girls, Sarah, Lizzie and Leah, gathering leaves and piling them up. Things took a different twist when it was noticed that these young lassies placed a marker above the leaves.
One of our ladies went to investigate and found that these 3 caring lovely girls had found a dead possum and using the only thing they had available, the leaves and their hands, they buried him and marked his grave.
It was a source of conversation throughout the morning, how three wonderful little girls cared enough to take care of an animal that had died.
The pic was taken by one of the Devonshire tea ladies and passed on to me. I fuzzed the piccie, but girls you know who you are and if you would like a copy, let me know.

ENJOY THE QUILTS

Well, I think that the final quilt pics have been loaded. There were a couple of other projects going on at the same time, so pics got re-arranged in Picasa. I am yet to check off the numbers so if you see that your quilt pic is missing, send me an e-mail, don't be shy, just send it to quiltinbysea@yahoo.com.au or to the group's e-mail at fatquarternews@yahoo.com.

I am off to play with the Grandies, some people may think I am turning up to help with the working bee, but nope I'm a gonna play, but before I disappear, I would like to give a few personal thanks to the folks that helped make this show the success that it was.

Of course all the group members who worked so hard, but a special thank you to those from outside the group, a lovely grandaughter who helped hang quilts, husbands who helped in all manner of things, erecting signs, up ladders to hammer in nails, gathering beautiful flowers and a miriad of other jobs and the members of the press who gave us such wonderful coverage, the reporter, the photographer and a Mr. Andy Kippen, who so generously gave permission for us to put the pic of Sheila and Fran that featured in the newspapers - please note the plural there- onto our blog.
A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO ALL and I would like to share my roses with you,
they were given to me as a thank you and are too pretty to hog all to myself. They were grown by a Machine Embroidery and Patchwork Member and her Hubby, Grown where we Live.

Biennial Quilt Show 2009

The continuing posts of the many wonderful quilts, machine embroidery, and wearable fabric art are posted in the second post below. Still to come - more quilts, the tea ladies, helpers, the raffle quilts and winners, the merchants and lots of pics of the goods that were for sale.


This was the sight that greeted the many visitors to our Quilt Show today, and indeed will greet the folks that will visit tomorrow.

Exhaustion is such an ugly word, but by today's end a few of the gals are pushing up close to it with these silly grins on their faces. The show is a resounding success and all the hard work has paid off.
Congratulations to all of you.


Loading the pics of all these wonderful quilts is going to take awhile, and yep, load 'em all I will.
There is not one single quilt I could bear to cull. So check back often over the next few days and there will be new lovelies for you to enjoy.

They will load in the post below, in the manner of Blogger uploads, the most recently loaded pics will be at the top, so not too much scrolling will be needed.

I hope you enjoy looking at these quilts as much as I have.

Stitchin' Scribe.