2018 - and so the fun begins...

What better way to start off the New Quilting Year than with a group meeting. Sheila recapped our major achievements of last year and pronounced them all a great success, including the open Christmas tree for Najidah kiddies, some of the gifts pictured here.

Apologies for some of the pics in this post, there has been some gizmo installed on the ceiling above where we present show and tell and it gives all the pics a blue cast. Turns some colours from yum to yuck! sadly, didn't notice until too late.

At last weeks meeting Wendy presented a demo to the group of a Nancy Zieman block, showcasing large areas of beautiful fabric you just don't want to slice into.
This week, Wendy bought along her quilt using said block for us to ooohh and aahhh over.

At Show and Tell, Wendy ( who is known to state that she never reverse stitches) confided that she suspects she is 'shape challenged' and 'fessed that yes, on this quilt she did do some unpicking...just didn't love the block layout. Well, we were gobsmacked...and those who have been forced from time to time to do the dreaded reverse stitching had little grins of relief.
I'm sure you will agree, it was worth the unstitching. A stunning quilt with a modern flair.

Wendy used both stippling and straight line echo quilting to showcase the design and fabrics.

One of the dreadful 'blue' pics to show you the lovely design layout.

UPDATE
Wendy shot me off the links for you all to enjoy the 2 youTube videos of Nancy with designer Debbie Bowles as well as the fabric requirements for one block, depends on the size of the quilt how many blocks you will make. Thank You Wendy.
Video part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwvCmczCkho

Video part 2
https://wpt.org/SewingWithNancy/Video/sew-big-quilt-blocks-part-2

Fabric requirements per block
12.5" square of focus fabric

3 strip sets
Set 1
2.5” wide Dark
4.5” wide Light
stitched together and crosscut into 1 @ 8.5” and 1 @ 12.5” segments for each block

Set 2
2.5” wide Dark
2.5” wide Light
Stitched together and crosscut into 2 @ 6.5” segments for each block

Set 3
1 2.5” wide Dark strip
Cross cut into 6.5” segments 1 for each block
Your blocks will be 18"

Being a 'non reverse stitcher' Wendy had not heard of the wonderful invention that Alex Anderson from the Quilt Show presented to the quilting world last April. Alex had her Son-in-Law the engineer design it for her. You just plug your phone into your machine USB port: download the reverse stitching App from the App store and Bobs you Uncle. Here is a link to Alex giving a demo, for Wendy and anyone else who has missed this amazing invention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2t2JWlcXXM

Another update....Sorry Di. It was Di's finished finally pillow and cushion that started the U.F.O finishing challenge,.
The U.F.O. gauntlet has been thrown down, yep, the group is challenged to finish those U.F.O's lurking around their sewing space, with the last meeting of the month as Show and Tell for the finished U.F.O's. Apparantely it all began last week when Sandy Di bought in a finished finally cushion and pillow and things just went on from there. We have a U.F.O counter on our sidebar now, but as Karen pointed out, the gals who always finish a project before moving on are at a disadvantage, no U.F.O's for them. Mind you, I reckon a few of them will unearth U.F.O's from Vinnies to finish - or I know a few folks who would be happy to donate...just sayin'.

Karen Do. was so proud of herself for finishing these two she just could't wait for the end of the month so shared with us yesterday.
A too, too cute Christmas Bunting,

Was told Brian's Fabric had some of this range in stock, worth a visit?

Karen also had this darling zippered box. Karen told the tale of how she got to the end of stitching only to find that there was about half a centimeter of seam allowance that had not been caught inside the enclosing seam. When she realised what had happened, she was so upset she tossed the poor little bag to the back of her desk where it spent the last 12 to 18 months being shoved from pillar to post, it took less than no time to fix, and now she has this cutie, No. 2 finished U.F.O.

Lorraine I,. also had a U.F.O. to show and tell. Not dreadfully impressed with her first foray into improvisational modern, a cut down and re-arrange found her with this quilt in a strong, vibrant colour palette, which coincidentall matched up perfectly with the Quilts of Valour sizing. So of course, off to Quilts of Valour to someone who needs and deserves a little love, support and respect.

Lorraine quilted her quilt using a mix of stippling, F.M.quilted leaves and straight line stitching then finished her quilt with a striking pieced binding.

And so another one bites the dust - wonder what the final tally will be for the year? and who will win?

Yvonne has been quietly beavering away throughout last year, creating hexies, lots of hexies - the result? This really cool shoulder bag, beautifully stitched with a really snazzy shoulder strap.

Janice was busily stitching more of her ever so popular coasters that she sells in our Atrium.

If you are a local or will be visiting our neck of the woods, a trip to our Atrium is well worth you while. For opening details and some peeks of the wide range of crafted goodies for sale visit the Atrium page on our Buderim Craft Cottage website
We also have a very handy page of coming events, compiled by the ever helpful Karel Beech

Sheila was constructing a quillo for a dear friends 90th Birthday, but zoomed off to attend to 'leader stuff'. Sue is packing up the ironing station after turning and pressing a pile of tubes that we will be using in the construction of mastecotomy drain bags at a workshop next month.

2015 Quilt Show and Sale #3

Ready for some more loveliness??
The third batch of wonderful quilts with a few other interesting pieces for you.

One of the colourful floral arrangements supplied by Betty and Inge from their gardens.

Lorraine I.
'Jessica's Horses'

"Last year my Great Niece stated she had grown out of her baby quilt and could she have a new quilt made out of horses, but I decided to go with fabric instead.
The large horse panels are cushion cover panels, the smaller pieces are from the 'running wild' fabric range and the background horseshoe printed fabric was sourced for me by Brian of Brian's Fabrics".

Marlene
'5 Minute Purple'

This quilt was made at a Buderim Craft Cottage workshop with June Sulzberger in 2011.  The workshop was on 5 minute blocks with Fat Quarters.
The quilt was machine pieced by me and quilted by Fiona of the Quilting Fairy".

Sheila
'Scotia's Top Five'

"This is granddaughter Scotia's 13th birthday quilt.  She loves ballet, cups of tea, books, guitars and hugs.
This is an original design using a guitar image by Prairie Queen on the internet.  The fabric is from my stash.
The quilt was machine pieced and machine quilted by me".

Janice
'Oriental Dreams'

From my large stash of Oriental print fabrics.

Ailsa
'Christmas Wall Hanging'

This is an Indigo Niche design which I hand embroidered and machine quilted.

Karen
'Country Romance'

Machine pieced and appliqued lap quilt, bag and matching cushion.

Michelle
'A Walk in the Park'

"I thought this design would make a lovely wedding quilt for my daughter.
I finally finished the quilt in February this year.
This is a Missouri Star Quilt Company design and was taught at the Patchwork Angel in 2013.
It was machine pieced, the machine quilting was done by Fiona, the Quilting Fairy.

Fiona
'Jack's Chain'

 "The quilt was started in a class with Leesa Siegel last year.  My aim was to conquer 'set in' seams on a machine.  The block is a Hexagon surrounded by 9 patches and Triangles with every seam being a 'set in' seam.  I am planning on making another one!
The design is by Leesa Siegel.
The quilt is all machine pieced and quilted by me, the Quilting Fairy".

Jackie
'Red Delight'

"This is my first hexagon quilt.  I just love the colour.
Machine quilted by Judy Davidson of Furball Farm Quilting."

Lorraine I.
'Blocks of Aqua'

 "This quilt featured on the front cover of Quilters Companion and was designed by Michelle Marvig.
I was in need of a new quilt for my bed and made it up but a lot bigger and with large borders to hang over the sides of the king sized mattress.  I followed Michelle's directions and made it quilt as you go, much kinder on old, damaged shoulders.
I love this quilt, making it and looking at it, until I put it on the bed and found the green tones of aqua I chose didn't go at all well in the blueish coloured aqua bedroom.  So I took off the large borders, took off one row of blocks and bound it to become my bed quilt for going away on quilting retreats.  I will eventually join up the sides and row of blocks into another quilt.
The quilt is my design.  I machine pieced and quilted it.

Janice
'Japanese Stepping Stones'

"Wanting to make a modern quilt and loved these fabrics with a white background.  The pattern is my design.  Machine pieced and professionally quilted by Judy at Furball Farm.

 Pat
 'Takayama'

"This qult is a tribute to the wonderful people of Japan and their traditions, culture and food.
Purchasing the red, white and black kimono fabric at the Kyoto Kimono Museum brought back the memories of the previous week during our Japanese holiday when my husband and I stayed at a ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) in Takayama.
Our personal host, Hanna (who was on call for 24 hours a day during our entire stay) told me I must wear traditional Japanese clothes for meals and patiently assisted me into my beautiful navy and red kimono.  It took awhile for her to explain the correct way to fold the kimono around me and then tie a perfect cummerbund bow behind me to hold it all in place.  I admit I did feel rather special wearing the kimono, but the cummerbund was pretty uncomfortable.
The red and black cotton fabric is of Japanese origin, purchased in Australia.  I used my domestic Janome to free motion quilt the various sashiko patterns, all of which have traditional meaning from mountains to fishing nets to the wind and trees.  The straight quilting lines represent the many people traveling en masse each day but never colliding.

Jane
'French Dresdens'

"I love this range of French General fabrics which lent itself to becoming Dresden Plates.
The pattern was designed by Majella at Kookaburra Cottage and inspired by Kookaburra Cottage - Carnival Star.
I hand and machine pieced the quilt and the machine quilting was done by Fiona, the Quilting Fairy 

Sue
Tote Bags

 Three of Sue's Totes, all with feature pockets on the front of the bags.  The totes were offered for sale as well as being part of the exhibition.

Tessa
'Needleturn Sampler'

Great Hints and a little silliness

Two posts in one this week, firstly we had the free motion quilting class presented by Pat, lots of tips, a great info sheet with some online sites to check up on including Lori at 'The Inbox Jaunt, who coincidentally has this great post on stippling- well worth the read. 
Pat had us starting out with a few curves and points and then moving onto more adventurous designs finally finishing up with writing our own names.  A great class, thanks Pat.
Lyn and Christine had a great time, Lyn was one of the first to stitch her name.

 

Jackie was really into the curves, doing a great job on her name.

Wendy and Marcia really nailed the F.M.Qing, Wendy then decided to give free motion circles around applique a go.

Diane with some help from Fae worked on names and hearts.

Denise concentrated on F.M.Qing around the icons on this lovely quilt to be.

Queen of the Gizmo's for the day was Marie, she bought along these pads for us to all try, they are called Grip and Stitch quilting disks from Clever Craft Tools, an online search will bring up sites that you can buy them from.  Lots of muttering on the day about 'gotta get me some of these', they make quilting close to the edge of your quilt a lot easier and are so restful on your hands if you have a problem with arthritis.

 

Marie also had '50 Styles of F.M.Quilting' by Helen Godden a nifty little book that pair's with your smart phone or tablet to bring a video of Helen and a 'live' presentation of some of the designs, or as Helen describes it 

"My first Free-Motion Machine Quilting book, 70 pages with 50 advanced quilting styles plus bonus 20 embedded demonstration videos using the free Aurasma app for tablets and smart phones giving you your first taste of Augmented Reality!

Yep, hover your tablet or phone over the sketch (L) in Helen's Book and up pops Helen on a video (TR)- I know, blew us all away!!  If you haven't seen Helen's work before, pop over here but make sure you have a drink, a snack and lotsa time. Amazing just doesn't cover it.

One of our group, who I have to get permission from, created this lovely 'I Spy' crazy log quilt for the Uniting Church Fair.

They have their fair the week before our Easter Fair and our very own Ailsa is one of the stall co-ordinator.

Found another little pile of these, pretty aren't they........

 Hmm, wonder what they are for??

Val has been busy again....still, with these quilts for Laurel House.

Just right for a little boy off the land.

A cheerful flower applique 

The third quilt is a lovely soft girly quilt.  The white blocks were orphan blocks given to Val, she cheered them up with a little floral embroidery and off set them with one patches of a pink floral given to her by Beryl.  

Val uses her machine embroidery or fancy stitches for a lot of the quilting on her charity quilts, for this lovely she has teamed some free motion daisies and swirls on the border and for the quilting in the large pink blocks Val sketched a daisy onto tissue and stitched the design out following the sketch lines, she then just tore away the tissue to reveal a great quilted block.

There is a nephew somewhere who has just got the bestest birthday pressie, this fab bag with a bottle of scotch. 

Marcia is pleased to be giving and I bet her nephew is pleased to be receiving.

Using the large 'Drunkards Path Templates' from our Library, Sue created this great quilt, not only does the path meander around the quilt, a bit of a more modern take on the design 

but Sue has also used quilt as you go techniques with a little simple echoing in the center of the blocks.  

That bit of silliness spoken of earlier?

how 'bout this.....

next thing you know some bright spark will work out how to put lipstick on 'em.

Charging into the New Year and a Great Idea

Wow, such enthusiasm, the Wednesday arvo gals were all a-buzz with catch up chat, 

sharing new projects and ideas, searching our library for inspiration, and of course sharing an array of Show and Tell.

 
That blur - over there - top right?

That's our assistant treasurer, busy as a one armed paper hanger!  She did however, pause long enough to blow a raspberry, but oh dear, struggling with the new 'hand me down' I managed to get my digit in front of the lens...sigh...


Sue. in her role as our Najidah/Sunny Kids liaison person had this lovely letter to share with us. 

What a lovely Christmas story, thank you Chris, it's inspiring to get feed back and appreciation.

Sue has one of those big '0' birthdays coming up fast, so we helped her get a head start on the celebrations with not one, but 2 birthday cakes, and seeing as how she is such a bright and sparkly lass it seemed fitting to have a sparkler '0' on one cake, not mentioning the other cake's decoration!
Pat and Janice presented the cakes to Sue while leading us in singing happy birthday. 

Ailsa is getting ready for the Christmas Fair - yep, you read it right, Christmas, she has started work on this lovely Sashiko Celtic Christmas Tree.  Can't wait to see the finished piece.

Purchased the kit at the Brisbane Quilt Show last year with the Christmas Fair in mind, but which Christmas?

Using a printed panel gifted to her along with the backing fabric, Ailsa created this lap quilt for her Church's Easter Fair, Jackie mentioned she recognised some of the fabrics from the 80's, she has the same designs in pinks!

Jackie had Lorraine help with her show and tell, everyone is shy these days, both hiding behind 'Chantelle' (Show and Tell)
Using lemon brights, Jackie created this strip pieced quilt and sprinkled it with Friendship stars.  It's to join with the Thursday evening groups charity quilts for STEMM.

The inspiration for the chenille table runner came about through chatting with another Lorraine, an ex member who although now living in Tassie is in fairly regular contact with group members.  Story is that Lorraine uses various leftover fabrics to create chenille lovelies to fill her 'instant gift' drawer.
Jackie thought it was a great idea to share on using up some of those pesky leftovers.  However, not having access to a chenille cutter Jackie did it the old fashioned way, using a pair of scissors to create the chenille.

If you are wondering how it's done, cut a backing fabric to the size desired, lay it face down, and then top with a couple of layers of same size fabric or butted together scrap fabrics, stitch 3/4" - 1" lines across, edge to edge, either straight or echo curves and then cut the layers of fabric between the stitching, making sure not to cut the backing or all you will have is ....a whole bunch of strips instead of a lovely table runner - mat - small quilt or whatever else takes your fancy.
The pic above shows Jackies backing and a little of the front of her runner, the raw edges ruffle and open to display the various colours used. Jackie bound her runner using the same fabric as her backing.

Val bought in 2 more quilts for her charity of choice, Laurel House.
First one is constructed using 9 large disappearing 9-patch blocks, Using a different colour combination for each block gives the quilt a whole new look and the whole is nicely set off with the three borders.

 The second quilt is a scrappy quilt as you go wedge quilt in lovely earthy tones

Sheila has been promising her daughter a quilt for her place of work for quite some time now, always thinking 'someday', well someday arrived with a jolly big rush.  While installing some shelves in one room the workmen managed to use far too long a nail, you can guess the result, spikey little nail ends all over the adjoining room's wall!!
A Wall hanging just had to be created immediately, and so it was.

The only request was that the colours should be purple and green.  Sheila used a simple one patch design, and then meandered various colour and weight braids over the surface, adding little touches here and there such as the sweet little button engraved with 'made with love'

Sheila used the beautiful peacock blue and green for her backing.

A Great Idea.
Sue just happened to be in earshot when someone mentioned that they wanted to get rid of some Bias Binding...  'noooo'  says Sue, big mistake, use it on Q.A.Y.G scrappy quilts as raw edge sashing or joining strips, and just to prove how lovely it can be she whipped this lovely up to share with us all today.

Now someone who shall remain nameless was so taken with the idea and was busily playing with just how lovely and fluffy the bias was, kicking up the edges beautifully

Sue was not impressed, there was even a suggestion of smacking fingers! really!  So here is a pic of the bias laying sweetly, flatly against the quilt surface.

So whadda ya reckon? flat or fluffy? me - I'm for the fluffy.  Another great idea.

Lorraine had a few quilts to show at the last meeting of the year, only just now making it to our blog - sorry bout that - they are all for the one family, and hopefully this is the right order,

    Left, Dad....Middle Young Son...Right, Young Daughter.

        Bottom Left, Tweenager...Middle Young Son...Bottom right, Mum.
Thanks for the pics Lainey, great quilts and what a lucky family.

A little update on Ollie's charity quilts and his stay in the neonatal unit - its been just over 6 months, he has come such a long way from being born 3 months premature (qualified him as a micro premmie, not a title to be hankered over)
Just got the news, home is getting closer, could be as soon as 3 weeks!!!  Doesn't he look pleased with the news?

Some of our large donation of fabric (thank you Derrick) was Christmas themed and not suitable for year round charity quilts, it was decided to sell the fabric to group members to buy wadding for the charity quilts.

Some of those fabrics, were used in the making of 6 Christmas themed quilts for the babies in the Grantley Stable neonatal unit of the Brisbane Royal and Women's Hospital, including one for my youngest darling grandie, Ollie.  A very special 'Thank You' to Marie for the labels, machine embroidered and each one a different colour! 
Thank You Marie, you made the quilts special.  Being seasonal quilts they were offered to the bubba's families as a memento of their stay in a very caring and special ward.

Thank you to all the members who have asked after Ollie and his big brother over this trying time, Thank you for your well wishes and a big thank you to Barbara, Karen and Marie for your very special gifts to the boys, they are treasured.