Weekend Retreat

On Friday I went off to the Ballarat Quilters Retreat. The rain was pouring down and it was very cold with news reports of snow. We arrived safely and on time, missing one truck accident that happened earlier and the 4 later accidents that caused several quilters having to take a long detour. We registered and went to our rooms and unpacked, then it down for a buffet dinner.  After dinner we had a meet and greet with the tutors and a show n tell. I apologise for the photos, the lighting was not good and I had to use the zoom which didn't help.
These 4 art quilts are by Jenny Bowker's  and are wonderful, especially seen side by side.

This is Kathy Doughty with her Soul Searching.

This black and white quilt belongs to Margaret Mcdonald.

This is Di Ford/Hall with her Antique Wedding Sampler which was the class I took.

Michele Hill was also teaching but the photo of her 'Tile' blocks was just too dark to show you.

The rain continued to thunder down all through Friday night and the creek that runs through the middle of the grounds of the Convention Centre, where we stayed filled and raged along. This is a photo of it on Saturday morning. The temperature dropped a few more degrees but the rain stopped and we had blue skies for the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday about 5pm we all went over to the hall to see everyones work. This is what was achieved in Kathy's class. I'd like to try this. I bought her new book called  and this quilt is in it

These are the 'Tiles' made in Michele Hill's class.

This is some of us from Di's class. Some started the Phebe quilt and some made blocks for the Antique Wedding Sampler.

This is Margaret McDonald showing what her students had made on Saturday  

and what her students had made on Sunday.

It was a great weekend but after 15years this was the last one. It would be wonderful if they could find someone to keep it going.

Time Flies

My daughter came to stay for a few days. It was lovely to see her and do a few things together. A long time ago she painted a picture for DH and I for our 25th wedding anniversary. When she was here earlier in the year she decided that it had to go. Her artwork has grown and changed since then and after some discussion it was decided that she would replace it with a more recent piece of work.
Here is the replacement. This is from her 12month 'artist in residence' at the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane. Isn't it just wonderful. We both just love it. You can see more of her work  here .

I have finished the centre of my Frost on the Ferns.

and this is the July block for the Canton Village BOM

I have been sewing a few different things, my BOM Marriage Quilt , which is now a month behind and some of my Trailing Vines and I bought a new quilt pattern. I'll show you it later. Next week I'm off to the Ballarat Weekend Retreat so I will try and remember to get lots of photos to show you.

Winner

It's the 1st of August and my bag winner is Jan.
DH picked No 7 and you were the 7th Comment.Please send your full
name and address and I'll get the bag in the mail.

Little Houses

I've been stitching Block 4 of Yoko Saito's Mystery BOM, in the Quiltmania magazine and I've thoroughly enjoyed making these little houses.

My elbow is feeling considerably better than it was and watching the Olympic's is such an ideal time to get on with my applique, eg. Leaves - so plenty of stops, arm stretches, etc is the order for the day.

It's been 10 Days.....

..........since I last posted.
I have been working on Block No 4 of Yoko Saito's Mystery BOM in Quiltmania and I'll show it when I have all the applique and embroidery finished.
Meantime I'm going to show you where I keep most of my bags. They DO get used so they're not all pristine and tidy.

To keep you all going while I'm not doing much in the way of sewing I'm having a 'giveaway'. One of my 'Tote' bags. It's made of upholstery fabric and a very handy size. I'll pick a number on the 1st August. Just leave a comment if you would like to have a chance of winning it.

Celebrate

I'm not doing much hand sewing and trying to rest my elbow. Driving my manual and changing gears seems to annoy it the most but sewing a few little leaves on doesn't. Whoopee! Vine no. 5 is finished and I'm half way.

and in the garden it's time for the Red Hot Pokers. They really do look fiery and the Honeyeaters swing on each stem as they poke their long beaks in. Just as well we have more than one clump with all the squabbling that goes on among them.

Friends, Patterns and Post

Yesterday I had some friends round to sew. Carolyn had had a tidy up in her sewing room and come across Jan Patek kits she had bought a long time ago and had never made. They were all great patterns and yesterday she gave me the Coxcombs and Stars pattern and kit. She feels that she will never make it and that I would. How wonderful is that. There are 4 bags of beautiful fabrics in Jan Patek plaid cloth bags. Oh! I'd like to make it, now. Thank you Carolyn, very much.

Today in the Post I got the pattern I bought from Dawn . It is called Calico Paradise and along with it she also sent me a large piece of V & A fabric. Thank you soo much, I love the pattern and the fabric.

There was also another postal bag with threads I had ordered from Aurifil. I needed 4 more colours for my wool applique. This is called Aurifil Lana, it is wool thread on spools so I can buttonhole stitch my felted wool applique on my sewing machine or use it for hand sewing. It gives a wonderful finish because it doesn't 'bite' into the felted wool like ordinary thread does. I use 'Topstitch' machine needles that have a large eye and turn the top tension down. The first quilt I used it on was my Settler's Pride 2009 and I've been collecting them ever since.

My hand sewing has almost stopped with my 'Golfer's Elbow' but I've been sewing on the machine and also making leaves for my vine, so no photos of my projects today. I really need to get out and prune the roses but that's another job on hold for the moment.

Slow and Slower

My sewing has gone from slower to slow over the weekend and now to a couple of leaves at a time. I had a little twinge in my left elbow,last week, I think from holding the fabric too tight and not flexing my elbow enough while appliqueing. I opened a new jar, on Saturday morning and now it's sore,sore. Here is my vine, only 2 branches to go on No. 5.

But I can machine sew. You didn't really think I was going to stop sewing? This the next block for the Bloggers BOM from Canton Village quilts. I needed to do a cream block. When I looked at my other blocks, I have too many red ones. My layer cake of Rounneries fabrics have been wonderful for this.

More from Castlemaine

Today we start with my three blocks of Yoko Saito's Mystery BOM in Quiltmania.

This is called "Chickadee"  

This is Barbara's Wedding Sampler

Marie"s Baskets , in such a wonderful green.

Rosalie's Jane Austen

and this is Irene Blanck's Aunty Green's quilt.

What a lot of beautiful quilts and there were plenty more that were just as stunning.

Saturday at Castlemaine

Saturday was our visit to Castlemaine for the Applique Society. It was rather special because we had Carole, and her photographer here from France. Carole is the editor of the Quiltmania magazine. There was a large Show n Tell this month and here are a few of the quilts.

I'm a lover of greens and this quilt by Annette Blake was beautiful.

Annette was also our speaker for the day.

Sue-Ann's Dancing Dollies

This old quilt belongs to Kurt, Corliss's husband. It was made by his Great Aunt

I'm sorry I don't have a note of who's this is but it is wonderful.Please let me know and I'll add their name.

This was made by Sandra Boyle. I loved the blue background.

Decadence by Margaret McDonald, Chocolate and Purple

Frost on the Ferns by Bev Bannard

                                                       and her King George111 quilt

I have filled my photo quota on Blogger for today.

Corners

The corners are finished! not without a bit of unpicking etc. I cut the triangles a bit bigger for the applique and then trimmed and attached the narrow sashing . Well I remembered to trim 3 of them, so when I came to sewing them together No4 wouldn't fit. A few mutterings and re-doing and then they went  together to make the corner blocks so I then sewed them on. After pressing the seams and pinning it back up on my wall I stood back to see how it all looked and  I couldn't believe I had sewn 2 of the corners upside down.
 Next was the embroidery of date and initials before the three sections were sewn together. I'm really pleased with how it looks.

The next pattern parcel for the BOM arrived Friday with the post so I am up to date.

Patterns

When I go to Quilt Shows I tend to buy Patterns. They come home and sit on my sewing table for a few days, then they get moved to a shelf, then into one of those cardboard holders for magazines where I tend to put 'new' patterns whither cut from magazines, printed from the computer or bought.
I decided to see what was in there today, remind myself of what had taken my fancy a few months ago, discard or keep? I found a Bag pattern, one to be made for the weekend retreat I'm going to in August. Time to get it made and that's what I did today.

It a little bit hard to see what is what, with the cheater cloth I used ,but each side folds and is held by a button and when they are unfastened, this is what it is for.

When closed it carries my iron and when open it's an ironing pad. The silver cloth for the inside was included with the pattern. The other patterns went back into the holder for another day.

Home Sewing

Over the weekend I've been sewing my 4" blocks for the Sundial quilt together,deciding what fabric to use in the corner squares and cutting out the sashing which surrounds this centre section and runs through the corner squares.
The other half of the corner squares has applique, still to be sewn so I haven't got them pinned up. I also need to decide about the style of initials and date for the 2 empty blocks in the middle, before I sew the top and bottom section to the middle.

I also need to decide where to pin up the outer blocks as I have clearly run out of space on my display wall.

A week at home

I've been home all week with a head cold, sore throat etc. being very lazy with an afternoon snooze. Here is Block 2 of Yoko Saito's Mystery BOM. I had  almost finished it last weekend so this week I worked on Block 3. Now I need to wait for the next issue of Quiltmania, not due until July, to continue. 

oops! I've haven't put the flowers on the second tree.


A little lady in the family turned 1 yesterday, Grace Amelia. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Below is a photo of what we gave our Grand daughter. I made a mattress, pillow and quilt for it. Seemingly she has spent the morning trying to climb into it. It should be pretty sturdy,it's all wood and made by a Swedish company, Moover.

A BOM week

This week I've had a break from my Trailing Vines and I have spent my time on the Blocks of the Month that I have on the go just now. The first picture is Block 9 from Canton Village quilt blog.

Photo No. 2 is the 1st block of Yoko Saito's mystery BOM in the Quiltmania magazine No 87. There is a video of Yoko making this block on the Quiltmania website and I am trying her method of applique where all the seam allowance is turned under before appliqueing to the background fabric. It has made the whole process faster and easier. There is quite a lot of topstitching with DMC to highlight the house, bird and tree.

I received a subscription to Quiltmania as a present for last Christmas so I have the next 2 magazines already and I'm working on the next block.                      It finishes in the Nov/Dec issue so I think there is only 6 blocks. If you've followed my blog for a while you'll know that I'm fully occupied for the next 2 weeks. Tennis is on again, the French Open and sewing too.

Biggest Morning Tea

At the Australian Quilters Assoc. today we had our Biggest Morning Tea which raises money for Breast Cancer Research. This year we had a tea cosy display and the first 2 photos are of some of the tea cosies and fancy tea pots on show.

There were 20+ tea cosies knitted in varied fancy styles for sale in a silent auction. These tea cosies were wonderful and I have 3 to show you.

We had a wonderful day with games and raffles and door prizes. I hope we raised many $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Finished

I have finished Abbie's wallhanging. It won't be getting hung up until her Mum and Dad's new house is finished being built. I'll just tuck it away with her bed quilt meantime.
I bought this as a kit, Hooterville from Material Obsessions and there was more than adequate cottons and felted wools with the pattern. I did add a few more butterflies and novelty buttons of my own.