Margaret Sampson George workshop quilts and borders

Susan has finished her quilt from last year's Margaret Sampson
George workshop - many hexagons!

Close up Susan's centre hexagon frames

Miriam is following up our workshops with Margaret 
Sampson George, with monthly classes at 
Cottage Quiltworks, at Warriewood. 
Her hexagon centre quilt finishes in Margaret's border-style.
Thanks to Chris Lean from Cottage Quiltworks for allowing 
us to share her photo here - you will find a photo of another 
of Miriam's works in progress on the Cottage Quiltworks 
blog, here, and two bags she has made here.
Chris regularly post photos of new fabric arrivals 
and class projects.

More 'disappearing' block trickery

Disappearing nine patches and disappearing four patches are well known and popular, and some of us have ventured into the double disappearing nine patch.  Time for some more disappearing' block tutorials.

In these You Tube videos, Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Company demonstrates how to make two more 'disappearing' blocks:

• Disappearing hour-glass

• Disappearing pin-wheel

Luckily, the blocks don't actually disappear, they just create an illusion by becoming something that looks much more complicated than it really is. And that can be quick, and very handy indeed.

Oh look, there it is ...

I knew that last post didn't look quite right, not quite 'finished' ... somewhere in the editing process this photo 'fell out' (I blame Google's Blogger, entirely), and some of yesterday's colour drained away. Sorry about that. 

So here it is - Robin W's donation of 'just a scrappy top' from her wonderful stash has been quilted by Dawn, and bound in a blue Jinny Beyer fabric that Robin gave us for the community stash a long time ago.  No wonder it was the perfect colour for this quilt that will go to a child or teen who will absolutely love it (we certainly do). 

Community quilts sewing day, August ... phew!

We had an excellent roll-up of quilters at our monthly community sewing day yesterday, and a highly productive day, as we tackled several projects.  It was definitely a bright and beautiful fabric day, and we had a lot of fun:

This work-in-progress was donated by Jo many months ago,
at an advanced stage of completion (look at all that foundation
 piecing), but still requiring lots of curved seams ...
Georgie took it on and finished off the block construction
at home, and today. Next month we will join the blocks and
maybe advance to some borders. It will be a knock-out!

Helen made this economy-block-with-a-twist quilt from
community stash fabric and several from her own stash, 
Dawn quilted it and Helen finished off the binding ...

... but Helen still had bright scraps, so she made more blocks,
sashed them with black and white geometric prints, and added
a piano key border.  Today we pin-basted it, and it will return
soon for binding.

Lynette made excellent progress on quilting her latest chevron 
quilt, made from a collection of 5" squares, sewn into half-square
triangles with a solid white pair. We will have a better look at it 
next month when it will probably be bound, labelled and ready
 to hand over.

Georgie has been working on this ray of sunshine - a donated
panel married happily with a gorgeous yellow print and blue and
white spotted accents from the community stash. Barbara 
finished off the binding. Just beautiful - everyone who has seen 
it just loves its freshness and light.

We even built ourselves a successful portable, collapsible
design wall - we used timber battens, brass fixings, venetian
blind cord, several metres of batting and a large bulldog clip.
We had a plan, a tape measure and a very nifty little tool
kit from the boot of Elaine B's car. There might have been
some laughter too. It's a prototype, right?
And you might not believe it, but those blocks on the right
are all the same size and are all square - the Salvador Dali
effect is an artefact!

It's quite possible that Roslyn, Elaine W and Miriam had the
most fun (although they worked really hard too), preparing
these end-of-year challenge kits, refined the plan, 
and sewed test-blocks. The fabrics are from a generous
 donation from a quilter (who can no longer sew for 
health reasons), via Robyn Evans at Patchwork on Pittwater. 
We thank you both for your generosity, and for thinking of us. 
We added a few coordinating fabrics from our community 
stash. Distribution to members will start next week, and 
all will be revealed in the New Year.

Dawn sewed more disappearing four-patch blocks (she is aiming for 25, and is nearly there), and added borders to a very sweet little blanket of love.  Pam took home a quilt Elaine W made, to finish the binding by hand.  Susan, Elaine B, Pam and Margaret  made backings, pressed and pin-basted at least four quilts (or was it five?). So yes, it was a highly productive day - thank you all.

Award winners at Canberra Quilters exhibition

Photos of the award winners at the Canberra Quilters 2014 Exhibition can now be viewed online here, for those who can't be there, for those who want a preview, or for those who have been and just want to see them again.

Canberra Quilters annual exhibition flyer

• Further information about the Canberra Quilters exhibition

Quilts from Australia's first modern quilt show: photos online

Australia's first Modern Quilt Show was held recently in Berry, on the NSW South Coast, an exhibition of 170+ quilts, organised by the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild. It was very well received, and there are plans to repeat the event in 2015.

The Modern Quilt Guild has published photos and a report by Canberra modern Quilt Guild member, Julie McMahon.

Patchwork on Pittwater: fabric sale next week

From the latest Patchwork on Pittwater newsletter:

Huge selection of fabrics will be on sale at 20% off!

Buy what's left on the bolt and get a whopping 30% off! 

Suite 28, 4th Floor (The Gateway Building)
1 Mona Vale Road, Mona Vale, NSW 2103

ph.  9999 6159

www.patchworkonpittwater.com.au

World Quilt Competition award winners

Here is an online gallery of stunning quilts from around the world:

Photos of the award winners in the 2014 World Quilt Competition XVIII, currently on exhibition in Manchester, New Hampshire are online here. 

Four Australian quilters have been awarded, Lucy Carroll (Honorable Mention, Innovative, for Soldier On), Susan Mathews (Best Machine Workmanship - Innovative, for Coastal Life 2), Linda Steele (Honorable Mention - Traditional, for Christmas Crazy) and Bernardine Hine (Best of Country - Australia, for Coreopsis).

Sew-vivor - reality TV meets quilting

Are you a fan of reality Tv that involves a competition/elimination element, such as Master Chef, The Block or Survivor?

Then you might enjoy following along (perhaps even sewing along) with Sew-vivor, season 3: quilters' edition. 16 selected quilters are competing, having made it through an audition process, with their entries posted online for voting and judging.

The Australian connection: two of the 16 starters are Australian quilters, Gnome Angel, and Two Little Aussie Birds, (profiles here) and  well known award winning Australian quilter/teacher/designer/writer Sarah Fielke is one of five judges.

Contestants' entries for the first challenge, with the theme 'nautical' have been posted and are open for voting. Voting for challenge one closes on 13th August (US time), so check it out now.

This week (and last week) at Fairholme ...

Dawn has transformed this cute teddy bear panel into a warm
quilt for a child with some borders, a warm flannel backing
and all-over stipple quilting. For the community collection.

A mix of car, bus and truck prints makes a gorgeous
medallion, coupled with a variety of black and white
prints (including the tiny check that appears grey in the photo), 
put together by Barbara. Lynette added straight line 
quilting and striped binding. For the community collection.

Janice pieced this beautiful braided design from a 
coordinating range of Moda fabrics. 
Machine quilted by Jo Phillips (Quiltwise).

Margaret lighted upon a collection of bold, bright fabrics
from Africa at a thrift shop in Berowra. She handed them on
to Val, who took up the challenge of making a quilt to
express their African origins, with some additions from her
own stash. She has called it African Dance, reflecting its
rhythm and life. machine quilted by Jo Phillips (Quiltwise).

We were delighted that Heidi Tamlyn, who won the quilt
Marmalade in our 2014 show raffle was able to join us this
week to collect it, after having agreed to leave it with
us so it could be entered in the Sydney Quilt Show in July.
Heidi kindly emailed 'I am absolutely thrilled with my new
 quilt.  I am so lucky to have won it.  It was lovely coming
this morning and meeting (Fairholme) Quilters.'

Denise Knowles 'collected' The Kensington Quilt, that she also
won in our 2014 Show raffle in April (see this post), and
immediately gave it back for entry into the Sydney Quilt Show.
She too collected it into her permanent keeping this week. 

Thank you both for allowing us to keep your quilts for the Sydney Show. 

Read more about the raffle quilts, and see more photos here.

Workshop with Anne Sommerlad - machine applique

We had another excellent day with Anne Sommerlad on Saturday, learning her machine quilting technique.  Anne juggled three quilt designs of varying complexity between fifteen students with apparent ease - while we managed our fabric, applique shapes, stabilisers, fusibles, cutting, tracing, gluing and sewing skills with more varied success. By the end of the day, we were well on the way to confident machine applique to complete the day's projects, and to use our new found skills in other projects.

Our class packs included pattern pieces already printed
 onto fusible material - we just had to make sure we ironed 
them onto our fabrics with the numbers facing
up - and we nearly always did ...
Then the room went quiet(er) as we concentrated on lots 
of careful cutting - and there will be more, especially 
for those making the larger quilts with many pieces, 
in many different, vibrant colours ...

... like this selection from Lynette's stash,
for her version of Anne's 'Summer' quilt ...

... and Elaine's palette.

Precision gluing was achieved with the help of a variety
of instruments - this is crane's wings, and Marilyn is 
prepping his body shape

We set our machines for tiny stitches and practised slow,
deliberate stitching for a neat, secure edge ... and it worked!

The crane crest has beautiful but tight curves, and pointy
wings and beak, requiring care, and some revision at times,
to achieve such good results as Roslyn's, prepared for stitching.

Georgie chose complimentary oriental prints 

for her Kamon crests - this is one of the 

crane's wings, ready to be stitched.

Anne is an excellent and encouraging teacher
... and we loved her hand knitted cardigan!

Design reference points were traced to backgrounds,
and the layering of pieces began

Anne gave us lots of tips throughout the day, including a recommendation for Tilda Fix Lite, a new fusible web product made by Victoria Textiles - a Google search will help you to locate a local supplier.

We had a little show and tell from our previous class with
Anne - Margaret's blocks were much admired
(as were Daphne's, but the photo opportunity was missed!)

Lynette's Hishigata quilt was finished in time for our
show in April - it was good to see it again.

Thanks to Georgie for organising the workshop, and to Anne for a a very good day, with so much to learn and practise.

Lucy Carroll's Anzac Quilts series

The centenerary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli in World One will be honoured throughout Australian life, including in quilts.

Award winning Australian quilter Lucy Carroll is currently making a series of quilts to commemorate the Anzac Centenary in 2015. She has been invited to exhibit them for the first time at the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne, in April 2015. While she is making the quilts, Lucy is generously sharing her process and consulting readers of her blog for their responses to her work.

You can follow along on her blog, Lucy Carroll Textiles. Previous posts on the ANZAC quilt series are here.

Lucy's quilt Soldier On won Viewer's Choice, First Prize and First Prize, Pictorial category - Sydney Quilt Show 2013.

15/08/2014 edit: 
Soldier On has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the Innovative category of the 2014 World Quilt Competition XVIII.

• Lucy Carroll member profile, Ozquilt Network
• Lucy Carroll Textiles on Facebook

The 'Wonky Star' remake is complete!

If you have been following the rescue of the 'Wonky Star' quilt on Tim Latimer's Quilts Etc blog,  it is finished!

Check out today's blog post Wonky Star Finished, and be amazed - no more wonks.

Congratulations Tim.

More to do and see in August ...

Fibre Tribe is the blog of ATASDA NSW - well worth reading for information about  fibre and textile related events, exhibitions, workshops and open studios. It describes itself as 'A blog for lost and found treasures from the NSW Branch of ATASDA, Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association'.