Quilters' Circle - 13th October, 2014

Happy October, everyone!

Seeing this patchwork dog in a Spotlight catalogue at our last meeting:

prompted a couple of us to bring along our own patchwork animals today:

We've met Mr. Lion before, when we met at Marie's home once when the neighbourhood house was closed.  He was made for Marie by a friend in 1966, and is all hand-sewn. He has a very cute embroidered face, although his button eyes have gone missing some time in the last 48 years!

Vireya made the two dogs in the early 1970s. She didn't have a pattern, but made them based on a picture she saw in a book. She used the English paper piecing method, as that was the only patchwork method she had heard of at the time. Nowadays it would be much faster to rotary-cut the squares, and sew them together by machine!

If one of these dogs looks brighter than the other, it is because the truth is that only one of them was finished in the 1970s. It is on the left in the top photo, and on the right in the lower one. The brighter dog was put away not-quite-finished, and stayed in the dark for 30-odd years. But Vireya sewed the last few seams and stuffed him a few years ago. They have both come to our group before, but it must have been before we started blogging in 2009.

If you would like to make your own patchwork critter, there is a pattern you can download here, or instructions here, but it isn't hard to improvise your own pattern and make a dog (or other animal) any size you like.

Glennys brought along the finished English paper piecing block she has been sewing at our last couple of meetings:

It was great to see it all together, and Glennys enjoyed the process so much she has started another block, using the same fabrics but a different design:

She's been bitten by the EPP bug!

Marie has made lots of parts of blocks for the pattern she showed us last time, Fabric Fusion from Modern Quilt Studio, and she spread them out so we could get an idea of what the finished quilt will look like:

Looking good so far!

Today Marie continued to apply her pieced hexagons to her background fabric:

Vireya has stitched together (but not pressed yet) four complete Wild & Goosey blocks (a Bonnie Hunter design):

Today she removed paper from a few more components she has made. She is also planning to participate in Bonnie's mystery again this year, which starts at the end of November. Bonnie announced her colours this week, and Vireya showed us some paint chips in Bonnie's colours:

Details of the mystery can be found here:
Grand Illusion Mystery.

Mary from the knitting group showed us these lovely poppies she made for the 5000 Poppies project, which you can read about here: 5000 Poppies

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 27th October. See you again then!