Quilters' Circle - 24th May, 2010

Today this sight greeted me as I arrived at the Quilters' Circle meeting:

The wonderful women of this group surprised me with these gifts and goodies because it is my birthday later this week. I was overwhelmed!

Here's what was hiding in those packages:


So many lovely things! Thank you everyone, for your friendship and thoughtfulness.

After all that excitement, we had something else new to look at. The Neighbourhood House is planning a raffle quilt featuring interlocking friendship stars, and we received our kits with the instructions:

Included is a piece of hand-dyed fabric which will feature in each block, and some paint-chips to guide our colour selections for the pieces we will supply ourselves. The plan is for the quilt to have a "coordinated-scrappy" look. We have about a month to make our blocks, after which the quilt will be assembled. It will be fascinating to see how it all comes together! Raffle tickets will be for sale in August, so stay tuned for details.

In between enjoying the afternoon-tea goodies, we all did some work on our own projects. Marie did some quilting, and here she is in action marking the quilting line:


That's actually a pencil, not a biro as it appears.

Joy worked on the next block in her Japanese quilt:
It will be a Japanese Crest featuring pine trees when complete.

Marilyn was cutting pieces for her next project, and brought along this lovely hexagon miniature quilt to show us:
This quilt was made by her sister. It is all done by hand, and features tiny fussy-cut hexagons in a Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern. It was interesting to see how she handled the edges - they are faced with a hexagon facing. Here's a close-up:

What a clever idea!

Vireya is still appliquéing cherries on the last of her Red Delicious blocks. Nearly done:



We are lucky that this month has 5 Mondays, so it is only one week until our next meeting. Hope to see you then.

Quilters' Circle - 10th May, 2010

Happy blog birthday to us! It is now a year since we started putting our meeting reports on this blog.

Today we had a special guest come to visit us. Betty brought along this quilt belonging to her daughter Kerryn, which was made by Kerryn and her friend Shelly:


The two friends were both diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago. They have supported each other through their treatment, and working together on two quilts (one for each of them) was part of that support. They have used a lot of Pink Ribbon (breast cancer awareness) fabrics in this very special quilt. Betty was one of the 14,000 who took part in the Field of Women event for the Breast Cancer Network at the MCG on Friday night.

Joy brought along these ducks to show us:

They are for her Japanese quilt. Previous blocks we have seen include the cranes and butterflies.

Today Joy worked on this bow for her blue Baltimore Album quilt:


Vireya brought along some practice free-motion quilting she has been doing:

This view shows the backs of the blocks, as you can see the quilting better that way. Vireya has a few quilt-tops ready to be quilted, but wants to improve her quilting skill before she tackles them; hence these practice blocks. To help with further improvement, she borrowed Joy's book and DVD Mastering the Art of McTavishing by Karen McTavish.

Today Vireya was appliquéing cherries and leaves:


Marie cut out pieces for the border of her green triangle quilt:

The template she is tracing around is clear plastic, so didn't show up well in this photo.

Marilyn couldn't be here today - we hope to see her next time, because we are wondering what her next project will be after she completed her last quilt.

Our next meeting is in a fortnight, on 24th May at 1:00pm. Happy sewing until then!

Quilters' Circle - 26th April, 2010

Today is the public holiday for ANZAC Day (although the actual day was yesterday), so the members of the Quilters' Circle met at Marie's home.

Joy brought along this doll's quilt which she made in 1990:


It has faded a little over time, because it lives in her sun-room. It is placed on an antique cot which once belonged to the tennis champion Sir Norman Brookes, and in which Joy slept as a baby.

When Joy picked up the doll's quilt to bring it along, she discovered lying underneath it this quilt top depicting irises which she made in the early 1990s. Joy described it in rather disparaging terms, using words like "ugly" and "horrendous", but we didn't agree. What do you think?

I think it has a certain naive charm. The quilt was made in a class at a patchwork shop. We all remarked on the change in fabric availability in the last 20 years; notice how nearly all these fabrics are solid colours. Originally there were various embellishments on the top, such as an embroidered spider-web and sparkly beetles, but Joy removed them.

Since our last meeting Marie made a doll's quilt, and here it is in action:

Notice that the doll even has his own tiny teddy!

Vireya made cherries today for the last block of her Red Delicious quilt. Here are some at each stage of the production process (except being sewn on to the quilt):


The talented designer of Red Delicious, Esther Aliu, has just launched a new free Block-of-the-Month project, called "In the Pink". You can see it and get the details on her blog here. Vireya isn't planning to do this one, though, because she has quite a few unfinished projects she wants to complete. But it is lovely, and very tempting...

Marilyn today finished binding her quilt. Hooray! She also brought along her completed triangle block from the "Working with Triangles" class:

Congratulations on getting all those flying geese done! The finished block is lovely - the light-green colour doesn't show up well in this photograph, but in real life the colours are beautiful.

Thanks Marie for opening your home to us. We all had a lovely afternoon.

The next Quilters' Circle meeting at the Neighbourhood House will be on the 10th May, at 1pm.

Australasian Quilt Convention

The Australasian Quilt Convention is on next weekend. You can follow the link for details. There should be lots of great quilts to admire, and lots of shopping too. Is anyone planning to go? What about coordinating a visit?

Quilters' Circle - 12th April, 2010

Today is the second Monday in April, so the Quilters' Circle met at the Neighbourhood House again.

First we had to get past the foot-path works which had some of the road blocked:


Marie brought along her latest bag to show us:


That shark is scary! While we were admiring the bag, Marie was hand-quilting her cushion covers.

Joy had some show-and-tell too:

These rolls of fabric strips were in a package she found on her doorstep one day. The package had come from Express Publications, who publish a couple of patchwork and quilting magazines, but Joy doesn't know why they sent her these. I'm sure she will find a use for them, though.

Here's what Joy worked on today:

We have seen part of this panel before. In this section the small pieces have been fused to the background using Vliesofix, ready for Joy to stitch them down.

Vireya worked on this bow, which is part of the final Red Delicious block.

When the bow is complete she has 34 (or was it 35?) cherries to appliqué. That should keep her going for a while.

If you read quilting blogs, there was an article in the Guardian over the weekend which you might enjoy. The article was written to complement Quilts 1700-2010, an exhibition currently at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. We all wish we could go and see that! However, some of us did get to visit the Essendon Quilters exhibition over the weekend, which was inspirational enough and gave us lots to talk about today.

The fourth Monday of April is a public holiday (ANZAC Day), so our next meeting at the house will be on the 10th May. Hope to see you then!

Quilters' Circle - 29th March, 2010

It was the fifth Monday in March, so the Quilters' Circle met again at Sussex NH.

Joy added some cute three-dimensional flowers to the block she was working on last time:


She also brought along some old patchwork books for us to look at. I should have photographed them. We enjoyed looking at how fashions (and techniques) have changed in the world of quilting since the 1980s.

Marie is making another bag, and brought along these four half-finished blocks for us to see:


The blocks are made of strips of fabrics stitched to a light-weight foundation. The light-green strips aren't attached yet, but you can see the way she is using the colours to create a cheerful rainbow.

And speaking of cheerful rainbows, here is a cushion Marie has just made for a friend:

It is a very huggable cushion and is sure to be loved by its recipient.

Vireya sewed together a few more pentagon flowers. Here's the back of one:

In between our sewing, we chatted with the knitters, enjoyed chocolates Marie had brought along, and helped out Leigh by eating some left-over chocolate cake (with sauce and cream).

Our next meeting will be on 12th April. See you then!

Quilters' Circle - 22nd March, 2010

All the Quilters' Circle regulars met today at the neighbourhood house, for the first time since before Christmas. It was great to see Joy back with us again.

Joy did some stitching on the next part of the centre of her Baltimore Album quilt. We saw the centre block at her home back in January, but now there's an appliquéd bias strip surrounding the whole block, and birds are appearing in the corners:


Marie did some quilting on the four cushion covers she was cutting out pieces for at our last meeting. Since then she has assembled the blocks, joined them together and basted them. Here they are:

Aren't they lovely?

Marilyn brought along this cute apron which her sister is making:


Thanks to the volunteer who braved the pins to model it for us! The apron starts as two fat quarters of fabric squared off (so cut to a 50cm square) which are sewn together. The backing fabric shows where it folds over at the top, and matching fabric is used for the straps and the large triangular pocket at the bottom. It's a quick and cute gift idea.

Joanne came to show us her latest project, a quilt for her spare bed made with a collection of hand-printed Tiwi fabrics.


The black surrounds make the vivid hand-printed fabrics glow. Here's a close-up view of one of those squares:

The next step will be a border pieced from more of those stunning fabrics.

Vireya worked on some more of her Red Delicious appliqué,

almost completing that central toadstool by the end of our time together.

Our next meeting is only one week away on the 29th March, as this month has 5 Mondays. See you then!