Monday, October 19, 2009

Quilters' Circle - 19th October, 2009

Today is the third Monday of October, so the Quilters' Circle met again.

We were sorry that Joy could not be with us today. Hope you are feeling better soon, Joy, and that we will see you at our next meeting.

Marilyn is on the last step of her quilt:



She is hand-sewing down the binding on the back. She is not really enjoying doing it, but it is looking great. It must now be time to start planning the next quilt.

To help with ideas, here are the books, magazines and catalogues members brought along for us to browse today:


Having these publications to browse is particularly useful when you aren't really in the mood to sew. For example -


Vireya traced off these patterns for rose stems, which are for the next block of her Red Delicious quilt. Then she pinned them to her fabric. Then she read books, magazines and catalogues. And contributed to conversations about colour, craft expos, quilt shows, movies, books, and many others. But she didn't do any sewing.

Marie quilted her 1930s hexagon quilt, and brought along this beauty to show us:



Isn't it lovely? This is quite a large quilt, which normally lives on Marie's bed. It is all hand-pieced and hand-quilted, and made by a quilt-as-you-go method. Members of the book group, and some of the office staff, came in to admire it.

Our next meeting should be on the 2nd November, but the House will be closed that day. So our next meeting at Sussex will be on 16th November, four weeks from now.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Quilters' Circle - 5th October, 2009

It is the first Monday in October, so the Quilters' Circle met again. Amongst conversation (much of it about courting customs), reading of magazines, and drinking of tea, we did some sewing.

Marie was quilting her 1930s hexagon quilt, and brought along this Christmas wall-hanging to show us. It started out as a bag and grew. The design is the friendship star block Vireya used in her couch quilt.


We love scrappy quilts!

Marilyn brought along her sewing machine, and pieced the binding for her quilt. I thought this photo might be out of focus, and I was right.


We all discussed how Marilyn should prepare her quilt to attach the binding. Some of us trim first then sew, others sew then trim.

Joanne showed us her completed piece from the "Working with Triangles" course.


Joanne definitely is now hooked on quilting, as she suggested she might be back in May. We know this because she also showed us the next two projects she has started - some placemats, and a bed quilt using beautiful fabrics hand-printed by women in the Tiwi Islands.


Joy worked on her appliqué, and showed us this table runner which she has entirely hand pieced and hand quilted.

It was made during weekly quilt-guild meetings she was attending, so it took a while to complete because she only worked on it at those meetings.

Vireya did some embroidery embellishment on her latest Red Delicious block. She doesn't stab herself with the embroidery needle anywhere near as frequently as she does with the appliqué needle.


We also had a visit from someone who wants to start coming along to quilters' circle, so we hope to see her again soon. Our next meeting is in two weeks, on the 19th October.