Quilters' Circle - 24th January, 2011

First meeting back at the house, and there was an obstacle or two to get through:

The road was blocked off for work on the water mains, so there was no car-parking close to the house, making it a little difficult for people with sewing machines and fabric to carry.

We welcomed Debbie who came along for the first time, and Diane and Carmen who were here for a working bee - more of that later! Carol was back and glad to be warm after the ice and snow in Europe.

Glennys showed us a lovely gift she received for her birthday:

It's a beautiful Queen Victoria Pincushion made for her by a good friend. The pincushion was designed in 1897, to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. It is made of 60 diamond shapes, for the 60 years.

We celebrated Glennys's birthday with some chocolate mud cake:

Then it was down to business. Marie stitched some of her hexagons together:

Marilyn stitched down binding, Debbie worked on a stitchery panel for a BOM she is doing, Carol did some appliquéing, and Vireya showed us these QAYG (quilt-as-you-go) blocks she has made:

The blocks were made to be sent to Jan Mac for her Oz Comfort Quilts drive, to be incorporated into quilts for flood victims.

And that brings us to today's working bee.

It had been arranged for people to spend some time today making QAYG blocks for the flood appeal. The work started in the room next door, and continued later after the Quilters and Knitters had finished their regular meetings.  Here's the scene as work got under way:

There were batting and backings to cut,

strips to cut,

and sewing and pressing to be done. Busy busy busy!

Once the blocks were made, they had to be trimmed

to get them all neat and square.

And then we could start laying them out to get a feel for how they will look:

What a great way to use up left-over bits of batting and fabric, while having fun and feeling like you are doing something constructive for the flood victims.

Next Tuesday (1st February) from 3pm the working bee will continue.  Everyone is welcome to come along and join in. If you would like to do some sewing at home, the instructions for the blocks can be found on Jan Mac's blog
QAYG Blocks Jan's Tutorial
or on Kaite's Yarngarden blog:
Kaite's QAYG Tutorial

Happy sewing!  Our regular Quilters' Circle meeting will be next Monday, 31st January.