Pink!

The two picnic quilts we have entered in the 'Pink' competition
are finished. After the competition they will be donated to the 
McGrath Foundation's Sydney Cricket Test fundraiser in 
January 2019. Thank you to everyone who contributed blocks, 
fabric, time and skills

Pink Competition and Exhibition
9am - 3pm Saturday 20 October 2018

Oatley Uniting Church

Cnr Frederick St and Letitia St, Oatley 2223

PINK is a quilt competition from Oatley Cottage and Blessington Australia with donations to McGrath Foundation. PINK quilts will be exhibited in Oatley Uniting Church in conjunction with Oatley Lions Festival on Saturday 20 October 2018.

September community sewing day

A fun community sewing day this week, unpacking the last box of a recent generous donation of blocks and quilt tops (some finished, some in progress), and progressing those worked on over the last month ...

These very fun fun spots and stripe log cabins took Marg's
eye last month ...

... and her very skilled eye for just the right sashing fabric led
her to this perfect green-on-green micro dot. 

Helen loved these Denyse Schmidt pinwheels that were
already joined together, and made a complimentary modern
print pieced border.

Marg received a gift of several meters of the motor cycle print,
and immediately cut into, married it with a zingy sashing fabric,
for a finished top to be pin basted this week. More to come!

Pat found herself in possession of a set of blocks featuring some
bright, quirky cats, and is putting them together like a puzzle.

All of these barn blocks were completely pieced, using
mostly Denyse Schmidt's signature fabrics too. The top
was put together by Marg who loves the vibrant modern
prints, and making quilts for children. 

We ran out of pins before the last top was basted, but we
anticipate a lot of binding on the agenda for next month.

So far this week ...

Many travellers and lots of secret sewing made for a select show and tell this week ...

This one came to us as a completed top, and is now, with a
little editing and quilting, a quilt for our community collection,
thanks to Dawn.

Just as we were packing up on Tuesday night, Hilary showed
us the wagga she has nearly finished for her young farming
nephew. Lots of the patches are made from ties, and she is
 doing fabulous mega-stitch quilting in red. It is backed with
 a sturdy navy denim.

At the beginning of the year, Jill made a list of nine quilts in the
making that she wanted to finish this year. One of the oldest
was this hexagon star quilt started prior to 2009. two of the rows
are upside down, and it has a large fade mark on the back after it
was set aside during a period of ill health, but those flaws are
an integral part of its story. Jill hand quilted it after having it
machine basted, and it is finally finished.

Our blue hexagon flower collection for the Chris O'Brien
Lifehouse / QuiltNSW project continues to grow.

Epping Quilters 'Show and Tell' morning

A few of us enjoyed a lovely spring morning last week - and a fabulous morning tea - hosted by Epping Quilters, with a great show and tell session of personal and charity quilts. Miriam was asked to draw the first lucky door prize - and drew her own, as did the third prize winner!

Thank you for the invitation Epping Quilters - it was a great way to get together with our quilting neighbours, compare notes, see lots of beautiful quilts, and to raise some funds for breast cancer research. We look forward to next time.

Not so secret sewing ...

We have seen previews of some embargoed projects this week, so no photos until later. here is some no so secret sewing ...

Robin's Spectacular 'Orange Galaxy' quilt has been beautifully
custom quilted by Yvette (Keepsake Quilts)

Robyn is really enjoying her felt applique/embroidery made with
Wendy Williams designs. the results are gorgeous and fun.

Jills 'Westside' quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's Patchwork
City book is being donated to Studio ARTES for their annual
fundraising ball.

There are lots of these around here at the moment - we are
having fun making blue hexagon flowers for the Chris O'Brien
Lifehouse / Quilt NSW collaborative project. Details are here.

Every shade of blue is welcome.

2018 Airing of the Quilts - entries open

Braidwood Quilt Event 

23 - 25 November 2018

Braidwood, NSW

Entries are now open for both:

Airing of the Quilts and the Indoor Exhibition

A Festival of Braidwood event

A doll, a bag, a badge and a couple of quilts ...

We've been making lots of different things lately ... here are some we saw this week:

Daphne has been sewing her Cross and Kisses blocks in
between working on her sixteen Pickled Fish blocks that 
are now all finished. Mostly Kaffe Fasset fabrics except 
for the black and white border.

Ginnie has been making clothes for some of her
grandchildren and made both the doll and it's
dress to match its owners.

Helen sewed an embellished panel in a slow stitching class
with Lisa Mattock and then made it into a project bag.

Janice made her name badge from a kit of 1/4" hexagons!
It might be a one-off ...

Jill used Suzy Myers' ingenious 'Batiks Gone Wild' pattern for
this community quilt. It is much less complicated than it looks.

The blocks are all the same size, and made with just
three seams per block. The pattern is available to
purchase as a .pdf download at the link above.

Last show and tell for winter

It's still cold here in Sydney - great quilting weather! But spring is not far away ...

Chris and Sue B went to Uluru for the 'Sewing Up a Storm in 
the Desert' retreat earlier this month - they took some spectacular
classes. Chris's thread leaf is made with free machine embroidery
sewn over Solvy wash-away stabiliser - she is working on a much 
larger piece too. We will have some great photos when their 
works are finished - very soon!

Chris started a cot quilt for her grandson with this cute panel 
- it has had to grow as he is no longer a toddler. Chris has 
made a more grown-up backing so the quilt will be reversible.

Dawn added some bling to her jelly-roll quilt with diamond 
spacers that have a metallic tracery pattern, also used in the 
border - she likes it a lot, and might even keep it herself.

A donated bundle of fabric squares became a quilt that looks
warm and cosy - Dawn's work.

Dawn used a simple block to tie these fabrics from the
community stash together

Re-opening of popular social enterprise store

Many of us have done business (as donors and as customers) with 'The Fabric Cave', then 'Fabric, Needlecraft and More' at Meadowbank, and now the Achieve Foundation's craft materials store is re-opening at a new site, with a new name:

We are delighted to announce our new name and location for the Fabric, Needlecraft and More store! The Sewing Basket was chosen out of nearly 100 proposed names, and it captures the essence of the unique range of products and services on offer. 

Our new-look store will open on Friday 7 September from 9am - 2pm at Unit 5, 2 Holker St, Newington. 

Further trading days and hours are soon to be announced as we settle into our new location. We hope to see you there.

Achieve Foundation, on Facebook today.

Events: September

Gallery 76, 76 Queen St, Concord West 2138
These are not like quilts you’ve ever seen before ... 
Embroiderers Guild NSW

Illawarra Quilters 2018 Quilt Show

Wentworth Quilters Open Day

Sunday 23 September 2018

Linnwood, 25 Byron Road

Guildford 2161

Enquiries: 0418 342 254 or 0405 468 206

Embroiderers Guild of NSW

'Thread Stitch Cloth'

- an international juried exhibition focusing on the use of machine stitch. 

Selected works will be exhibited at the new 76 Queen St Galleries, Concord West 

21 September - 6 November 2018

 A Festival of Contemporary Machine Stitch event.

Show and tell

We also saw some finished quilts this week ...

Louise is expecting a new grandchild later in the year -
this is the baby quilt for if it's a boy ...

... she chose the blue print first and then found the
owl print that coordinates beautifully.

A bright modern baby quilt for a friend of Nerida's

And Nerida's stunning 'Whimsy' (pattern by Judy Newman)
is all finished.

A community quilt made from mostly community stash
fabrics, by Jill ...

... the setting triangle fabric was also found in the community stash.

Some fabulous quilt tops, all ready to be quilted

We love to see each other's quilts at the earliest possible opportunity, so we love to see them even before they are quilted, like this lovely crop from last week and earlier this week. Then we'll need to see them again when they are finished, of course ...

'For the Boys' is a Jen Kingwell design from her very popular
book Quilt Lovely. Jan's contemporary, graphic prints and the
contrasting sashings are ideal.
Looking forward to seeing it quilted.

Janice's fun, modern applique 'Bloom' is from Treehouse
Textiles in Victoria. Many of Janice's fabrics are from her
monthly Fabric Club with Queen of Fabrics, in Melbourne,
and she chose a variety of crisp white on white backgrounds. 

Lots of fussy cut pentagon centres have made it a subtle 'I spy'
quilt for a little great niece, who will love it. Janice will hand
quilt it - we look forward to seeing it finished.

Roslyn just about made this striking quilt top in a day at our
recent community sewing day. She did have something of a
head start having selected the fabrics from our community
stash some time ago, and made the half square triangles from
ten inch squares. Roslyn is renowned for her skill with
colour - you can see why - and we consult her frequently,
so she did well to get it done with so many interruptions.

Elaine G brought in her latest quilt top finish to show us,
because she says it will be quite a while before the quilting will
be finished. It already absolutely sparkles - it will be
wonderful when it is quilted!

Robin call this vibrant quilt top an experiment - she very often
works with just Kaffe Fasset fabrics. This time she has featured
other prints and solids as well. We would say that the experiment
has definitely worked!

August community sewing day

This time last week we were just packing up after our annual Saturday community sewing-and-soup-lunch day (we usually hold community sewing on Thursdays), a productive and very social gathering ...

We started by trying out the combination of a large donated
border and a circular block made by Chris Jurd, and generously
donated by Nerida who bought it at a Springwood Community
Quilt Show. Made for each other! Sue H is tasked with finding
a background fabric to applique them both to, and we'll then
see whether any additional applique is needed.
You can see just a few of the many feet gathered around the
'design floorspace' to offer an opinion.

Elaine W quietly whipped this pretty fabric stack into half
a quilt during the day.

We sorted through a generous, anonymous donation of finished
quilt tops, blocks and fabrics.
Helen added a border to these very appealing pinwheels,
and basted it ready for quilting.

We did stop for lunch - soup made by Helen and Jill, and just
a little cake left over from morning tea.

There was a lot of pin basting - these are Julie's improv
circles - she's not sure she will try them again, but everyone
else liked them.

Everyone loved Marg K's cats and dogs print quilt
 - Dawn and Julie basted it

Sue H added a label to her finished improv circles, and hardly
drew breath before making excellent progress on machine quilting
 her green bento box quilt.

Pam hand-stitched the binding on this simply effective
strippy quilt put together by Elaine W

Thanks to everyone who came, worked so hard (there was much more than this going on) and made it such an enjoyable day.