Quilters' Circle - 26th August, 2013

Today was our last meeting in winter this year, and we could tell spring is around the corner as we didn't need any heating.

Today Glennys did some repair work on this very cute creature:

then started embroidering faces for a pair of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls:

She also showed us the beginnings of a quilt for a baby boy. This block is not assembled yet, Glennys is still cutting out pieces. The whole quilt will consist of 9 of these square-in-a-square blocks:

We may see some more progress next time. All these fabrics are from Glennys' stash. They were purchased separately, and really go together well. Each fabric has the same pretty aqua-blue.

Marie showed us a project she has completed, but which we can't put on the blog just yet. Photos next time! She also brought along this pair of coasters she is making for some friends:

Sorry that photo is on its edge. Tilt your head to the left to see it properly!

We were all excited to see Marie's year quilt progress:

She has just completed week 27! We spent a lot of time looking at all the blocks and learning the significance of particular fabrics which caught our attention. It is hard to believe that it is more than half a year since Marie started this project.

Last time Vireya showed us a piece of African fabric she had to use for a challenge she is participating in, but we didn't photograph the fabric at the time. This is it:

As you can see, it was quite a challenging fabric. Today Vireya brought along the block she made from it:

She is looking forward to seeing what other people made of this fabric, when she attends the Seabreeze Quilters quilt-in next weekend.

Today Vireya was assembling parts to fill in an empty corner of her sunflowers wall-hanging:

It's getting there!

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 9th September. Hope we will see you again then!

Quilters' Circle - 12th August, 2013

A small number of quilters braved the horrible weather for today's meeting.

The main achievement for the afternoon was getting this quilt of Vireya's pin-basted:

With two people working on it, it was completely pinned in less than an hour. Vireya was very happy to see it get to this point, as it has been hanging around as just a top for several years. The quilt is a design by Bonnie Hunter called Leap Frog. The pattern doesn't seem to be on Bonnie's website, but is available as a pdf file here.

Once the basteing was done, Marie went back to appliquéing her dots:

She has only six more stems without their dots, and is happy to be so close to the end of this project. We may see the whole top all put together soon. As she was sewing, Marie told us about a recent trip she took with another quilting group. They visited the textile conservation area at the National Gallery of Victoria. Marie described some historic quilts she saw, and some patchwork garments which sounded amazing. The gallery have many textile treasures which are not on display.

Vireya brought along this cushion to show us:

You may remember seeing it as a half-made block at our last meeting. Since then it has been quilted with an all-over design. Here's a back view of the quilting:

This design is Dogwood created by Elizabeth Hartman. She has instructions on her website here.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 26th August. See you again then!