Look who's in Houston!

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Roslyn and JoAnn at the preview night '... both overwhelmed!
The standard of quilts is wonderful but the word unbelievable
comes to mind.'

.... and ready to explore this, a small portion of the huge
vendor mall, take some classes, and of course to spend more time
with the hundreds of quilts in the exhibition, over several days

 On arrival in Houston, the tour group visited 'the biggest and best quilt shop we had ever seen.  Temptation everywhere.'

And they have met up with Miriam - more photos on Sew Miriam. Thank you for keeping us in the loop - we are enjoying your trip!

Award winners, International Quilt Festival, Houston

Those of us not in Houston can enjoy the wonderful award-winning quilts from Quilts: A World of Beauty, (the annual Judged Show of the International Quilt Association) images of which are now online.

Australian award winners include Denise Sardo (Honorable Mention, (Art-Pictorial), and Rachelle Dennenny (Honorable Mention, Merit - Machine Quilting, and Honorable Mention - Miniature Quilts).

We are also looking forward to learning more about the Festival from our own Miriam Jones's brand new blog, Sew Miriam - her trip to Houston is the stimulus for starting the blog now.  The Festival opens to the public in a few hours, so add Sew Miriam to your reading list.

A new week at Fairholme ...

After last week's blog-post marathon, we still had some show and tell to appreciate this week ...

Well okay, this one really is from last week ... 
This lovely photo of Miriam and Georgie, with Georgie's completed
'whopper shopper' bag from Miriam's workshop was taken by
Georgie's sister Phyl - it's so good, of both of them and the bag,
that I'm glad I messed up my photo and had to ask Georgie if she
had another one! Thanks Phyl.

A neat electrical device that we have on generous loan from
a friend-of-a-friend ... 

... will be put to the test making bias binding for a
yet-to-be-revealed community project (the hot pink bus is not a
requirement, but it does brighten up the picture).
The box says it will make 12 feet of bias binding in 60 seconds! 
Lyn certainly hopes it lives up to the claim.

Peggy whipped up this bag, with Val Moore
designed applique, in between her many other
projects - very funky!

Some of those 'other' projects of Peggy's are these 3-D
English-paper pieced Christmas decorations - each made from
60 diamonds.  We are booking her up for a demonstration.

Some of our members spent last weekend at a quilting retreat
with Studio Quilters - it was fully catered, so they had no
need to do anything other than sew ... and they did!
Lynette took along some of her extensive collection of
black and white fabrics to make this cleverly designed top,
with a highlight of almost-lime.

Lyn was another Studio retreater - these summer berry
coloured fabrics were provided to make tops that will
become charity quilts.  Lyn chose to alternate two
traditional blocks (rail fence and square in a square),
that will be finished off with a pink/purple print border -
which she is confident she will find in her stash. We look 
forward to seeing Louise's bright 'fruit salad' version soon.

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2014

The annual Houston (Texas) fall QuiltMarket (an industry-only event) has just concluded, and the famed International Quilt Festival opens on Thursday (US time) ... so it must be time for Amy's Creative Side's Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival.  If you you're not going to Houston (and most of us aren't, after all!) the six-monthly Blogger's Quilt Festival provides an online visual feast of quilts, and might lead you to discover new blogs to add to your blog-reading app.

Voting for your favourite quilt in a number of categories opens on 1st November - everyone can join in.  Happy blog reading - but be warned: this event just gets bigger each time, and there are many, many beautiful quilts to be looked at.

Wheel and Weft Christmas sale

Arts and crafts group, Wheel 'n' Weft has two sales each year, the Christmas Sale is on this weekend:
Saturday 25th October, 9am - 5pm

Sunday 26th October, 10am - 4pm

Thornleigh Community Centre 

(next to Bunnings, cnr Phyllis Ave and Central Ave, off Pennant Hills Road)

• Pictures here, at Wheel 'n' Weft on Facebook

Australasian Quilt Convention 2015

Are you thinking of going to the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne in 2015?

The list of tutors for AQC 2015 has just been published here - it's an impressive list, you are sure to find plenty to interest you. Bookings will open at the end of this month, so start choosing now. Note that classes are offered as part of a convention package only, but tickets are available that do not include classes.

And the 2015 AQC Challenge theme, 'True Blue' is now open, with the closing date for
submissions of 27th February 2015. $5,500 in prize money is on offer.

The Lest We Forget quilt challenge will commemorate the centenary of Gallipoli and the ANZAC tradition - information here.

At Fairholme (and elsewhere) this week ... (4)

And there's still more - show and tell from Monday morning, seen after the bag-fest.

Dawn has also been working on this more varied disappearing
4-patch, which has quite a different look from the one in the
previous post. This year, she is working on a number of quilts
for the younger girls in her large extended family.

Sue C began this beauty in a foundation piecing class

with Margaret Cormack back in early 2012. When the centre 

was completed, Sue turned it on point, and contemplated how 

to complete the corner triangles. Luckily she had a few blue 

and white fabrics in her stash, and came up all those little 

half-square triangles. The starry border is a perfect 

reprise of the centre. JoAnn Phillips (Quiltwise) quilted it 

on her long-arm machine. This one will be living at Sue's house.

We had a little international show and tell, too, this week. Roslyn and JoAnn set off last week for their trip to the US, joining Michelle Marvig's tour  (Quilters Companion/TravelRite) in the eastern states, then heading south west to Houston for the International Quilt Festival, where they will look at quilts, quilts, quilts, and vendors, vendors, vendors, take some classes, and perhaps meet up with Miriam who is heading for Houston via New York.

They emailed some photos from their visit to the Shelburne Museum in Vermont on the first day of the tour - we can't show them here because of the Shelburne's photography policy, so we passed an iPad around. However, Quilters Companion is re-posting Michelle Marvig’s tour photos on their Facebook page, including several from the Shelburne visit. You should be able to access it even if you don't have a Facebook account. The photos are very good, and we can see Roslyn and JoAnn in several of them.  The outdoors ones look very cold and damp! The tour photos start on Monday 20th October and are clearly labelled.

The Shelburne is currently exhibiting some of their collection of Nancy Crow's quilts, that you can read about here - the gallery link shows some of the quilts Roslyn and JoAnn commented on.

And that's the news for this week.

At Fairholme this week ... (3)

Still not finished with the last week ... last Thursday was our monthly community sewing day, and once again we made a lot of progress:

This is Helen's third quilt from a collection of bright, mostly
geometric fabrics, all different - they'll be all used up soon,
won't they, or we will just keep finding more scraps to add to
the scraps ....

Lynette had two quilt tops to pin baste - the one on the left is a trip
around the world variation, the one on the right is a checkerboard
made from 16 patch blocks - mostly fabric from the community
stash, playing very happily together.
They have possibly been quilted by now ... Lynette had a
quilting weekend coming up.

Last year's end-of-year block challenge resulted in 48 'Missing U'
blocks, which were made into three quilt tops (see them here and
here) early this year.  We had two blocks left over that begged
for complimentary blocks to be made from Asian style fabrics.
Roslyn and Pat have taken up that challenge throughout the year.
When we laid the collection out this week, we could see that
just two more, in teal/aqua colours would complete this fourth
quilt ...

... and Pat, who enjoyed making her previous blocks, volunteered
to make them.  She called in Dawn to play help choose fabrics from
the colour sorted scraps with her, and they are well under way.

Dawn has been working away quietly with these calm neutral
toned fabrics that appeared in the community stash, making one
her favourite blocks, the disappearing 4 patch. A deep gold narrow
border and a final border of the background fabric,  and a very
restful, contemplative quilt was ready for pin basting.
It too is possibly quilted by now - Dawn is quick!

These bright half-square triangle blocks were donated
already made, along with some complimentary
4-patches, some time ago, by Georgie.  This week, Elaine
determined to put them together and made an impressive
start constructing chevron rows. Now that the design
decisions have been made, the top might be finished at
our final community sewing day for the year, next month.

Next month we will sort our accumulated finished quilts for delivery before Christmas, before we take a two month break over the summer.  That doesn't necessarily mean that no sewing will be done - you can see from these posts that a lot can happen in between meetings, even though we encourage each other to make time for our own sewing too.

At Fairholme this week ... (2)

Then, Tuesday night members helped to finish a voluntary task I had taken on, but ran up against a too tight time frame - they helped me to to make cushion covers from digitally printed art works by artists at Studio ARTES in Hornsby.  They are displayed and for sale at the 'Cushion Up' exhibition currently at Koskela in Rosebery until 16th November.

You probably all know to be very careful of how you answer if asked "So, can you sew?", especially when followed by "And do you know anyone else who can sew?" ... my grateful thanks to Lynette, Noelle, Elaine B and Pam who helped by making the final 15 (!) cushion covers. I knew they would help out for this very valuable community effort - and they did, at very short notice. Quilters rock.

Sewing cushion covers on Tuesday night ...

... to be part of the exhibition set up at Koskela on Thursday!

Another special project is underway at Fairholme, but it will not be revealed before it is completed and handed over to its owners ... for now, we are enjoying seeing its progress under the guiding hands of three of our members, and we are very impressed with their work.  We think that the 'commissioners' will be astounded.

At Fairholme this week ... (1)

We've been very busy at Fairholme lately ... firstly, Miriam Jones's second bag workshop last Saturday has seen the emergence of some beautiful work, and some from the previous week are now finished ...

Janice's large shopper is finished - made with beautiful
cotton/linen fabrics, pieced around a stunning centre panel.

Margaret's centre panel is taking shape in her favourite colours
in complimentary prints - another beautiful centre panel

Elaine W is making the largest pattern, and has chosen a vibrant
combination of prints for the lining - note the expertly inserted
zippered pouch (hello Susa-through-the-handles!).  Everyone who 
attempted it said learning to make the zippered compartment 
was invaluable.

Sue C and Robyn T both made the smallest bag and had
substantially finished it during the workshop.  Sue found a
white ribbon with a blue print at home, and Robyn's stash
gave up a pink ribbon and just the right green bead,  for
finishing off their zipper pulls.

Another fabric sale on now: Greta's at Lindfield

Viv, at Greta's Handcraft Centre in Lindfield is also having a fabric sale (but she is not overseas!).  Fabrics are reduced by 40% (minimum cut 50cm) or 50% if you buy the remainder of a bolt.

The collection includes a small, but good quality reproduction fabrics, more contemporary prints and a selection of Robert Kaufman's Kona Cotton solids. No end date has been set for the sale, and stocks will be replenished.

Of course if you are a knitter or crocheter, remember that you will be walking past all those beautiful yarns to get to the fabric shelves, and the big button collection might catch your eye too.

Greta's Handcraft Centre, 309 Pacific Highway Linfield  2070 T: 02 9416 2489

Fabric sale: Quiltsmith

Melinda has gone to Houston, so while she is away, there is a fabric sale at Quiltsmith (Annandale), both in the shop, and online - finishing close of business Saturday 8 November.

• 25% off all fabric

Minimum cuts:  

• in store - 30cm 
• Value Fabrics - 50cm
• on line - 50cm

Quiltsmith, 75 Nelson Street, Annandale 2038  T: 02 9550 4946

Workshop with a 'new' teacher

Miriam Jones is not really a new teacher - she has taught school for many years, but she is new to teaching patchwork and quilting. We are fortunate to count her amongst our members.

Recently she was spotted with some interesting bags that she designed and made herself, by Chris at The Cottage Quiltworks, in Warriewood, a discussion about combining her teaching and quilting skills took place, and you can expect to see an announcement about future classes in 2015. 

 We at Fairholme offered (kindly, we thought) to 'help' Miriam develop her workshops, with our first practice run at he Cottage Quilt Works last weekend. Everyone did very well, as you can see ...

A little fabric auditioning ...

.... a little more fabric auditioning, by Pat

Georgie's first panel  begins to take shape ...

Janice chose cotton/linen fabrics ... some from her stash,
some from the shelves of The Cottage Quilt Works

Roslyn has very recently purchased a new Bernina, after very
happily sewing on her Elna Lotus for more than forty years. 
She likes it.

Progress on Roslyn's first panel ...

... and two panels ready to be joined with their zip. 

Queensland Quilters Show 2014

Didn't get to Brisbane this weekend for the Queensland Quilt Show?

You can see all the winners online, except for the Viewer's Choice awards which will be sure to be up soon.

A beautiful range of images of gorgeous quilts - congratulations to all the winners, and thanks Queensland Quilters for the photos.

Recent community quilts

Each month, between community sewing days, finished quilts are handed over by their makers for our community collection, sometimes without us ever having known that they were in production. Very often, those makers are Dawn and Lynette.

Dawn added borders from our stash to an animal print panel,
and quilted and bound this quilt for a child.

Lynette chose these fabrics from her own stash, and made them
into her current favourite chevron design. The fabrics complement
each other, and using them in complete rows has a calming
effect. The crisp white background fabric sets the autumn
colours and greens off very well. Lynette also quilted and
bound the quilt - the complete package. HSTs rock!

We'll be organising end-of-year deliveries soon, as the quilt stocks are building up again.

Quilter's Challenge: charity drive through Craft Depot

We are lucky to have a very large local quilt shop, Craft Depot  located right here in Pennant Hills. Every Fairholme Quilter knows it well. 

Craft Depot is supporting this charity quilt drive and auction, to provide funds for well known charity Father Chris Riley's Youth Off the Streets.  Flyers are available from the front desk at Craft Depot, or click here for all details and to link to the entry form.  Check the prizes that are on offer to quilt donors, too.