Quilters' Circle - 25th November, 2013

Four quilters gathered on this lovely spring day, our second-last meeting for the year.

Marie has added the binding to her placemat, and today she was stitching it down:

A view of the front with the binding:

Vireya prepared some pentagon shapes, then clipped them in place ready to sew:

Glennys brought along her cutting gear:

And cut some pieces for the last of the quilts for her grandchildren. Then she finalised the arrangement of fabrics for her design:

Unfortunately this photo is on its side. If you tilt your head 90 degrees to the right it will be correct. This is something we noticed even when the photo was taken; the camera was flipping the photo when we tried to look at it. It's just one of life's mysteries.

Joy brought along this tessellated leaves piece she came across at home recently:

This is a tricky design to make. Joy's is all hand-pieced, and you can tell by the fabrics that she started this many years ago. There are a couple of internet sites offering easier ways to piece this, using techniques such as paper-piecing, or even a raw-edge appliqué method (found here).

Today Joy brought along some prepared pieces for a hexagon quilt-as-you-go project:

And here's one she finished:

Again, the photo has turned itself a quarter-turn. Sorry, but I can't fix it. If I turn it on the computer before uploading it, blogger rotates it again. So we are stuck with it like this.

Our next meeting will be the last for the year, on 9th of December. This will be our Christmas break-up. See you then!

Quilters' Circle - 11th November, 2013

Today we had a special afternoon tea to celebrate Marie's birthday, which is later this week. She also received this gift:

This isn't a great photo of it, but it is actually a zip-up insulated case for carrying an iron (with added embellishment). However, everyone came up with other creative uses for it! Suggestions included carrying hot food, cool shoes, or small wine bottles.

Glennys is making a quilt for one of her grand-daughters, using fabrics and colours chosen by the grand-daughter:

The design is Glennys' own. We were very impressed with her small "square in a square" blocks, which cleverly use a printed mandala-like design as the centre square. Today she auditioned border arrangements:

Then made some progress on Raggedy Ann:

By the end of the meeting Ann's arms and legs were stuffed and attached, so she is nearly done. So cute!

Marie's mystery quilt has come to an end after 6 clues:

She decided to assemble it in a 5 x 3 arrangement, rather than 4 x 4, to give a more symmetrical layout. It looks good, but now she needs to decide how to finish it.

Marie also showed us her progress on the placemat she had just the top of last time. She has added borders, and done some free-motion machine quilting in a leaf design:

Unfortunately her machine has had to go in for a service, so the quilting has stopped for now. Today she did some more hand-quilting on the hexagon project we have seen before:

Vireya pinned a pattern on some garment fabric, but no photos were taken of that. Then she made a few diamonds for her sunflower quilt:

These colours are looking a bit cooler than in real life.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on the 25th November. I think that will be our second-last for the year!