Quilt In - Show n Tell Part 1

Sandy Leaman's kiwi Batik Moons made in 2013 to celebrate living in New Zealand for 21 years.

Lee-Allan Urbanski's Nan's Boiled Lollies.  This is a year quilt, where a different fabric is chosen for each day of the year.

Jan  Daniels' Disappearing 4 patch.  Made from scraps after seeing a Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial.

Nada Kozic's Matisse made for the birth of their great niece Matisse



Mary Kaberry's Retro Refit.  Mary added borders and had this 1930's quilt top quilted giving what was a fragile, old quilt top a new lease of life.

Karen Barrett's Millenium Magic.  This quilt won 1st prize at the Quilters Guild of SA show in 2004.

Heather Perry's My Family Heirloom made as a memory quilt relating to the interests of her family members and special events of over 38 years of marriage to her late husband.

Angela Bradbury's What a Crazy Garden.  Made as a commission for "Accuquilt Go"

Quilt In - Our visitors

Ladies, thank you so much for coming.  You made our day really special!  It was so much fun meeting you all and finding out about your groups and the things you like to work on.  We hope to see you at our next Quilt In!

 

I didn't manage to get pictures of you all as by the time I'd finished chatting to all the groups it was time to go home.  Where did the time go?!  I had a lovely chat to Beryl's cousin and her friends who don't belong to a group but enjoy getting together for a chat.  I also spent so long chatting to another group of ladies from Iramoo Sit and Sew that I forgot to take a photo.  They were busy drafting hexagons to make into a ball.  Did you work out the sizes needed for that ball?  Sue's Chinese Fan quilt will appear on a Show n Tell post.

 

These ladies are from Wyndham Patchworkers group.  They were all working on projects using different techniques.  There was needleturn appliqué, buttonhole appliqué, cross stitch and some quilt binding.  The ladies described their group as being multi talented!

 

This is Katja.  Katja was very brave and came to the Quilt In by herself!  Katja's quilt is Winter Elements.  As an artist Katja wanted to use fabrics with patterns that represented the winter winds and rain and it's all framed by the use of a splash of winter sun in the border.

This is the work of one of the Ballarat Golden Girls.  They meet twice a month and said while they have lots of fun their group has also been a tremendous support group.

 

Ballarat Golden Girls

 Ballarat Golden Girls.  Guess who likes to lead the others astray...

 

Ballarat Golden Girls

 

The ladies on the next table were from a mix of groups and said they all knew each other from going to different events and clubs together.  There were ladies from Seabreeze Quilters, Altona who's monthly meetings are at a Bikeys Club and ladies from Shamrock Quilters and Essendon.

 

These blocks are from a Patchwork Unlimited pattern.  The blocks belonged to a lady who sadly passed away and her blocks are being finished and made up for her.

 

These ladies are mostly from Sunbury.  Nada describes their group as patchwork therapy!

 

These ladies are from Regent Street Quilters and also belong to an online group called Southern Cross Quilters or Scquilters.  Here's the link to their online Blog

 

Meet Jenny and Veronica who came all the way from Rosebud to visit us!  These lovely ladies attend three different sewing groups! 

 

Here is another group of Wyndham Patchworkers.  I had a lovely long chat with Angela about her Accuquilt Go Baby (and Go Mama!) machines.  Her beautiful quilt will appear on a Show n Tell post.  Angela was telling us about how she was inspired to make different animal shapes with simple circles and leaf shaped appliqué and as I left she had a light bulb moment when she realised she could make a turtle next!  I wonder how many of those colourful vests the group has made so far? One of the other ladies was busy working on the cutest vest for a small child!

 

These ladies are from Willow's Quilting Group in Melton.  They'll be holding their own Quilt In very soon and everyone is very welcome to attend!  If you missed the bookmark advertising their event you could contact the group through their website

 Thanks for coming ladies!

Quilt In - Our members

Well done to the Quilt In committee for organising such a fabulous event and a thank you to all the volunteers who put in a lot of work sewing pincushions and gifts and for helping out on the day!  As I walked around I overheard many of our visitors saying how lovely the event was and how well organised it was.  There was lots of chatting, laughing and loads of beaming smiles!

You may have noticed that I took a lot of photos!  I'm sorry I didn't manage to capture everyone and I've mostly missed us Sunbury Quilters (particularly me...fancy that!) because you didn't seem to sit still for a single second!  Many of you will appear in other blog posts though and I apologise in advance for any unflattering shots!

Here's Maureen embroidering the borders of her Rose quilt.  Jocelyn is doing a very important task...planning which cake to eat first! 

 

Rosie is working on a Chester Criswell quilt which was made originally in 1852 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. You can read all about it and see the quilt on the Two Bits Patches website.

 

Di is working on a Midget Blocks quilt.  As you can see the blocks are tiny!  Well maybe you can't see...they are awfully small!

 

Andrea and Karen are hand quilting their quilts.  Andrea's quilt is Emily's Calico Stars and Karen is quilting her shirt challenge quilt ready for August.  It must be August 2015 surely?  Because I'm nowhere near ready to quilt mine!

 

Here's Robyn and Janice, a couple of visitors and friends of Ann.  Robyn is making a car blankie with beautiful fairies and Janice was busy binding her very first quilt ready for our Show and Tell later in the afternoon.  A photo of the quilt will appear in a Show and Tell post.

 

Ann's daughter, Laura, is also busy sewing the binding on the quilt ready for Show and Tell.

 

This is the Chatters' Group!  These ladies came along with Heather, Ailsa and our to be persuaded to return as a member Sharon.  These ladies were having such fun and even managed to do a bit of stitching in between all that laughter!

 

My next post will be all about our lovely visitors who really made the day special.  Thank you for coming!

Quilt In - Our Lovely Guest Speaker

Julie Adamson

Julie decided to start quilting to reduce her stress levels.  By all accounts they were raised considerably once she started!  This cushion was Julie's first attempt at quilting.  I heard many of the ladies at the Quilt In say they'd be happy if their quilting was this "bad"!  If you'd like a better look at the pictures click on them and they'll enlarge.

As time went by Julie's quilting became more adventurous.  She began with simple and traditional quilting lines and then added to them with double stitching lines, extra cross hatching and echo stitching.

 

 

 

 

 

This quilt was the turning point for Julie.  She approached the quilting in a similar way to how a machine quilter would and then her quilting really took off!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This quilt demonstrated how Julie had used two different methods of quilting.  Julie used running stitch quilting around the edges and stab and stitch quilting in the centre.  She assures us that whatever method works for you is the correct method!  Don't pay any attention to those quilt police!

 

 

 

 

 

This is Julie's aware winning Tribute quilt.

 

 

And last but not least a small quilt made using silks and batiks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our guest speaker, Julie Adamson was the highlight of our Quilt-in Fun Day

Julie  has been quilting and quilt making for almost twenty years and has been sharing with students her love of hand quilting and needleturn appliqué for more than eight years.  During class her emphasis is always on the building of skills and techniques in a relaxed and happy environment.

In the last two years she has judged two state exhibitions and is booked to teach on a cruise early next year.  In 2011 a new American magazine, International Quilts, requested and printed an article about her quilts and quilting life.

Some of the most recent awards for her quilts include:

 2011 Excellence in hand quilting - Adelaide

         Second place – Small Quilt Open

 2010 Best of Show – Adelaide

         First Predominately Applique – Professional

         Excellence in hand quilting

          First Mainly appliqué – Professional – Melbourne

          Judge’s award
          Narelle Grieve award for Excellence in hand quilting

 In her presentation she shared her quilting journey from naïve beginnings to award winning quilter.  Her high pressure job in children’s publishing meant she needed an outlet from the stress and after sighting a welsh handquilted, wholecloth quilt in a magazine she was hooked.

Needleturn appliqué and hand quilting continue to be her passion.  As with most of us, her early quilts were very traditional using self taught methods.  In later years she let the creative juices flow and experimented with free form hand quilting designs using a variety of threads and silk material.  If machine quilters could do it so could she!

 Her beautiful quilt, Tribute, was made over a four year period when many of those in her close circle were facing challenges and her tree of life quilt was a tribute to these strong women.  It was a great pleasure for us to study this quilt and others up close. 

 

 Evelyn has captured images of all those quilts so enjoy the visual journey!

 

Our Inaugural Quilt-in Was a Great Success!

 

 

June 15th arrived with some lovely sunshine and lots of visitors to our inaugural Quilt-in!  We were very pleased with the day as it unfolded.  The chatter and happy faces signalled that we had made our visitors  happy and they were enjoying the experience.

The planning committee heaved a sigh of relief and joined in with everyone.  It was particularly satisfying that we had so many visitors willing to share their quilts in the show and tell segments.  What a diverse and creative lot we quilters are.

Our group members really rallied around and contributed so much to make it all a success  so a big thank you to each of you!

 Our guest speaker, Julie Adamson, shared her quilting journey from woe to great success and we will have more to report on this later.

Evelyn has taken some wonderful photographs and we will gradually post these and more comments over the next few weeks.  Keep coming back to see it all!

Glo :-) x