Busy busy bees!

Post written by Evelyn

We've all been very busy during lockdown.  We've all had our different ways of doing things though.  Some people are using up their stash and others are buying lots more.  Some people are tidying and sorting and others are making more mess.  Guess which one of those I am!  Other people have been learning new skills.  And then others have just sat back and relaxed!

I've been busy buying essential supplies.  Actually, I have done a lot of sewing but haven't finished anything!  I have a LOT of bindings I'm trying to pretend I don't have to do!  If we were able to meet up I'd be looking very hopefully at people ha ha!

Janette made this lovely quilt for her newest granddaughter.  The cats were embroidered on her machine.

Ann Mc has finished off a few more quilts.  I've lost count of her total! This quilt is a crazy log cabin that Ann started in 2010 at a workshop in Benalla.  

This animal quilt was pieced using a couple of panels.

Ann's Heartstrings quilt finished.

This gorgeous quilt comes from the book Garden Fresh Quilts by Jason Yenter.  Ann bought the book and fabrics while she was on holiday once upon a time when we were allowed.

Robyn made this bag and quilt for Backpacks for kids

She made this book bag for her grandson who supports the wrong footy team!

Robyn started making these hexies as a carry around project when we were meeting up.  She's turned it into this gorgeous table runner.

Robyn also made these Melba flower purses.  I believe there was a lot of swearing while she formed the flowers but don't tell her I told you!

Robyn made this dreamcatcher quilt for her granddaughter.  She practiced her free motion quilting on it.

Kay has been really busy.  I know she has a lot of quilt tops finished ready for quilting.  She made these zippered bags for her daughter and grandchildren in SA.

Kay made this Splendid tote

And this bag for her granddaughter.

This chook quilt is destined for Kay's van.  Happy travels chooks!

Kay bought this cute doggy fabric while in the US and made the quilt as a gift for her niece.

This knitted vest is for one of Kay's grandsons.

Kay jumped on the cleaning bandwagon and carefully wrapped her fabrics around comic board.  They look brilliant!

Judy A started this bag a while ago when she first got her Sashiko machine.  The fabrics are laid randomly onto batting and quilted with the machine.

Here's Annie C's mini version of the 1840, The Key Family quilt.  It measures 33inches.  The half square triangles, all 1,668 of them, finish at 3/8"!!

We will conquer this pandemic and meet again!

 The Quilt Fairy has been at it again and brings a smile to our faces.  Thank you whoever you are!   I do have my suspicions however!

I enjoyed seeing Sheila's beautiful productive efforts on the previous post.  What amazing work she has done.  I have been all over the place with various new and old projects and seem to be going in circles.  I have spent an inordinate amount of time just mucking about and achieving nothing.

I did totally take apart my liquorice  all-sorts quilt and put it back together again and hopefully improved on some of the matching points.  It is heavily quilted for me as I used it as practice for Rachelle Denneny's online quilting class. 

Just for fun I have tried making aa little video of some of my projects, mostly work in progress.  I have not had any luck with attaching it to the BLOG so that is a work in progress as well!  In the meantime I will post some photos instead.

Little charity quilts.

Silver linings quilt - very pink!

mystery quilt from Quiltmania by Jen Kingwell!

My big stitch efforts.  Looks like sashiko.

And Barb Brown is no slouch either with these great efforts!

 

Star power!

Flower Power

California from Laundry Basket Quilts

Log cabin delights!

Keep safe everyone and quilt on!

 

 

Faces of Covid19

 Post written by Evelyn

This blog post is all about Sheila!  I have more to show but didn't want to put too many pictures in one post so watch out for more posts soon!  Send me, Sheila or Glo your pictures and stories if you want to share them on the blog!  I urge you to click on the pictures to enlarge them.  The stitching Sheila has done is exquisite!

Sheila says..

Having all this time on our hands I found my sketch book and started doodling. I came up with a few thoughts of Covid Faces. At the end I just had to turn them into stitcheries. The faces depict things such as my loss of the ability to wear my beloved red high heel shoes. I love shoes and have a huge collection which age wont let me wear. You will see the sad face, the thoughtful, the hair a mess and where I want to be under a tree somewhere not in the house.

Ah the wine.  I know you well...

My daughter has never asked me to make her a quilt. Her tastes and mine are poles apart. She likes plain and muted colours. When she asked if I would make a quilt I immediately agreed but nearly fell off the chair when I saw the pattern. Not me at all. The fabric was ordered and cutting commenced. Only a quilter would understand. “Cut 180 WOF 1 1/2 strips". That took forever! Then start sewing them all back up. I did not enjoy this process at all. You make 4 different kinds of blocks and the illusion comes in the joining of them. I had to order some fork pins to ensure my lines met up exactly. My daughter was pleased with the end result.

This was quilted in the ditch!

The walls in my house are covered in wall hangings and quilts so there was no room to put Ron’s favourite picture of Kookaburras. So when I saw this panel I had to buy it. I thought just a border and done. It cried out for some thread painting so I spent 3 weeks using miles of thread to make the kookaburras come to life. Sadly it doesn’t show in a photo. I then added the woolly wattle and some dragonflies to finish it off. Now he can have his kookaburras on the wall.

Lastly the Table Runner. Now this is more my colours! Ron has a cousin in the UK that hinted that she would like something made. She has visited Australia and has travelled the Nullabor, so I thought this Table Runner appropriate bearing in mind postage to the UK. The background is pieced out of scraps to depict the heat and desert areas. Th animals are in profile but highlighted in yellow. They are all raw edged. Hope she likes it!

What a helpful quilt displayer! 

More show and tell!

Post written by Evelyn

Get yourself a cuppa (I believe you may have been sent one recently!) and come and sit and admire these beautiful creations! This blog post is all about our lovely quilters Annie C and Sheila.

Annie says...

 I've been busy using a lot of my pre-cut scraps ... not so much of yardage ... this isolation could go on for years and I'll still have enough fabric!

My pile of memory quilts is growing, as are the knitted teddy bears.

My latest quilt finish is one that I have wanted to do since 2012 when I saw this quilt  http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-109 in person and a few days later saw a version at the Houston Quilt Show that a French lady had reproduced..

In 2014 Quilters Companion put out a lovely book called "Inspired by Vintage Quilts" and there was a pattern for the quilt reproduced by an Australian lady.  

The years rolled by, 2020 began and the Corona Virus struck ... time to start that quilt!  So, on 24 March, just at the beginning of isolation, I began.  The quilt kept growing ... and I thought, how am I going to quilt this on my domestic machine?  I did think I could hand quilt it ... but that thought lasted about 30 seconds ... so I decided not to include all the half square triangle borders and finished with a couple of plain borders.

Whilst quilting the quilt, I managed to break not one, but two, prongs on my Westalee fan ruler!  I finished the quilt just before we went into Stage 4 of isolation ... even with a couple of other interruptions thanks to Glo's mystery quilts.

With the quilt finished I wondered if I could make a smaller version and include all the borders.  So, that's what I am working on now ... a quarter size version of the original quilt, with the half square triangles supposed to finish at 1/2 inch ... but they're actually finishing at 5/8" because I have my machine set wrong!

The Baptist fan quilting really gives this stunning quilt a vintage feel!

Annie is crazy as you all know but at least she doesn't need a huge design wall!

Sheila says...

Going back a while I did the Laundry Basket Quilt. It was made from my scrap collection. Making it was one thing but now I have quilted it which took many many hours . Every small piece has some quilting on it so it is hard to show.

Then I fell into the mistake of making the Mysolation Quilt, again totally from my scraps.  It is the quilting I enjoy most so I quilted that to death too.

My new favourite thing to do is paint so I took the theme of the Butterfly being a creature of hope and came up with this. Is drawn then painted with acrylic and fabric medium paint. It has two layers of polyester batting to make it puffy and then the background heavily quilted to make it stand out. 

This is another paint job obviously called The Dragonfly. This is as a gift for a friend.

I tried to do a series of pictures which started off as the Faces of Covid but I got carried away and my drawing skills are not that good. They are a series of 6 faces measuring about 12x12. It is OK doing all these things but in a woeful moment I thought “What for?” So looking for suggestions for my faces. They will probably get joined together with red sashing and put on the pile.

I did the Love n Hugs Stitch along and have finally put it together.

Ron has a picture of Kookaburras which he really likes and wanted to put it up in the house. All wall space is taken up with quilts so when I saw this panel I had to buy it. I have made the border and now it is ready for quilting. I can go to town with some thread painting what fun!