Great Hints and a little silliness

Two posts in one this week, firstly we had the free motion quilting class presented by Pat, lots of tips, a great info sheet with some online sites to check up on including Lori at 'The Inbox Jaunt, who coincidentally has this great post on stippling- well worth the read. 
Pat had us starting out with a few curves and points and then moving onto more adventurous designs finally finishing up with writing our own names.  A great class, thanks Pat.
Lyn and Christine had a great time, Lyn was one of the first to stitch her name.

 

Jackie was really into the curves, doing a great job on her name.

Wendy and Marcia really nailed the F.M.Qing, Wendy then decided to give free motion circles around applique a go.

Diane with some help from Fae worked on names and hearts.

Denise concentrated on F.M.Qing around the icons on this lovely quilt to be.

Queen of the Gizmo's for the day was Marie, she bought along these pads for us to all try, they are called Grip and Stitch quilting disks from Clever Craft Tools, an online search will bring up sites that you can buy them from.  Lots of muttering on the day about 'gotta get me some of these', they make quilting close to the edge of your quilt a lot easier and are so restful on your hands if you have a problem with arthritis.

 

Marie also had '50 Styles of F.M.Quilting' by Helen Godden a nifty little book that pair's with your smart phone or tablet to bring a video of Helen and a 'live' presentation of some of the designs, or as Helen describes it 

"My first Free-Motion Machine Quilting book, 70 pages with 50 advanced quilting styles plus bonus 20 embedded demonstration videos using the free Aurasma app for tablets and smart phones giving you your first taste of Augmented Reality!

Yep, hover your tablet or phone over the sketch (L) in Helen's Book and up pops Helen on a video (TR)- I know, blew us all away!!  If you haven't seen Helen's work before, pop over here but make sure you have a drink, a snack and lotsa time. Amazing just doesn't cover it.

One of our group, who I have to get permission from, created this lovely 'I Spy' crazy log quilt for the Uniting Church Fair.

They have their fair the week before our Easter Fair and our very own Ailsa is one of the stall co-ordinator.

Found another little pile of these, pretty aren't they........

 Hmm, wonder what they are for??

Val has been busy again....still, with these quilts for Laurel House.

Just right for a little boy off the land.

A cheerful flower applique 

The third quilt is a lovely soft girly quilt.  The white blocks were orphan blocks given to Val, she cheered them up with a little floral embroidery and off set them with one patches of a pink floral given to her by Beryl.  

Val uses her machine embroidery or fancy stitches for a lot of the quilting on her charity quilts, for this lovely she has teamed some free motion daisies and swirls on the border and for the quilting in the large pink blocks Val sketched a daisy onto tissue and stitched the design out following the sketch lines, she then just tore away the tissue to reveal a great quilted block.

There is a nephew somewhere who has just got the bestest birthday pressie, this fab bag with a bottle of scotch. 

Marcia is pleased to be giving and I bet her nephew is pleased to be receiving.

Using the large 'Drunkards Path Templates' from our Library, Sue created this great quilt, not only does the path meander around the quilt, a bit of a more modern take on the design 

but Sue has also used quilt as you go techniques with a little simple echoing in the center of the blocks.  

That bit of silliness spoken of earlier?

how 'bout this.....

next thing you know some bright spark will work out how to put lipstick on 'em.

Thursday night..........

Supper .......................

Sue had some knitting on the go.

Jenny's crochet flowers.

Michelle's hexies - big ones!

Jules's hand quilting lesson.

Charm pack stitching by Letitia.

Fabric basket - Leanne.

The jury is still out on the chooks!

Did I mention supper?

Jackie's cream hexies!

Jules' tin of scraps.

Till next Thursday night.
xx

Workshops - Notions and Easter Egg Bags

Next step on the organisational agenda for our upcoming Biennial Quilt show (just over 3 months away - deep breaths everyone) is the creation of 700 notions, you know, those little gifts that are handed to attendees. Betty is in charge of prodding us into action and presented a workshop on Wednesday on the best way to uniformly create these little somethings.

As you can see, everyone had a ball.  Betty's Mum, Inge was helping Christine, the real Christine that is, not the red headed Christine/Michelle, with an ever ready digit for strategic placement.

Courtney is back working on her cross stitch of show ponies, wondering if she is using it for a quilt medallion or cushion, or perhaps will frame it - time will tell

 

Yola, one of the regular Thursday night gals visited with us on Wednesday, she bought along some very cute Show and Tell.

Firstly, the little Easter egg collection bags will be for sale on the Novelties table at our Easter Fair.  The pattern is from Ayumi over at her blog Pink Penguin.  Jenny has a link to the bag tutorial and a pic of some more of the bags in her post, just scroll down.

Yola also bought along a brood/cheep of chickens in all sizes.  A workshop was presented last Thursday night on creating these cuties and they will also be for sale at the Easter Fair. 

Lyn had some Show and Tell, but not in the flesh so to speak, these goodies were made as gifts for her family who visited from overseas at Christmas, and of course they took them home with them, but it's all good, we have pics thank you. 

Her Grandson requested a new Quillo, he has grown somewhat since Lyn made his first one, and because they are currently living overseas Lyn chose a very Australian theme.

Lyn's daughter also sent an S.O.S. asking Lyn to make her another laptop bag as the last one wore out!

Just the thing for a music lover.

And of course, a new lap quilt was a must for her Daughter.  Created in a similar vein to the yellow and blue quilt Lyn made last year, but using red this time round.

Lyn also had this darling music box to share with us, the needle goes up and down, the cotton turns and the foot plate also goes up and down.

 A lovely Christmas Pressy.

Julie shared this charity quilt with us, made with fabric donated to the Palmwoods patchwork group of which she is also a member.

The quilt was machine quilted by another Palmwoods group member who does a lot of the groups charity quilting using her longarm quilter.

The blocks are reminiscent of  'Hope of Hartford' in their construction, using logs instead of H.S.T's.

All that girlish giggling was a bit catching, Wendy and Marcia went all 'Princess' showing off their Show and Tell,

Wendy found this W.I.P in a cupboard and decided the time had come to finish it off.  Originally started a wee while back when Gwen presented classes on drafting patterns and hand piecing blocks

Wendy mentioned it's funny how our tastes change, there was a time when more than one group member was influenced by the pink and purple craze. Brights are more the go at the moment.

Marcia did the whole 'Ta Da' thing presenting her show and tell.  Using the strip pieced Q.A.Y.G method to create a lovely quilt for a young family member's birthday.

 All in all, a day of fun, frivolity and yep, cake.

Thursday night...............

We got busy making these little fabric baskets from this lovely site http://ayumills.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html. Ayumi has a beautiful site where she generously shares patterns and tutorials.

We did the correct thing and made sure that Ayumi was credited for the pattern.

A bunch of very pretty fabric baskets.

Too, too cute.

For those brave enough to venture out tonight - funky chickens are on the agenda!! SO bring your sewing machines etc.

Some great creations

Look what Marie created!

Her fab. version of Neroli Hendersons 'Cherry Blossom'.  Marie, pulled her little quilt over a painters canvas for ease of hanging, what a great idea!

There was a great deal of excitement when the latest edition of Embellish hit the stands (Edition 20 if you want to get your own copy - I got mine from Punch with Judy

There is an entire workshop from Neroli,  step by step pics and great instructions on one of her workshops.
We have the opportunity to do 3 other workshops with Neroli in the upcoming Buderim Craft Cottage Winter School all using different techniques.

Deanne is also in experimental phase, experimenting with sun reactive dyes,  using weeds with their root systems intact (top right), leaves, bits of plants and scrunching.  she has some great background pieces.

Lainey has also been busy, commissioned to create 2 bags, slightly different sizes, both purpose built for two young lassies

Becoming impatient with having to once again clean off her light box before use, she created this cover, with pockets to store cables and suchlike.

Becoming a Great Aunty once again, Lainey is creating a rather cute alphabet quilt for the lucky littlie.

Wendy has completed her version of 'Leannes House'.  Several of the group have been working on the same pattern, the object being to display how an individuals choice of colours and even minor changes creates an entirely different look.  Keep an eye out for the different quilts in our up coming Quilt Show and Sale over the July 10th - 12th Friday and weekend

a closer look at some of Wendy's blocks.

Fae has completed another lovely quilt, 2.5" squares, stacked and sashed.

Someone didn't want to fess up to crocheting at patchwork so.....a 'secret squirrel' pic of what promises to be a lovely face washer, could it be for the new Grandie?

Marcia, working on those 1/2" hexies of hers.

Don't they look delish?