Different Skills

Robyn Z

Continuing with my list of things to learn. My freemotion is improving but don’t look too close. Still have moments of losing the plot. One thing I have learnt  - don’t lose concentrations, or you may find your freemotion all over the place. With this one I drew the picture, coloured it in using water pencils, painted with a mixture of medium & water. Then ironed dry. Painting is one of my favourite things I like doing, not really sure about freemotion.   

I took up the challenge set by Glo to do the Laundry basket Quilt. However I would be doing it purely using my stash. One block was posted each day. Of course I could not keep up but after a break of a few days went back to it as I hate leaving things half done.  This challenge has been completed by Glo and Annie and they are featured in an earlier blog.

Using scraps was a challenge in itself. Often I didn't have enough of the colour I wanted. I chose the pink and blue shades to find my pink was mostly red.

The other challenge was finding fabric of the same quality. My stash goes back many years, some very thin cottons and some were they even cottons?Putting them together meant a lot of unpicking. 
I use a quarter inch foot so they should be accurate. NO. Don't ask what happened. You had to cut each block down to six and a half inches. What to do when some were a six and three eighths or even less!

The pattern was very intricate and it was a challenge to put it together, with the blocks the right order and the right way round. Again Jack the Ripper got a work out. I was amazed that it went together as well as it did, little bit of pulling and tugging but generally OK. Now do I bother to quilt it?

I think I am retiring from patchworking. This top took quite a toll on my health. I think too many hours spent cutting, squillions of pieces left my hand in agony. Once over that too many hours over the machine has left me unable to walk due to inflammation in my spine. I should have known but will it stop me! Throughout the process there was moaning and groaning and utterances I won't repeat.

However today when it is all complete and I laid it on the bed there was a wonderful sense of fulfillment, surprise, and joy. So yes I will continue but maybe a different format.

Sorell and scraps

Post written by Evelyn

In July 2017 Ann Mc and I went to Tasmania for the weekend to celebrate Deidre Bond-Abel's new book Hat Creek Quilts with her and other Tasmanian quilters.  Up until this point I had appreciated these type of quilts but hadn't particularly fancied ever making one.  Well!  What an eye opener the weekend was!  Deidre had set up the hall with all of the quilts from the book and she had yummy fabrics and wools on display and for sale.  I was hooked!  I bought the book, the Sorell quilt kit and other fabrics.

The book

Deidre's version

I started making the quilt top and it was a lot of work for a 48"x 48" quilt so I decided to make mine bigger.  I raided Ann's stash for coordinating fabrics and bought matching border fabric at Patchwork with Gail B . During the making of the quilt Ann and I ran into Deidre at one of the quilting shows and Deidre just about managed not to grimace when I told her I'd sewn the appliqué pieces on my sewing machine instead of by hand but she did wince when I told her I'd used appliqué paper and pressed the shapes to death with my steam iron.  They were nice and flat and stuck down well!

My version

I had worried that I'd have to do some kind of quilting that avoided the actual appliqué and I don't think I have the skills to do that so I was relieved to see that many of Deirdre's quilts had been quilted with an all over pattern so that's what I did.  

It looks lovely on my bed and I'm so glad I made it bigger!

Scraps

This little quilt has been made with some of Judy V's scraps.  There was a pile of fabrics all muddled up in a carrier bag and I noticed that some of the jelly roll strips could go together so I rescued those.  I took them to retreat and sewed them all together but I hated the quilt top because it was all wonky and wavy so it was relegated to the "let's forget about it" pile.  Recently, Kate and I went to Kerrie at Black Forest quilting and a customer was picking up a gorgeous jelly roll quilt.  We oohed and ahhed over it and it turned out to have been made by the customer's 11 year old granddaughter!  Kerrie was telling us how impressed she was because the jelly roll strips were nice and straight and didn't bend like a banana like many jelly roll quilts do.  So, anyway, I learned my lesson from a very young quilter and unpicked my quilt top then MEASURED and cut my strips before PINNING and sewing into nice straight rows.  It's amazing what a bit of measuring and pinning can do ha ha!

I used offcuts of Kate's donated wadding which I pieced together and backing from Joy.  I quilted this on my quilting frame while Sorell was on Judy's frame.  I'm being greedy while Judy isn't allowed to come over and use her frame!

This quilt is square.  The photographer is obviously useless.

Someone's not stitching

Good morning all. I think I am getting used to isolation and will become a recluse. What do you think? I have got used to it, but a bit over the scenery! All that cleaning and dusting I did a month ago, guess what the dust is back and now it needs doing all over again.

I took up Glo and Annie's C's challenge of the Laundry Basket quilt, using only stash. I knew before but now I am sure, I do not enjoy cutting multiple pieces and sewing them together again. I am up to block 10 with 15 in all. My sewing room has 64 blue triangles and 64 light triangles waiting to be sewn together, and they have to measure exactly 3 and a half inches!!!!!! They you sew them together! These blocks need ironing probably 5 times before they are complete. However I will finish it, I will and all the other things I have started. Well maybe not that Love and Hugs Stitchery. I have done 4 blocks of that and my stitches are terrible.

Next week I am going to take a new direction. Watch this space. It wont be cooking either, I am over that too would love a take away or have someone else cook it. I did complain and Ron cooked tea......sausages, fried egg, baked beans and potatoes. Oh for a gourmet meal!

Kay took a class at Quilt Encounter, South Australia last year with Deborah Louie to learn  free motion quilting & raw edge machine appliqué. She had been putting this off & it’s sat there literally looking at her for the past 9 months - could say she was a little frightened at tackling it,  now she is  thanking  ‘iso’ for allowing her to get on with it! She must have taken a liking to free motion quilting as I know that she has purchased a big dream panel. She will show us I know when complete, is that next week?

While in isolation, I decided to write a  list of unfinished projects. I brought these paint by number art pieces for my grandchildren, I think was been a little bit ambitious, they were very hard for them, so guess who got the job of finishing them. Well, both are now completed and I’m very happy to finish them, now onto some other unfinished sewing projects. I’m starting to enjoy this isolation thing. Thank you  Robyn Z

Rolling Right Along!

It is amazing what you can find when you have time to search.
I started the Splendid Sampler 1 blocks a few years ago and did 19 and some how they disappeared to be finally resurrected yesterday.  I love how cheery they look!
Unfortunately I cannot find the downloads for most of the blocks.  Does anyone out there have them?

These are a few of my favourites.

I found this free pattern on The Laundry Basket Quilt site which looks like a nice contrast to the mystery quilt-looks easy.  Might be a relaxing one to try and could easily be made larger with more borders.

http://www.laundrybasketquilts.com/online-shop.html?store-page=Berry-Patch-PDF-download-

p86832868

I spent lots of time yesterday prepping pieces for my Rose Star eppiflex which I have carrying around for too many months to mention!  

Enough of me!  What have you been rediscovering??

This is Kay's free motion amazing effort that refused to go on the BLOG

 in a previous post but is now there!

Kay has also been busy making scrub hats as I have. Here is a batch ready for dispatch!

Time for others to report in, finished or not!

posted by Glo

Messy sewing rooms

Post written by Evelyn

Kate sent me a photo of her messy sewing area.  I think she should be totally ashamed of herself!  

Call this a mess?!

Now HERE'S a mess!  

My handy putting things on it quilting frame. 

 Judy's side of the room is tidy.  But probably only because she's not there ha ha!

My sewing area.  This is pretty tidy for me!

How are your rooms looking?  Send me pictures if you dare!

A few years ago a group of us had a Quilters Day Out to Mrs Martin's Quilt Shop in Emerald where we began making a wool appliqué table topper.  Ann Mc has finally finished hers and is delighted that it fits so well on her coffee table!

Those UFO's are Biting the Dust

I finally got around to putting a label on my very first quilt, only taken 16 years! 😂 And look at this points!

We don't care about points especially points 16 years old Kay, well done to have it done and dusted

Kay took a class at Quilt Encounter, South Australia last year with Deborah Louie to learn  free motion quilting & raw edge machine appliqué. She had been putting this off & it’s sat there literally looking at her for the past 9 months - could say she was a little frightened at tackling it,  now she thanks ‘iso’ for allowing her to get on with it! 

It is great to see people that have not been with the club long willing and able to show us what she has done Debbie Zara sent me these quilts. She said

"Could you please add to show and tell. Hope everyone is keeping busy l sure have complete three UFO s one that was hidden five years, put it away in frustration doing embroidery and forgot about it. The red one is new it’s for me l love native flowers. My hubby bought me an early birthday gift l'm loving it a new machine need a license to work it but l'm getting there, cut out three more quilts so keeping very busy love to all keep safe.  Debbie Zara 

Thanks both of you for forwarding your quilts, I think we are winning the war.although I doubt iso will stop for a while. It is hard not meeting up with people that you saw frequently. If you are feeling lonely, feel free to ring or email anyone on our club list. As they say "We are all in this together". 

Keep stitching and sewing, it keeps me sane.  Why do I fall for every freebie, or quilt or stitch along?  Glo is responsible for Laundry Baskets, Ann for the Love and Hugs, Robyn for the raw edge applique. So enough. I am not starting anything new well this week.

Stay safe everyone Sheila

Will my sewing machine last this onslaught of sewing?

If I could visit your homes I am sure I would hear the hum of the sewing machine(s)!  It is great to see how productive everyone is!

I loved Evelyn's story of her first quilt and the amazing transformation that has taken place!  I am sure many of us have similar stories!

I have not been a slouch by any means and can proudly declare that I have once again ignored most of my UFOs and soldiered on with new projects.

The one UFO I did finish hand basting with my boards has been the Jen Kingwell mystery quilt from Quiltmania, called Marshall.  It wasn't the easiest thing to put together and the scrappy look even challenged me, the scrap queen!  I will attempt to quilt this myself!





I had a few scrap happy days making the next quilt which has grown too big for me to quilt myself.  I do like its happy nature.  Do you recognise any of your donated fabrics?



And finally after much agony, I have finished piecing the Edyta Sitar quilt from her Laundry Basket Quilts BLOG.  It is called California.  Annie C has put together her beautiful version and I know Sheila is on the job.  Kay is keeping her options open at this stage and Ann McW is keen as well! Anyone else participating?







If all my sewing machines fail I have a singer treadle!

For those interested there is a facebook group called Helping Our Hospital Heroes Australia who are organising sewing for various hospitals.  This was mentioned earlier by Judy V in one of our mail-outs and the group now has a website as well as facebook!

https://www.helpingourhospitalheroesaustralia.com

It is a Rotary sponsored initiative.  I (Glo) have just delivered 24 hats to the Sunbury contact.  You can find all the contacts on the facebook site.

Keep safe and secure in your happy sewing room!

My first quilt

A few years ago, when I was twenty, my mum wanted to go to a patchwork class but couldn't drive in the dark so asked me to take her.  It was a fair drive away and rather than hang around waiting for her to finish I decided to join the class too.  The tutor told us that patchwork was like a puzzle.  You put two triangles together and they made a square.  You put two rectangles together and they made a square.  If you sew all these rectangles, triangles and squares together you get a large square.  It was captivating!  We were shown how to make our own templates out of cereal packets and off we went to do our first block at home.  

I remember I had raided my mum's furnishing fabric stash and made my first block out of the most ghastly brown and orange fabric which I then turned into a cushion.  But it was after making that one block I had the dawning realisation that if I can make one block I can make two...then more!  I purchased the blue fabric because it was on sale and bought the pink and cream chinz to go with it and I made twenty five blocks.  I drew around the cereal packet templates with biro and by the end of my block making the cardboard edges were soggy and bent and useless.  It didn't occur to me to make fresh new templates!

It was at this point that I decided that because I could make 25 blocks that patchwork was easy peasy and we no longer needed to go to the class.  Ahem.

Well then it was time to add sashings and borders.  I'll be brief and just say that not a lot of measuring went into the sewing of either of these things and there is not one single 1/4 inch seam allowance as you can see from this picture.  Go on, I dare you to click on it to enlarge it!

After that it was time to quilt.  My fluffy polyester wadding packet informed me that I had to quilt quite densely so my plan was to quilt around every triangle.  Stab, stab, stab went my needle and the stitches looked rather amazing!  On the front that is.  They were horrendous on the backing!  And quilting was soooo boring!  Needless to say I quilted around a few triangles and called it a day.  I decided the horrible quilting on the back needed to be covered up so I added another backing.  I didn't know what binding was back then so I "bagged" the quilt to finish it.

And fair play, that quilt was on my bed, except for when it was being washed, for over twenty years.  The quilting held, surprisingly, but the edges had started to fray and come apart and the fluffy polyester wadding was flat and stiff.  It needed a new lease of life!  So I unpicked all that quilting (which didn't take very long!) and gazed in horror at the inside of my quilt.  How I managed to get it even resembling a quilt I have no idea!  But I had a good laugh over my young adult know it all self!  I had hoped to just quilt the top at that point but I needed it to be square for the quilting frame and so I had to redo the sashings and borders.  I measured them this time!  

After quilting and adding binding it was done.  Here it is back on my bed.  I'm very happy!

Happy Easter

 Happy Easter Everyone. It is a little sad, today is Good Friday when traditionally we would have a large seafood lunch with family. Alas today a tin of tuna! However I do have some feasts for your eyes. It is great that everyone is busy stitching. Keep the quilts going we might have to air the quilts twice next year!

This is Annie C's quilt.  This has been completed using her stash and has had to improvise a bit. It is the pattern that has been provided by Laundry Basket Quilts. They were free blocks which came daily for 15 days and did pose a bit pf a challenge. We look forward to seeing more as I know others are tackling the same quilt

 Kay Heriot

Just need to get it framed now. Bought the pattern from Ballarat (The Elephant Patch) on one of our bus trips. I’ve made this for my son in law who has worked in politics/Canberra & I think he’ll appreciate the clever humour in this. The balloon in the background was blown up (not when stitching) whilst I was on FaceTime with one of my grandchildren (it’s his 4th birthday this week) & we had to cancel his party due to the dreaded covid. Nana acted out a few little silly things while blowing up the balloon & made him laugh. 

Robyn has had time on her hands though she will now have to go back to work next week. I know she has watched a great many videos over the Great Australian Craft Show which was a way of letting us experience the sites of many stitchers and quilters. Having done that she used a jelly roll to complete a small quilt for our Sunshine Hospital project. Well done very tastefully photographed

This is my completed task. (Sheila) It has taken me many months. It is a sampler quilt but the object was to practice free motion quilting, so I have taken a few close up shots to show that . Sorry there are so many but each block is different and I wanted it as a reminder of what to do when I am stuck for a filler or design. Most of it is free motion with no drawing but I have used a ruler for the straight lines. I have decided I like free motion more than piecing but I have to do the piecing to have something to free motion

The bargain

This post is all about me.  Me! Me!  Me!  Sorry, I got a bit carried away there...

Let me tell you a story about The Bargain Backing.  Are you sitting comfortably?  Then we'll begin.  Once upon a time, actually not that long ago, Judy A and I went on a shopping trip to Patchwork with Gail B (Open for online orders!) and on the way we stopped at Spotlight.  On the way out of the store eagle eyed Judy spotted these bargain bed sheets priced at only $10 each!  What a steal!  So, happily, we both purchased two each to use as backings.

What a bargain!

At Patchwork with Gail B's I wandered merrily around the store and suddenly it dawned on me...I had beautiful backing...but not one single piece of fabric to make a quilt to use it on!  The horror!  So I found a layer cake with the blue on it and decided to buy that. At that point I was so keen to use my bargain backing that I would have chosen any design as long as it had the same blue on it!  But, luckily, the fabric range was Moda's Le Beau Papillon and I liked it. Then I decided the easiest thing to make would be a half square triangle quilt and I'd need extra fabric to go around the star so I bought 60cm of that. 

A few weeks later I decided that I wanted the quilt to be bigger so off I went with my husband to Patch N Quilt (open for telephone/facebook/email orders!) where I ran into quite a few of you quilting ladies who were very naughty and tried to enlighten my husband about me.  What happens at retreat stays at retreat!!!  Mary helped me choose some fabric from Moda's Chafarcani range which blended well with my layer cake.  I bought 5 x 30cm strips.

I cut my fabric pieces into 10 inch squares, sewed them all together into half square triangles and made a quilt top.  Judy will tell you that I actually made the half square triangles and then swore and stamped my feet in temper as I arranged them on the design wall but don't listen to a single thing she says!

Then came the quilting.  I already had a reel of Gutermann thread that I thought would work so I started quilting but I had unknowingly chosen a very heavy quilting pattern so it used up my thread in no time. So off I went to Lincraft and purchased another couple of reels and while I was there I picked up thread for my next project.  All in all I almost used three $12 reels of thread.

If you're keeping up you'll have noticed that my $10 backing has now cost me 1 layer cake,  over 2 metres of extra fabric, 3 reels of thread and over 2 metres of batting.  What a bargain!!!

Artfully arranged just for Janice.

So, without further ado...The quilt! Was it worth it? :-)

I dusted my bed before I took this picture.  I should probably reposition it correctly underneath the picture.

Minnie is giving it the seal of approval.

When I finished quilting The Bargain I noticed that I had 16 inches of backing and batting left at the bottom so I quickly cut out some plain cream squares and quilted five of these memory quilts for Sunshine Hospital.

But my story isn't finished!  During the quilting of the bargain quilt Judy challenged me to quilt with my frame at the same time.  Yes, quilt two quilts at once!  And like a fool I accepted the challenge.  Here is definitely a bargain quilt.  The panel and backing was $10 from Big W and I added a homespun strip from Joy's stash to the backing to make it bigger and used the same fabric for binding.  The batting was leftovers sewn together from other projects.

Baby panel

Backing

The quilt was proudly displayed in my grandson's cot.  I suspect that he and his brother will be in big boy beds before they get to stay with me again!  Here we are socially distancing ourselves visiting our grandbabies. 

Aww!  Jim and I are so cute!

THE END

Ann is on a roll!

Ann has quilted these two quilts.  I wonder if she has any wadding left?  I love the way they've been displayed ha ha!  Click the pictures to enlarge.

This quilt is a Big W baby panel that Ann has made bigger by adding a border.  The baby panel was a bargain at $10 for the panel fabric and the backing, which was also made bigger.

This quilt was inspired by a quilt on one of the beds at The Retreat.  

Judy hung from the ceiling

In order to take photos of these finished quilts so that they come out square whilst positioned on the floor Judy must have been suspended over the top of them from the ceiling!  Either that or she has some crazy skills!  Also crazy are her quilting skills!  Click on the pictures if you want a closer look.

This Falling Triangles quilt is huge and barely fit on Judy's quilting frame.  Judy thought it was fairly flat and uninteresting but then the swirly movement of the quilting brought it to life.

Sometimes our members bring in scraps of fabric for us to take home with us and Judy picked this range up mostly from Judy V and Joy's collections.  She had a lot of threads to bury after quilting this and she's sworn never to do this pattern again on the long arm!  This is, however, a great quilting design to do on your home sewing machines.  It's easy to do and best of all there should be no threads to bury!

This quilt had a lot of empty white space but the quilting shows up a treat on it!  It's a very simple quilt top to piece but it's very effective.  

What have you been up to recently?