Fabric and Wool Destash Market - June

Community sewing day - April 2019

Our April community sewing day was one for choosing and making quilt backings, pin basting, working our way through the last of a large donation received last year, and welcoming some new ones ...

From this angle, the 3D features of this quilt top's design is
very apparent, It's a riot of scraps in a restrained palette. 
Dawn has taken it to quilt.

Cool blue churn dashes paired with striped borders - high 
appeal factor! Julie oversaw it's finishing and will quilt it.

This tumbler one-patch top always looked good, but Julie's
addition of the green border lifted it another notch.

Pat has wrangled these variously sized quirky cat blocks
with a calmer blue sashing, and gone back to the wild
for the final border.

Our very generous friend Chris dropped 

in with four completed ‘I Spy’ quilt tops, 

each with its matched binding already 

made up! Thank you so much Chris, 

always lovely to catch up.

Chris always includes a fabulous variety of
fabrics in her I Spy quilts.

This one is all about the owls.

Sue C started a new community quilt - she's making one
of Miriam @sewmiriam's new patterns with these fresh,
bright fabrics, and it will be gorgeous.

Heather took on the task of joining 168 donated
3 1/2" nine patch blocks into the colour wash design t
hat the attached note indicated they were intended for.
That is 1512 individual pieces, finished at 1" ...

Auditioning border (top two) and backing
(bottom) fabrics from the community stash.

The Sewing Basket - Balmain 'pop up' shop

Achieve Australia's Sewing Basket vintage sewing/fabric shops at Newington and West Ryde that support people with disabilities, have been joined by a temporary inner west location:

We've settled into our gorgeous new space and are looking forward to getting to know the community over the coming months. Inner Westies, your sustainable sewing needs are sorted! We'll be open for the next four months at:
427 Darling Street, Balmain 

Monday-Friday, 9am-2pm

Achieve Australia on Facebook, 15 April 2019

Note: All Sewing Basket branches are closed for the Easter/Anzac Day 

break until Monday 29 April 2019

Show and tell

Nerida's medallion quilt is made with donated hexagons
and fabric from designer Anna Maria Horner's very first
range, Bohemian. Sue H and Daphne previously used
some of the blocks t make a table runner during our 2017 
end-of-year challenge to make something from another's
unfinished/abandoned project. The fabric is now all used!

As a recently retired long-arm quilter, Jo-Ann is adjusting
to quilting on her domestic machine again. She didn’t like
her first attempt on this one, so pulled it all out and re-quilted
it with parallel lines close together, and  she is much
happier with it!

Dawn is all but finished her jelly roll hexagon quilt.

Helen is making great progress with her fussy cut hexagons,
as she participates in an Instagram based sew-along focussed
on fussy cutting using diamond shapes for EPP

To see more about the sew-along, visit @naomialicec on or
follow #fussycuttingsewalong on Instagram.

Hilary is easing her houseguest, Grace into quilting via knitting.
Grace is pleased with her first knitting project, a warm cuddly
blanket, and Hilary has her eye on a first quilt pattern for
her willing pupil.

This is Lyn's second version of her pieced and appliqued
dinosaur quilt for a great nephew. The first one went astray in
the post, so Lyn made him another ...

... with a wonderfully apt backing fabric.

Gwen Marston 1936 - 2019, quilter, writer, teacher

The international quilting community is remembering and mourning Gwen Marston, who died at her home in the US on 17 April, aged 82.

Some of us were lucky enough to see Gwen Marston's beautiful quilts, to hear her talk about them, and to take classes with her here in Sydney in 2013, on a trip arranged by Sarah Fielke.

• Gwen Marston - her own fine self, Quiltfolk’s profile of Gwen Marston from the Michigan issue, with photos of her quilts and her home, written by Meg Cox. 

• A Note About the Keynote: Gwen Marston, Moda's blog, Cutting Table.

'Biggest Morning Tea' with retro show and tell

We held a 'Biggest Morning Tea' fundraiser for the Cancer Council of NSW recently, with a quilty focus. It was rare rainy morning, but members turned out and helped us to raise over $1100, through a small entry fee, a raffle and a craft stall. Outrthanks to everyone who contributed by organising, providing delicious food, running the craft stall, showing quilts, and supporting the fund raising activities so generously - we all have more knowledge and experience with the impacts of cancer than we would like, so it is good to be able to support research and treatment while enjoying our shared interest in quilting.

Marilyn O won the the very handsome quilt we raffled and it has already been claimed by her son.
The beautifully made top was donated to our
community program, then quilted by
Yvette and bound by Pat.

During the morning tea, three of our members agreed to provide a cameo of their quilting practice from their early efforts to recent finishes by showing us a number of quilts made over time. It was very much enjoyed, but unfortunately a camera glitch means we have no photos! However, later discussion, particularly of Helen's group quilts selection prompted Louise W and Janet to each bring in two quilts made in past group activities in the Tuesday evening group ... and now we're thinking about revisiting a friendship quilt exercise, which some of our newer members have never done.

Louise's round robin quilts, made during the early 2000s

Janet's round robin made with the same guidelines
looks quite different.

Louise and Janet were in the same ‘Row by Row’ group way
back about 2004, and both still have their quilts made by group
members. Can you see the same guidelines in the rows?

Community quilts

Recent community quilts progress.Our quilts are donated to two local aged care facilities, foster children via Quilt NSW, and various other causes as needs arise.

Lynette has ben busy, making a disappearing four-patch ...

... and finishing a challenge quilt from a retreat, that she
has generously donated to the community collection.

Lisa has put together a second set of donated
postage stamp blocks, and is contemplating
quilting.

The scraps from last year's PINK quilts for the
McGrath Foundation are now a disappearing
nine-patch community quilt, made by Julie.

Dawn made this disappearing nine-patch from
Australian floral prints, fabric donated from
the stash of a former member.

For a long time we weren’t sure how to best use the
berry border fabric well - beautiful quality and a generous
length - but Julie has placed it effectively as sashing
with autumnal squares lifted by a light blue that
compliments the berry background.

Springwood Quilt Show

Just three weeks away, an excellent reason for a day out in the beautiful Blue Mountains ...

13th Springwood Quilt Show 

10am - 4pm 26-28 April 2019 

Springwood High School, Grose Rd
Faulconbridge

Featured quilter - Margaret Sampson George 

130 quilts, stall holders, cafe

Community sewing, March 2019

Our March community sewing day saw us make progress on several quilts (we didn't get photos of all of them), and some extra-curricular community sewing in response to recent events ...

Nerida collected shades of turquoise, a few pale blues and
greens and cream, from her scraps, cut them into random
strips and made a beautifully peaceful quilt.

As we admired Nerida's quilt, there were a few lightbulb
moments - there might be more!

Three disparate donated patchwork and applique
panels - can they work together in one quilt?
Hilary has taken on the challenge!

We pin basted Helen's improv quilt from a 2017
workshop with Brenda Gael Smith ...

... and it's already finished!

An old friend called in, and offered to help out with some
sewing, so we put her to work with some pretty blue and
white churn dashes.

We are making green hearts for Christchurch, responding to
an appeal from NZ quilters. They plan to make quilts for the
families of those killed and injured in the recent terrorist
attack. You can find details on Facebook, and on Instagram.

We also responded to an appeal for quilt-as-you-go
blocks for quilts to be given to local families who have
been affected by the recent bushfires in Victoria.
The project is being coordinated by Ladies From the
Land Australia based in Emerald, Victoria. You can
follow progress on Facebook, here.