Quilters' Circle - 26th July, 2010

Look how busy we all were this afternoon:


Lots of appliqué was happening. Joy worked on her blue Baltimore Album, but brought along this tiny (about 10cm across) mariner's compass to show us:

This is for a miniature quilt which will feature four of these compasses, surrounded by a saw-tooth border. All done by hand, of course!

Glennys did some stitching on a "work in progress" which she has restarted.


As you can see, this block is part of a quilt designed by Therese Hylton called My Blue Heaven. The basket and flowers are fused to the background, and today Glennys began blanket-stitching around them.

Carol was also appliquéing, working on a design by Robyn Falloon. Marie was appliquéing birds. Vireya worked on her pentagon-flower appliqués, and today she brought along all her completed blocks and laid them out for us to see:

She has done about a third of what she needs for the complete wall-hanging.

Ching Ching showed us her first quilt, which tells the story of how she and her husband Richard met:


This large quilt (it's about 2 metres tall) tells the story of a fateful journey on the No 86 tram 7 years ago. Ching Ching used many types of fabrics, and various embellishment techniques — including felting, appliqué, and dye-discharge — in this very personal work of art.

Now Richard, who is a painter, is inspired to make quilts, too. He showed us the design for his first quilt:


Wow! Today he was preparing some of those shapes. He and Ching Ching brought along their own irons and were ironing-on vliesofix to the shapes. Isn't this the cutest iron ever?


As well as all that sewing, we looked through lots of books and magazines, and looked at the progress on the the raffle quilt. It was passed on to the next person who will do some more of the quilting on it. What a busy afternoon!

Our next meeting will be 9th August. Hope to see you then!

Basting Bee

A bunch of enthusiastic folk assembled at the neighbourhood house this morning to get the raffle quilt ready for quilting. Here were the tasks ahead of us:


Adding the borders involved a bit of measuring,

a bit of stitching,

and some pressing.

The back was steamed

then stretched and taped to the table.

Next the wadding was laid down and smoothed out (note: action shot):



Then the top was put into position (see goodies in the background, which were consumed throughout the morning):

and smoothed by many hands.

The first pin was ceremoniously inserted:


And a short while later there were pins everywhere!


Then came a big decision: which fabric to use for the binding?

Binding No. 1?

Binding No. 2?

Or Binding No. 3?

Which would you have chosen? Stay tuned to see if we agreed.

The label was prepared

while the binding was cut, stitched and pressed.

Yes, we chose fabric number one.

It's time to check our progress:

Looks like we got everything done. Hooray!

Thanks to everyone who could participate today. Your input was invaluable. If anyone would like to be involved in doing the actual quilting, please let us know.

And of course, you can always contribute by buying raffle tickets. When the tickets are available, we'll post the details here for you.

Quilters' Circle - 12th July, 2010

It's the second Monday in July, so the Quilters' Circle met at the neighbourhood house. We were lucky because today is Joanne's birthday. Leigh had baked her a cake, and they kindly delayed eating it until the quilters and knitters were there to help.

Joanne received some lovely gifts, including this scarf (sorry the photo is out of focus) made of many tiny yo-yos stitched together. Guess how many? Joy counted, and there are 500.

Happy birthday, Joanne! Thanks for sharing your cake with us.


Everyone's been very busy since our last meeting. Here's what they've been doing.

Vireya has finished the top of her Red Delicious quilt:


Joy has been adding lots of 3-dimensional elements to her blue Baltimore Album quilt:


Marie has made lots of squares in 1930s fabrics:


Marilyn did some shopping while she was travelling:


It was great to catch up with everyone again.

Today Glennys came along for the first time. She sewed down the binding on this quick quilt she has made for her granddaughter. Look at the cute fabrics she has used:

Welcome, Glennys!


Heather came to show us this angel quilt her mother won in a raffle to support Banksia Palliative Care.

We all admired the work that had gone into it.

In between all that we talked, sewed (a little), and browsed some books and magazines. It was a lovely afternoon.

Some of us will be back at Sussex on Sunday 18th July to baste the house raffle quilt seen in our previous post. If you can join us from 10:00am, you would be very welcome!