President's Natter - September...

Well we are into spring now and haven’t we had some nice weather so far. We have started the year really well with over 40 members and having a lovely time on Tuesday evenings.

source - Annika

We had a lovely day celebrating Christmas in July at Riddells Creek Hotel, thanks to Judy and Marlene for all their work. Also thanks to Glo and Evelyn for lots of fun with the exhibiting of the Christmas Elves challenge items and games.  The ladies excelled themselves with the Leadlight projects.

The Chinese Whispers blocks are going well and we are now just over halfway through the challenge.  New members don’t hesitate to ask someone if you are having trouble with your blocks.

Our library is growing steadily with some new additions, thanks to Glo for her continuing work.

The Quilt Exhibition is coming up in June and the committee will have their first meeting in October, to get things underway.

The Charity Quilt for the raffle at the Exhibition has been donated by Rosie. It is a beautiful quilt and has already been started.  We will require members to participate by making blocks, appliquéing etc. These will be distributed soon.

The first Free Motion Quilting Class with Sherrie Jewson will be on Saturday 17^th September. There are a few spaces left, so if you are interested contact Jan, the cost is $30, bring your own lunch and a plate to share for a cuppa. There will be a second class on 7^th October for those who are unable to get to the first one.  There will be another more advanced class on November 5th. Keep tuned for the details or contact Jan.

Next Tuesday evening 20^th September we will be having a “Westalee” Rulers demonstration.  All welcome and feel free to bring a friend. Cost will be the usual $3 and starting at 6:30 pm.   Bring along a small plate for supper.

Jan is organizing the Bus Trip for Saturday the 22^nd October. Please let her know if you are interested and make your payment to Esmae.  The cost will be approximately $46 including lunch. Ask a friend to come along.

The Christmas breakup is booked for the 6^th December at the Gamekeepers Secret Inn on Melton Highway at 6:30pm.

We will be having some beginners classes starting in a couple of weeks the first will be “needle turn appliqué”.  Anyone wishing to take part in this, bring along a small project such as a flower or simple animal, so that we can get you started on Tuesday 27^th September.

We have decided to make an SS&Q wall hanging using quilt as you go hexagons or squares this can be displayed at the quilt exhibition and any other functions. Annie and Lyn are looking after this project and will advise when they have worked out the details.  All present members will be asked to make a small block of a size to be decided and embroider their name and date they joined the group and any other decoration the want to “pretty up” their piece.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anything, but you are probably sick of me by now, so until next time.

Diane Hutchinson
President.

Wyndham Patchworkers Quilt-In

I attended the Wyndham Patchworkers Quilt-In on Saturday and had a fabulous day. The members did a wonderful job with morning and afternoon tea and door prizes (everyone received one, yay).

Local business's donated prizes for the numerous raffles and the guest speaker was Esther Aliu a textile artist, who likes to stencil her quilts. Esther donated two books of her block of the month to be raffled and I am happy to report I was one of the lucky recipients (yay again).

One of Esther's beautiful quilts...

There were four shops in attendance (so lots to browse) as well as a "guess the weight of the buttons" and "how many many safety pins in the jar" competitions for a bit of fun.

Members were encouraged to dress up in black and white with a splash of colour, and of course there were plenty of beautiful quilts to look at.

All in all I had a great day,

Bronwyn

New and Wonderful Additions to Our Library

I am sure you will enjoy this amazing bright cheerful book Quilt a New Christmas  (Number 134) that puts a new slant on Christmas projects. I wanted to keep it myself but must share with everyone!


Read the review from the publisher's site -  http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?sku=10767

Review By: Tara Batman, - August 12, 2011
Review Title: Quilt a New Christmas Book Review: An interesting concept in this book is capturing Christmas by using context instead of Green & Red colors. Why do all Christmas quilts have to be made in traditional colors; their approach is to use context with any colors. The quilts in the book show modern color schemes while still retaining the Christmas look. Piece O' Cake designs has wonderful techniques for needle turn applique that is easy to understand and helps make your work mistake proof, so all their books are very good for beginners wanting to do this type of applique. A great discuss of value, scale and contrast was done in this book which is very well illustrated. Also, they address picking fabrics for the backgrounds using unusually typed of prints, then how to combine it with applique fabrics while using a planning board. I really enjoyed this book and the quilts are very unusual but very Christmas. I have at least two projects picked out to do!! 

We have also purchased the first of the William Morris In Applique books (Number 135) .We already have the second book.  No artist ever captured the beauty of nature in such exquisite detail as William Morris. Now Michele Hill has transformed his graceful birds, flowers, vines, and woodland creatures into appliqué designs any quilter can master. (Reference: http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1270). 

If interested you can see the video launch of this book.
http://vimeo.com/3376934









While browsing to find information about our new books I came across this free classic reference, defintely one to explore just for the fun of it! -  Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese Dillmont.    There are lots of other needlecraft references there as well. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20776/20776-h/20776-h.htm


That's all for now!   Enjoy!

President's Annual Report

SS&Q has had a busy year. We have sadly seen old members go and new members with renewed enthusiasm, take up membership.

We have been involved in many projects and fundraising activities since the last AGM. Last Christmas in July we raised $62.00 and the group made up the difference to donate $100.00 to the Biggest Morning Tea.

We increased our weekly entrance fee from $2.00 to $3.00 to cover hall hire. We made amendments to our constitution at a special meeting.

Jenny Bacon, President of Victorian Quilters, on the 16th November, gave an informative talk and slideshow and presented the group with show and tell.

We became involved in the Travelling Friendship Quilt Project, being Victorian State co-ordinator, took part with several members to design and make a block to be part of a quilt, which will represent our group in being part of history.

Our bi-annual quilt exhibition was held over two days for the first time and proved a huge success. Our amazing raffle quilt raised over $1500.00 for The McGrath Foundation. Our two wonderful raffle baskets enabled us to cover our costs. St Mary's Church catered and the money they raised went back to the Church.

On the 16th May, many members were able to attend Pauline Rogers' quilting workshop.

We had two full day workshops and several Tuesday nights working on charity quilts we donated to those affected by the flooding of Charlton and Kerang. As well as sewing, goods were donated by our group to the Charlton group. We also sponsored three Charlton Patchworkers affected by the floods at our annual retreat in April.

Several members made and donated trauma dolls.

Our Chinese Whispers' Block Swap commenced in February, involving 26 enthusiastic members, with a reveal in February 2012.

The group was involved in making two quilts which were donated to the Goonawarra Community House to be raffled at their art show, for a local children's autistic group.

Our first amazing SS&Q blog was commenced, with the president's report, rosters and SS&Q meeting business, still being produced in paper form.

We have supported the Koala Club in Africa via St Mary's Church, with donations materially and in cash.

Our group have set up two mini committees for both the Annual Quilt Exhibition in 2012 and our continued Charity Quilt making.

A back to basics class was offered by members and enthusiastically taken up by new members just recently.

I would like to finish by saying I have enjoyed my time as president and sincerely welcome our new President and committee members.

Many thanks,
Lyn Peucker

The Third and Final Photo Installment of Stained Glass Frolics

I hope I have not forgotten anyone  in this visual report.