Show and tell - a pink edition

Daphne's pickled fish block #11. She thought she was
up to #10, so it was like a bonus!

Elaine G quietly selected a pink/yellow/white multistripe
and a dark print from the community stash and produced all
of these variations.

Always a treat to see a finish from Nerida - her 'Halo" quilt
(Jen Kingwell design) is hand pieced and will be hand quilted.

Nerida has great skill in putting a wide range of
prints and colours together.

The first of our Pink Project quilts has been quilted by Yvette ...

... she has used a pink ribbon design - very apt.

The back is pieced from three blocks and large
pieces of donated pink fabric.

Victorian Quilters Showcase 2018 - award winners

Victorian Quilters Quilt Showcase 2018 is being held in conjunction with the Craft and Quilt Fair this weekend at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Southbank. 

Photos of the award winners, announced on Thursday can now be viewed on the 

• Showcase website
• Victorian Quilters Facebook page
• Instagram

July community sewing day

Our monthly community sewing day was last week - it turned out to be a day for very generous fabric donations, and we caught up on quite a bit of pin basting and even some sewing!

Marg K brought us three gorgeous children's quilt tops ... 

... two of which were basted using using backing fabric
donated on the day!

We had a good close-up view of Miriam's Pokemon quilt
requested by her son for his recent 21st. Note the cleverly
interlocking stars - she's going to write up the pattern. 
You can see the whole top in Miriam's Instagram photo

Elaine W was sewing  beautiful array of spring coloured
strips into rail fence blocks ...

... and anyone who has made a chevron design by any method
knows how important it is to lay the blocks out ahead of joining
them, to make sure they are the right way around to make
the chevrons. Trickier than it looks. 

Sue C found very nice circle print for the back of her
'Transport' top.

... And then she tested out how machine piecing some large
hexagons with triangles might work. The two-piece hexagons
are William Morris prints.

This lovely and generous donation did make us laugh -
we have often had donations of unfinished quilt tops, many of
them needing a border or two. When we laid it out, we realised
that Sue's friend Lyn had changed her mind about the
beautifully made borders of her 'Not the Levens Hall' quilt,
so kept the centre and started again.
As it happens we have some very nice intricately pieced
blocks that were donated a few months ago that are
looking for suitable borders ...
Thanks Lyn for both the beautiful borders (and extra fabric)
and an enjoyable laugh.

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show - 7 part online gallery

Kristen Shields (Artist and Quilt Maker) has published a comprehensive  and beautifully illustrated review of this year's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in seven parts on her blog, finishing on 18 July. The Oregon show is held each year on the second Saturday in July, the whole town of Sisters is involved, and apparently it just never rains!

It is a great read and online quilt viewing for those of us in a southern hemisphere winter of some of the coldest early mornings we've experienced.

Colourful show and tell from a wintry week

A very bright, colourful show and tell on a very chilly morning this week ...

Elaine W worked with her daughter on a monster quilt
for her grandson. That’s a lot of appliquéd circles! But we
are betting he will love it. Great collaboration. 

Monstrous detail!

Kerry joined us for the first time this week, and brought this
beautiful quilt that she's hand sewing the binding on.

Another jewel coloured to by Robin - she has an unerring
eye for colour.

Susan got to see the community quilt top she made
quilted by Laura.

Jill's sixteen Pickled Fish blocks (designed by Chris Jurd)
are joined and have their first border attached - waiting for
fabric for the next one. Several others are well on the way to
finishing too - we look forward to seeing theirs soon.

Sharron was finishing a top-down baby knit to a deadline
before she heads off overseas. We are looking forward to
reports from the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK.

AQC 2019

Australasian Quilt Convention 2019

11 - 14 April
Royal Exhibition Building
Carlton Gardens, Melbourne

2019 AQC Challenge theme is 'Magic'
Closing date: 5 February 2019

This week's show and tell - all the squares!

Louise's William Morris prints wall hanging is for a friend - hand
stitched and hand quilted. The squares are 1" finished, put
together by EPP. Louise says the trick is to know when to stop.

Linda's table runner for her sister - the 
colours are beautifully soft and calm,
and the grid layout is enviably straight!

Dawn and her husband are about to welcome their
eleventh great-grandchild, so she has made this
sweet quilt from a book panel.

Elizabeth Hartman's book Patchwork City introduces
75 original modern pieced blocks, and a number of
different quilt layouts using them. 
Jill's version of 'Eastside' uses all 25 of the 5" x 8" blocks, 
plus 11 duplicates to make it up to 60" square. 
It was beautifully quilted by Yvette Aoude @yvettes_keepsakes.
Jill's daughter has kindly offered it a home.
Some other Fairholme members also have the book, so we
look forward to seeing their Patchwork City quilts too.

Friends with long arm machines who ask if they might
practise on your community quilts - thank you Laura!
Qults made by Dawn and by Susan.

North Shore Craft Group - Exhibition and Sale

CONTEMPORARY ART AND CRAFT

61st Annual Exhibition and Sale

Members' Challenge 'Text and Texture'

Thornleigh Community Centre, Phyllis Ave, Thornleigh

Ample parking, accessible venue

10am - 9 pm Thursday 19 July 

10am - 5pm Friday 20 and Saturday 21 July

10am - 4pm Sunday 22 July

Facebook event page

North Shore Craft Group

Community quilts - recent finishes and works in progress

Dappled winter light, a very old tree and Julie's lovely bright
patchwork quilt - a great combination.

Elaine W's wonderful finish using some triangular strip pieced
off-cuts pieces from the community stash for the sashing
and binding - and probably something from her own stash.

Sue C' really enjoyed making her 'Plus' quilt, starting
with the red and white 'Fire Chief" print from a generous
fabric donation last year.

Dawn loved the iris print as soon as she saw it, along with
its coordinating fabrics, in a generous, large donation from a
smaller charity quilting group that closed down, and immediately
saw the possibilities for a large star. Yvette has kindly
agreed to quilt it on her long-arm for our community collection.

This week's show and tell - works in progress

Works in progress (one very nearly finished) we saw at this week's meetings ...

This quilt started with the machine embroidered blocks that
Dawn picked up from the 2017 end-of-year challenge table
last September. They were made by Linda's secondary
textiles students, and had been languishing in her stash for
some years - look at them now!

Robyn B was asked by a friend to make a quilt from some
blocks of all different sizes that she had bought in South Africa.
It is for a little boy who loves giraffes.

Sue C's long-term hand quilting project has acquired a couple
of new borders lately, including the fussy-cut and mitred stripe -
there are more to come.

Sue H's fifteenth (!) I Spy quilt for a great niece/nephew - she
just has three more little ones in the family to make one for!

Jill's second quilt, 'Westside', from Elizabeth Hartman's book
'Patchwork City' has an extra row of blocks for length.

Show and tell this week - finishes

Lots of show and tell this week - here are some great quilt finishes. Community quilts and works in progress to come ...

Our Tuesday night group has loved watching Janet make her
daughter and son-in-law's beautiful wedding quilt over many
months, with great love and care. All the fabrics are batiks. 

It is very large - Janet posed for this photo for scale, yes, she said
we could post it! - and she wrestled it through her domestic
machine for quilting. Janet also cleverly managed to keep it a
surprise until it was gifted last weekend, and they love it!

Miriam has a new pattern release coming soon - her 'Magic
Stars Dresden' quilt. Check her Instagram photos @sewmiriam
for close-ups of the fabulous, quilting and other details.

Elaine W had enough fabric left over from an earlier
Julie Wallace quilt to make a second one!

Julie was commissioned by a friend to make a quilt for her little
grandson, including red and black fabric, and came up with farm
animal blocks and chook sashing!

This one slipped through the Blogger cracks at the beginning
of June - Elaine B took a package of unfinished hexagon flowers
made by Peggy from the 2017 end-of-year challenge table back
in September 2017, and made  this pretty quilt for her mother.
It's good to see the finishes still coming in.

Pickled fishing on ...

Chris Jurd's Pickled Fish quilt, featured in a foundation piecing workshop in April, has several of us engaged in making our own versions. We are enjoying watching each others' progress, and fabric selections. It is a large quilt and will take us some time to complete - here is an indication of how some of us are going ...

Pat's latest Pickled Fish block - she has committed to sixteen blocks (the number in Chris Jurd's original design), and is well on the 
way. You can follow her progress on Instagram @patricianerlich

Jill has finished sixteen blocks, and is making the first
pieced border - a few more curved seams to go.

Daphne has also committed to sixteen blocks, and had completed
nine by last week - here are the four most recent. You can see
her progress on Instagram too @daphne47. While you are there,
check out Daphne's other works in progress - 6" red and white
blocks, and a quilt based on another of Chris Jurd's designs.