Quilters' Circle - 10th August, 2015

Spring is in the air! Blossom trees are beginning to blossom, wattle is blooming, and there was a touch of warmth in the air today.

Debbie brought along her finished coasters and a folded-fabric star from the workshops she did at the recent Craft and Quilt Fair:

Scroll down to see how the coasters looked at our last meeting, before they were assembled with their backing. Today Debbie continued stitching the zig-zag design in the top left of the photo.

We had a few magazines to look at today, including an issue of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. It is very hard to find in Australia, but Vireya found it in Ballarat:

Vic the Manager popped in to give us each a new fridge magnet!

Marie continued adding appliqued dots to the baby quilt she is making:

And here is how the whole top is looking now:

Marie also had some unusual show-and-tell:

A toilet-paper wrapper! But the interesting part is the concept behind it. The company gives 50% of their profit to WaterAid to build toilets in developing countries. You can read more about it here.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 24th August, See you then!

Quilters' Circle - 27th July, 2015

Firstly, apologies for there being no report of the last meeting. Our usual scribe could not attend, and no-one had a camera to take any photos. Fortunately this week everything came together again!

In our last post, we showed Cathie's pansy quilt in progress. Here is Debbie's, made in the same class in 1996:

And here are a couple of the individual blocks:

The pattern came from the book mentioned in our last post, Pansy Designs for Traditional Crafts by Deborah Brearley.  Debbie found out recently that the lovely hand-dyed fabrics which work so well in these appliqued flowers were made by Dijanne Cevaal.

Marie has almost finished the top of this pretty baby quilt:

Today she added a few more appliqued circles:

Vireya cut out these shapes, which had people a little puzzled:

But here's what they turn in to:

The pattern is Kosmosstoff, (Cosmos Dust) by Lies Bos-Varkevisser. Vireya has reduced the pattern size, and is assembling them by the English paper-piecing method. This could be another long-term project.

We had all attended the Craft & Quilt show over the weekend. Debbie did some of the workshops, where she made two types of coasters using different Japanese stitching techniques, and a folded star. Here are the coasters:

Today she was completing the stitching on one of the coasters.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on the 10th August. See you again then!

Quilters' Circle - 29th June, 2015

Today was our bonus 5th Monday meeting. We also had a special bonus of a new quilter.

Cathie joined us for the first time, and worked on this block:

It is part of a pansy quilt Cathie started in a class at Patchworks Unlimited in Pascoe Vale in 1996! The pattern is "Quilted Pansy Sampler Quilt" from the book Pansy Designs for Traditional Crafts by Deborah Brearley. Amazingly, Debbie did the same class back then, and next time will bring her completed pansy quilt to show us.

Today Debbie showed us her completed Truly Aussie quilt (designed by Helen Stubbings). It is a double-sided quilt, featuring hand-embroidered and hand-pieced blocks. It is truly amazing!

Click those photos to enlarge them and see some of the detail. Or scroll back though previous posts where you will find some close-ups of blocks as Debbie was working on them.

Debbie also showed us this cute little purse she made from the hexagons she was working on at our last meeting. It closes with a flex frame.

Very sweet! Today she had more hexagons happening, stitching another hexagon flower to a tea-towel for sale at a craft market next month:

Today Glennys was embroidering butterflies on panels she has pieced which will be made into a drawstring bag like the one Debbie showed us in April.

Marie showed us some blocks she has made for another baby quilt:

and today she too worked on stitching hexagon flowers to tea-towels:

Vireya hadn't brought anything with her today, but fortunately Marie had some extra hexagon shapes and fabrics with her for more tea-towels, so Vireya spent the meeting covering hexagons for her:

The cardboard hexagon shapes were very interesting, as they had been cut from a calendar, and a couple of them included years. This well-used hexagon has January 1971 on it, and one of the others had 1968.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 13th of July. See you again then!

Quilters' Circle - 22nd June, 2015

It was the shortest day of the year, and very cold outside, but there was lots of lovely work to look at today. People have been busy in the month since our last meeting!

Marie was appliqueing the last side of her hexagon panel to the background:

She gave us a sneak peek at how the rest of this lovely baby quilt will go together:

It is beautiful!

Vireya showed us this gift she received in a present exchange at a "Christmas in June" event at another quilting group:

It can be used as a decoration, or as a book-mark. It is beautifully made.

Today Vireya was removing tiny bits of paper from the back of her most recent Zoo Animals block:

Some of those tiny pieces were a bit tricky to remove. A pair of tweezers came in handy! Here's all six completed blocks:

There are three more blocks in the quilt, then it will be time to start putting them together.

Debbie has been doing some EPP with hexagons, trying out different methods to see which she likes best:

She also showed us a fund-raising project she is working on for another group. Some donated linen tea-towels and donated prepared hexagons go together to make embellished tea-towels which should sell well at their market stall:

It is hard to find linen tea-towels these days. These ones are from Poland, and are a beautiful quality.

Glennys is making a wall-hanging for a granddaughter:

Each block has a little pocket for a toy or other precious item. The fabrics are scraps from the quilt Glennys made for this lucky girl. The pattern is designed by Amanda Lefebure, and appears in this magazine from Spotlight:

Today Glennys continued with her EPP project, which is coming together well:

Our next meeting will be in only one week, on 29th June. It's our 5th-Monday bonus meeting. See you again then!

Quilters' Circle - 25th May, 2015

We had a surprise visit today from Dianne, who blogs at Coburg Craft Stuff. She donated some craft books,

which we enjoyed looking through. We left a few for the craft and sewing groups which meet later in the week.

Debbie is nearing the end of her "Truly Aussie" quilt (designed by Helen Stubbings). Here's one side of the quilt:

and the other:

Doesn't it look great? And here's a close-up view of where she is up to:

stitching down the sashing which covers the joins between these quilt-as-you-go blocks.
 Almost done!

Marie is appliqueing circles to make the flowers on the stems she was doing at our last meeting:

Very cute!

Vireya has a birthday this week, so there were some goodies

and a lovely card:

Vireya showed us these partially assembled blocks which are from the book "Cultural Fusion Quilts" by Sujata Shah.

They are not Vireya's normal sort of piecing, as they are cut without measurements, and joined without worrying about accuracy. She enjoyed the unusual process and is sure to make a few more.

Our next meeting is a month away, because of the public holiday in June. We'll meet again on 22nd June.

Quilters' Circle - 11th May, 2015

It is the 6th birthday of our blog. Happy Blogiversary to us!

Dorothea from the knitting group showed us this lovely quilt she is making for a grandbaby in America. She purchased the pattern at the recent AQC. It is from a NZ company, and we will add the details here when we can.

Very cute!

Marie is making good progress on the baby quilt she is making for her neighbours. The baby is due in about a week, so it is a race to see which is ready first - the baby or the quilt.

Today she stitched down a few more stems for the floral border.

Marie also showed us a technique she is learning for doing a decorative flange binding. This is the pretty little quilt she is binding:

Close-up view showing the red flange piece which is caught between the quilt and the binding:

Very effective!

Glennys worked on her English paper-piecing project:

Vireya showed us the latest of her zoo animals - this is a BOM by Kristy at Quiet Play:

The giraffe is the block for May. Today she removed the last little pieces of paper from the back,

and then cut out the pieces of an applique project:

Debbie stitched around a shepherd in the nativity scene she is working on:

Our next meeting will be in two weeks, on 25th May. Join us as we begin our 7th year of blogging!