Wow!!! don't go to one tinsy little meeting and look what happens, swamped by projects, gals up to the most amazing things, fantabulastic holidays, oh yeah, and a potential blog re-vamp.
Golly, so much to share - so who's a fan of Downton Abby,
Golly says Mathew's Mum, Isobel, and doesn't she say it so beautifully,
Golly, you can just see the wonder, ahhh.....
Anyhoo...
Where to start...
Well at the beginning is always a good place...
While your scribe was not enjoying your company last week she was enjoying a marvellous new online book from the
Missouri Star Quilt Co.
Yep, not only has that energetic lady
Jenny Doan provided a fulfulling array of jobs for the folks in her town, and also provided us with an informative array of
wonderful tutorials on youtube but there is now an in-house published quilting magazine. Yeah, I know....'Block' is just as great as you would expect.
Just look at some of these great Volumn 1 projects
Just pop over to the
home page and cast your eyes down the right hand side for a link to 'Block'
it costs about $5 for a P.D.F. Download, which is easy, just follow the prompts - and if you are a little nervous about online credit card payments, look into PayPal. I use it all the time now (since we were scammed big time-----I mean honestly, lace store....in Paris.....scheesh and lets not go near the chocolate shops scam.) Hope you do have a look 'cause I know you will enjoy.
The next little story is about amzing people doing amazing things - yes our very own Group Leader Sheila is off to Albany Creek (a Brisbane suburb) to swim in the World Masters Swiming Competition. -(Gosh, I hope I got that right!)
Anyhoo.....Sheila, as a youngster, about 16 yrs old, was a competitive swimmer, and rather high up the ranks ..........more research is needed here, and hopefully will be coaxed out in the near future.
So, we have competive swimmer, falls in love, marries and has great kids, guess what their after school activity is....yep! swimming.
One of those cute little lads is still a competitive swimmer - well not so little nowadays, still cute mind you but l o n g (as in tall) and has asked/nagged/coerced his Mum into joining him on the local Master Swimming Competive Circuit.
First meet for Sheila is this Saturday (5th.) at Albany Creek...sooooo if you are going to be one of the crowd, please, yell, that's it YELL.....GO SHEILA GO....Thank you.
And if your not going to be able to be at the meet, send positive vibes to Albany Creek, they will come back to you in spades.
First thing spotted at the meeting was Marie waving a little square about, sort of using it as a fan......had to investigate
Zentangle Quilting, Yay!!!, of course you will all recognise Rick's 'Paradox', Marie did point out to me some of the other named designs but most of them are
her own designs. Hope this is not the last we see of using Zentangles for quilting designs.
Marie also wanted me to tell you all that there is a workshop on ummmm..
oh yeah, here it is,
Wednesday 14th May, so I asked, what is a Fat Quarter Quilt?? again,
miss one tinsy meeting, Sue had a sample to show last week. Marie being the trouper she is just pulled up a picie on her phone,.
Pencil the date into your diaries and more details will follow closer to the time.
Wendy has just returned from a 'Quilting Cruise', she had such a wonderful time, Wendy did classes with 3 quilting instructors on board, local lass
Lynette Anderson,
Michelle Marvig, and
Sarah Fielke.
Wendy just sewed and stitched her little heart out.
Firstly there were these little hand projects, Bye the Bye, all Wendys projects are still W.I.P'S at this stage,and rightly so, Gals gotta have a little fun in the sun and on the ocean waves.
And then there was this collection of stunners, lots of learning curves but all beautifully done.
The 'Spider Legs/4 Pointed Star with circle centers is paper pieced. Wendy was lamenting that she had taken along the wrong fabric for the background, whadda ya think?. Am thinking it is a brilliant choice. Shows of the pattern just so!.
Top right is a class offered by Sarah Fielke on deconstructed quilting, the art of making a lovely quilt from scraps, you can even catch this class with Sarah over on
Craftsy.
If I have it right the pieced star was a Michelle Marvig workshop where Wendy came face to face with the dreaded 'Y' seam, but the way it was taught, turned out it was just a breeze to do.
Just look at the great paper piecing Wendy had to show here and a bit of a closer look at those 'Y' seams.
Chitter Chatting about what everyone was doing, Marguerite looked at her piecing and was rather pleased to announce that she had stitched a full inch of seam today, but on closer inspection decided it was more like 1 1/4 inches, well, catching up and chattering is an important part of meetings
Julie has been busy creating this lovely from her scrap basket, a simply constructed block that you may have seen presented as the
'Cracker Quilt Pattern' from About.com or as a friendship signature block. Julie will finish this and pass it on to a charity she supports before the next meeting. She didn't want to be in the pic but she was caught taking a tinsy peek from behind her flimsy...Gotcha!!!
Julie's bring along project today was these little darlings that will eventually be a Table Runner.
Pic does NOT do the colours justice, the background is a lovely soft grey.
Innes is doing a little more stitching on her Sashiko piece. Gotta love those 'bring along' projects.
Courtney has been off on a great holiday, to New Zealand, - how to tell? well she has collected some really great 'patches' that she was stitching to a piece of fabric that looks amazingly like Paua Shell. Looking forward to seening the finished project Courtney.
The learning curve continues for Fae, today her Tutor Marie sent her an email containing a youtube link to a flash mob vid that Fae had to open!
Fae and Beryl were hard at work on this piece, well Fae was stitching, Beryl was chattering/advising.
After having to run the iPad, just didn't have the heart to ask her to flip her hexies mid stitch.
Val, spotted stitching away on a pretty candlewicking block - going to be a block in one of the Raffle quilts?
Sue W. is working on 'more of these', and kindly held up the square she is working on. Just check out those buttonhole stitches! neat as.
Christine made one of the appliqued flower quilts so many of the group made for the last quilt show but has now decided to turn it into a larger quilt, of course that means more fabric, so with heart in mouth she popped off to her L.Q.S. and was delighted to find one last Jelly Roll of the range she had been using.
Here she is, just about to launch into cutting out the paper templates to use, she then spotted the camera and lost it.
Ailsa putting the finishing touches to her trademark gardening gloves for the Easter Fair - Love the sparkly green hearts, just perfect for a green thumb.
Mary had this beautiful work to share with us, it was to be part of a set but she is revisiting the whole concept, the idea of many more yards of stitching isn't floating her boat at the moment. But never say never, when she gets the piece finished there may be another change of mind.
Stella, still being shy and hiding behind her beautiful work, but happy to show just how narrow the vine bias is, achieved with a little help from Lorraine.
Apparently there were burnt fingers in the production, it's so narrow.
Deanne is working on vibrant 'I Spy' Stars.
With the changes in the Cottage we are sooooo pleased with our new storage options, a very big THANK YOU goes to Jeff Franklin, who organised the extra flat storage for our rulers and large cutting mat.
Jeff also designed and built the new storage for our plastic boxes and ironing boards, so much easier to access them now.
The bottom drawer of the Calligraphy drawers is where you will find our rulers and small cutting mats.
The large cutting mat is under the bench but on top of the Calligraphy drawers.
The upright storage for our ironing boards is on the right hand end of the new storage cabinets and our boxes are stored in the left hand bay of the new storage cabinet.
Everything is so much more accessible. Thank you again Jeff.
Now this is a pic requested especially for Jenny....."See we can do luscious teas too".....not gonna dob on who requested the pic..... ;o
But yeah, it was a yummy one.
Have been having a few thoughts on re-vamping the blog, saw this the other day, thought you all might like to give it a twirl so to speak on displaying your fab quilts. Go take a look.
Presented by an innovative and fun loving lass by the name of Anne de Waxholm on her flickr site.
