Ladybug Pincushions, bags and other wonderful work

A little while back the Thursday night gals had a workshop sewing ladybug pincushions.  Lots of fun and laughter and lots of lovely pincushions, all bought to you courtesy of Debby and Letitia.

Letitia started the evening off with instructions, the girls were soon hard at it with finished ladybugs soon completed, along with Denise making sure she had the instructions all written down.

June, pleased with her little bug, gave his tail a tickle.

Time for a coffee break and then on to the flower bases, well a bug has to have a flower doesn't she?

Thank you so much Di for making and donating this fabulous 'Toytime' Quilt to STEMM for their Christmas in July.  They made over $2,000.00.
Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

A few weeks back Maree bought this amazing wall hanging in to share with the group.
One of the families homes has a lot of old style fireplaces that are no longer used, thanks to the wonders of modern heating, and so a request was made for something to hang in front of a fireplace.  Maree came up with this beauty.

Janet and Ann took part in a workshop with Jenny at the Angel last week and created these handy dandy zippered bags, lots of uses as the sizing can easily be changed.

Our Easter Fair Extravaganza and New Members

The excitement is mounting in our neck of the woods, our big Easter Fair is only days away, on Saturday 23 April and we are all looking forward to showing off our new kitchen extension, the Cottage renovations and updated Garden Entrance.......mind you, there is a bit of a push going on to put the finishing touches into place with a working bee this Saturday to lay the pavers, and of course we all have our fingers and toes crossed that the car park is finished in time.

Jackie O. joined our group a few weeks back and promptly took herself off on a bit of a holiday, she joined us today and bought along this beautiful Baltimore quilt.  Although it took Jackie 2 years to create, each block only took between 7-11 days to complete!.  Jackie was shown how to do needleturn applique and as so often happens, she was hooked.

Many of the blocks in Jackie's quilt are her own designs, with others inspired by traditional Baltimore Album designs.  Hopefully Jackie will be bringing this wonderful quilt along to our up coming Quilt Show for you all to have a drool over 'in the flesh' so to speak!
Jackie quilted around the design in each block but had a friend machine quilt the borders in a double heart design.

End of day, Jackie's Darling came along to help pack up the quilt, couldn't resist getting another pic, this time including the top row.

Janet's Daughter gave her a book on 'Skinny Quilts' for Christmas, and Janet set herself the challenge of making as many as possible using her stash only!  This vibrant creation is Janet's second from her book and stash with number 3 already in the works.

Two new members joined us yesterday and were settled in and  made to feel welcome by Fran, our charming 'welcome committee'.
 Lynn bought along her scrap pieced flimsey, made by request for her Grandson who is moving out of home in the near future.  Using many 'memory' fabrics from her scrap pile, Lynn created each block from a central hexagon, adding strips by just diving into her scrap box and sewing her little heart out.

 

 Our second new member, Jenny bought along some lovely Beatrix Potter print fabric to work on, looking forward to seeing Jenny's completed creation.

 Welcome Lynn and Jenny.

Christine also bought along a flimsey to share with us, made in a one day 'Stack and Slash' workshop down at the Angel, Christine decided to join the blocks using a gold bias tape.

She then choose some nice wide bias binding to be incorporated into the borders, but wouldn't you know it, it was one tinsy little inch too short!...what to do....while playing around with the problem Christine thought of popping a little embroidery over the bias binding join, she liked the effect so much she did the same in each of the corners.  Brilliant solution Christine.  Hopefully the completed quilt will be for Sale at our Easter Fair.

Betty bought along another 2 Quilts of Love for the Selengor Hospital, she is also working on pieces of Hardanger, "Oh just using up some leftovers" she airily told me........have you ever done Hardanger?...it doesn't start with Hard for no reason!

 Sue has very kindly offered to deliver the Quilts of Love to Selangor for us on her way through that neck of the woods.  Thank you Sue.

So Much Happening in Our Quilting World.

Gosh there has been so much happening, lots of wonderful Show and Tell, Workshops, Our Annual Bus Trip to the Brissy Craft Show, which of course the 'especially created for the event' committee of 'Lets Shop for the Group' worked very hard and bought us home a pile of new books.  Wonderfully inspiring new books, that we all wanted to take home right there and then!!
But first things first, we need to catch up on last weeks goings on (yeah I know, computers are the best thing since sliced bread, except for when they won't work.....then they give you a whole new meaning to the word frustration!)
Janet's very luck Granddaughter is to get a new quilt.......and what a quilt, one of Kelly's designs from 'Don't Look Now'

 The quilt is designed to be wide enough to hang well down over the bed sides, with a whimsical design of kittens playing in the grass and flowers.  Janet did her own quilting using a Q.A.Y.G. method.

While some members were drooling over Janet's wonderful quilt, others were hard at work in Lesson 1 of Sue's Bag Workshop. 
There were fabrics to be chosen and cut.

Lots of little strips to be cut and pressed and then arranged around the cut squares, and a great gizmo under Marcia's machine, a little mat with pockets at the front.  Now that's an idea!

And by the end of lessons there will be loads of lovely bags, just like these.....but different!

Show and Tell saw lots of finished articles from our Mini Retreat, Caitti decorated her white Christmas tree with pine cones and a wood rose, while Wendy went with lots of lovely red buttons.  There were hexagon place mats, Christmas decorations, stockings and the most gorgeous little knit.

Caitti then shared more of her beautiful silk ribbon embroidery, these designs on a linen hand towel.

Lesson 2 of Sues workshop had the girls all head down and sewing up a storm, lots of little tubes to be turned using bias bars, measuring and cutting going on.

The bags are going to be just beautiful, we will show them as soon as they are finished, at the moment they look a little, well, disjointed?, in pieces? not all together there?

Sheila had a new book, 'Designing Quilts is Easy!', well I didn't get to have a peek, so can't honestly tell, but it sure takes concentration getting all those vibrant fabrics to play nicely together.  Can't wait to see the finished quilt.

Heather is back from her travels, she and her Darling had a wonderful time.  You can catch up on their travels on Heathers blog  http://handjtucker.blogspot.com/
Of course, there was too much catching up to do yesterday, so Heather bought along a 'walk with me' project, the cutest ruffled scarf.

Lyn is busily doing some beautiful needleturn applique

and Julie - who has finished her tinsy tinsy hexagons - just has to finish assembling them - showed this handy dandy sewing compendium, complete with a wool tapestry needle book.

Pretties in our stitching world.

Mail was waiting for us to-day, from Marguerite, did she send us a pretty view of the countryside? no, a street scape showing the shopping we are missing out on? no, .....we got a lesson on pronunciation! yeah! true!

see......
Hi Marguerite....  big waves from all of us.

Show and Tell today started off with a burst, a star burst..
Lorraine, who, by the way, describes herself as a self taught beginner, has only been quilting for 2 years and has never heard of the quilt police, as such she is absolutely fearless, will tackle anything! and here's the proof

Lorraine with 'Thousand Diamonds'.  A piece of sage advice was given to Lorraine when she first stated she was going to make a Lone Star quilt, and that was to choose your star center fabric very carefully, the eye will immediately travel to the center first, so, not a big print, not too fussy or cluttered and not too light.  Great advice

Marcia has completed the disappearing 9 patch  flimsy she started at the Retreat, and mentioned that she is more a fan of keeping the cut center patch in alignment as opposed to the random twists and turns she used assembling this top

It was then time to share some really beautiful Friendship quilts, some live permanently on beds, some reside in cupboards but are considered treasures and some are still blocks, patted and petted, they bring back memories of quilting friends from our past.
This beauty was sent along by Betty who was not able to be with us today, it lives on Betty's bed, a lovely 3-D applique quilt, it was fun trying to find the cleverly hidden signatures and remembering past and current members.

Fran bought the quilt along for Betty, so of course, had to click another view to show off Fran's handy-work, yep bottom left block, laying so prettily on the table.

Lorraine H bought her Row x Row along to show us, done as a group project last year, there certainly were some astounding quilts made.

Janet's friendship quilt was done with her previous quilting group, before moving to the Sunshine Coast, she and her Darling then spent quite some time sailing on the ocean blue, and for a take along hand project, Janet constructed more blocks and hand pieced and quilted this lovely.

Janet pieced hexagons for the backing, using some of the left over fabrics for a splash of colour.

Lyn had this cute little house panel in her stash, perfect as a center for her round robin friendship quilt, bit hard to see, but those are more little pieced house blocks in the various borders.

Ailsa finished the binding on her Row x Row  at the Retreat,and bought her treasure along to share with us.

Lorraine's friendship flimsy, yep, still a flimsy, and why you ask, well it was made specifically for her waterbed, and just about the time the last stitch went into it, Lorraine and her Darling decided to change beds!!!!!
Lorraine now needs to add about another 2' or even 24" to her quilt and is stumped for ideas.
Got any suggestions?...........Lorraine would be grateful.

Fae showed us her lovely quilt, lots of hand applique, Sunbonnet Sues and 3-D Flowers, Fae had this lovely sitting in her cupboard for quite awhile, until her Grandie decided to take it and hand quilt it for her.

peer closely and you can see some of the beautiful stitching done  on this lovely quilt, again, it was fun trying to find the signatures or initials and remember the gals who had made these blocks.

Dorothy's friendship quilt lives on her spare bed, and has seen thousands of emergency toiletries packed into bags made by various group members to help those who suddenly find themselves homeless.

Dorothy worked the Cottage symbol as the basis for her Friendship Label.

Australian flowers was the theme for Janice's friendship quilt, the red bottle brush (bottom row, center) was stitched by a Japanese lass who created tiny tassels to form the red brush.

Jackie has a novel Friendship quilt, its a project bag, with her name embroidered onto the front

The bag was a treasure trove of Friendship blocks and even a little wall hanging, although not assembled they still give Jackie pleasure to go through and remember the gals from past groups.

Beryl had a number of Friendship quilts from various groups, a beautifully vibrant sashed 9-patch, 

This lovely round robin with some special memories.

and this little wall hanging, made over the Christmas break with a group of friends.  Proving not all Friendship quilts have to be large.

Marie bought along another one of her show winning quilts, this one with machine embroidered animals and lovely textured blocks.

A closer view of two of Marie's animals with some of the unusual crinkly textured blocks,

And this is how Marie achieved the texture, a product called 'Shrinking Sheet', you can see some of the quilt underneath and a test piece of fabric that Marie bought in to show us on the right.

 
Lorraine was wanting to finish the binding on this Linus quilt, to hand it in at the next Project Linus Meeting.

Closer view of the simple alternating1 patch / 4patch design that Lorraine has used. These quilts give great comfort to the children in hospital, going with them to and from treatments.

Sadly, we are told that 2 out of 3 children suffering from Cancer in hospital are boys, the same goes for Autistic children in hospital, hence Lorraine making mostly quilts in boy friendly designs and colours.

The Sunshine Coast chapter of Project Linus is newly formed, and meets at the Patchwork Angel in Forest Glen on the first Monday of the month.  Pretty easy to find the Angel, it is housed in an old church painted a nice cheery yellow, situated on the main street of Forest Glen.

Judie Bellingham, well known quilter, tutor and Quilting Editor for Bella Online, has a huge stash of everything needed to make these quilts, lots of lovely fabrics to choose from and the wadding used is a double sided fusable, so no pinning of quilt sandwiches.  You don't have to be a quilter or even a sewer to be involved in this worthwhile project, there are plenty of other jobs on offer and of course, you get to meet some lovely ladies.

Here is a sneak peek of a quilt being worked on, its a secret so can't tell you who but aren't the fabrics lovely?, all the animals dressed and ready to board Noah's Ark.

Arvo Tea was the usual wonderful, delish tinsy little sangers, but instead of being late for the plate, I was early! yep those two plates were filled with biccies and there was a lovely moist ginger cake being sliced off to the side.  Major yummo.