Janet's braid-bordered, barn-raising set log cabins with crazy-heart centres needed many pins .....

Jill's raspberry and lime disappearing 9 patch is quite "loud", so the quilting, by Jo (Quiltwise) is deliberately understated, but striking

Jane's choice of the subtly-patterned blue fabric gives a different look to her X-block top - borders to be added. Dina and Jane are going to show us all how to do it this week.

Heather's Cutout Magic top is finished, including the free-curved borders.

Heather's Canadian calendar quilt has been a long term project (also quilted by Jo from Quiltwise). She plans to add the initials of her Canadian friends to the blocks corresponding to their birthdays.

Elle's Cutout Magic blocks are all cut out and fused down - her fabric choices have really paid off.

Dina's wedges from a couple of weeks ago are now an elegant table runner and table mats - lots of binding to sew down.

And her Christmas quilt has been embellished with seed beads, bugle beads, sequins and pearls - great fun!

A fun slide show of quilts from the Guild

What Tickles Your Fancy was the NSW Quilters Guild for 2009. The thirty one entries can be viewed here as a slideshow in Picasa (click on the slideshow icon, and set the timer to about 10 seconds for time to read the captions as the slides automatically transition). There are some familiar names amongst the quilters.

Cut-out Magic workshop with Lisa Walton

Lisa is an award winning quilter and textile artist, maker and seller of hand dyed fabric and beads, and a very popular tutor. Her Sydney-based business is Dyed and Gone to Heaven, and her blog is Fibre Inspirations (both are now linked permanently in the right hand column)

Fifteen of us from both Monday and Tuesday groups had a fabulous day with Lisa yesterday, doing her Cut-out Magic workshop - we learned a lot, worked hard, produced the beginnings of some fabulous quilts, and really enjoyed the day. Thoroughly recommended. Lisa teaches all over Australia, and internationally, so we were lucky to have her for her very last workshop of what has been a busy year.

She has invited us to her first ever Studio Sale in Sydney, 28th-29th November - see the announcement on Fibre Inspirations for details.

We weren't quite sure how we we were going to produce anything like Lisa's samples in just one workshop!

Jane did such diligent cutting-out that she killed her scissors .....

.... and a few fingers seemed to have very close encounters with the craft irons!


We were delighted to have our youngest member, Elle, with us - she's very interested in design, as you can see from her work below.

Step one ....

We tested our design wings with paper cut-outs under Lisa's careful eye, before risking our fabrics. Then we progressed with paper from simple geometric cuts to more complex and organic shapes. Here are a few examples, by Elle, Margaret, Elaine and Elle again:

The results .....

And here are some close-ups of what we actually made with our fabric - by the end of the day we all had at least part of our quilt top fused with out cut-out design in our second fabric. Several of us opted to ease into the technique with variations on our first paper cut-out exercise, while others threw caution to the wind let their imaginations fly.

Heathers' curved triangles demonstrate the grid layout of the blocks with her high contrast fabric choices.

Phyl chose complementary aqua and purple with good contrast, and she was careful with the iron!

Noelle chose a lovely combination of jade and mauve. We used tweezers to place the smaller fabric pieces accurately.

Bev's background fabric recalled reeds and water, so she cleverly cut out fish to swim through the depths .....

But when she turned it through 90 degrees, we thought they were surfing.

Dawns' design required great care with those delicate, tiny pieces ....

Dina's bold colour contrast sings .....



Elaine's background fabric is beautiful, and this design was her first attempt with paper, translated to fabric.


It took a while to "get" how to work out the placement of pieces. This is Georgie's lovely lolly pink on aqua, with the design just emerging .....

Elle didn't hesitate with safe and easy .... her design is stunning and she was quick!

Helen chose a gorgeous coral and olive combo .....

No wonder Jane killed the scissors ...... look at all those intricate pieces!

Jill chose two of Lisa's hand dyes, and cut-out onion dome shapes ....

Here Louise has two intricate blocks laid out, and the next two cut ........

Margaret chose high contrast fabrics, and designed a leaf-inspired cut-out that produced some unexpectedly complex of shapes

And Jo was the only one who completed all nine blocks! Her cut-out fern fronds echo the print of her background fabric.

Thanks Lisa for a most enjoyable day, and Georgie for organising it all.

The National Quilt Register

..... is a treasure that deserves a higher profile in the community, and amongst quilters. Put aside deadlines for making quilts, shopping, building up that stash of fabric that we all say we don't really need, and take a little time to explore and enjoy these stories of ordinary and extraordinary lives told through quilts. Warning: do not go here if you are in a hurry!

From the NQR website:



The National Quilt Register is a major initiative of the Pioneer Women's Hut, a museum located at Tumbarumba at the foothills to the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW, Australia.
The museum represents ordinary rural families, especially the women, in their everyday lives. It opened in 1985 and is a free, self funded museum run by community volunteers.

.......

Old quilts of all types have always been about memories and women's hidden, often unspoken, language. They carry stories about our history and about needlework and provide a rich insight into women's lives. In the National Quilt Register women tell their own stories, some for the first time, about love, despair, managing, surviving, adversity, friendship, endurance. The quilts stay where they are and the stories are shared.

The NQR has been a huge effort over 5 years by volunteers from all parts of the country co-ordinated by The Pioneer Women's Hut. Early estimates were that there may be 500 to 600 old quilts in Australia, but as we passed the 1,000 mark we know we have just touched the tip of the iceberg.

You are now on the web site of the National Quilt Register and can search the stories and the types of quilts from early in the 19th century until about 1965, the cut off date. It's a friendly, easy to use site and thanks to volunteers Australia wide and to AMOL (Australian Museums On Line) this site now belongs to the women of Australia.

Might have to get out the map and head down to Tumbarumba for a real look .....

Material Girls - 10th November

We had a fun night with Maria and her sister, from Material Girls Down Under. Most frequently heard comment? "I don't really need any more fabric" ..... mostly said by someone with a bundle of fat quarters in their hands!

Show and tell

Susan's autumn leaves are another classic beauty - gorgeous colours. The nine-patch border is a great finish - the gold blocks just "pop"

Marijke's alphabet quilt is made from a panel, and will be going to Canada for one of her grandchildren. The alphabet fabric on the back is a nice complement to the front.

These hands are Dina's and Jane's - they are cutting wedges from strip sets, with a wedge ruler = the wedges are then slightly off-set to produce the pattern. The strip sets need to include several value contrasts to work. Love those earthy tones.

Jo 's curved table runner from a recent class, and the sofa cushions she made from the left-over fabric, putting her wedge ruler back to work.

Jo took a short break from quilting to make this doll for her little niece - note the little dolly she has in her pocket.

Dawn has put her butterflies from the Margaret Cormack folded flying geese workshop into this rather gorgeous table runner. Their antennae are stitched with a fancy machine stitch.

Dina's Moses Basket is made with the X-block ruler, starting with a simple nine-patch. The pieced border uses the off-cuts , so there is no waste. In a couple of Tuesdays, a number of us have signed up for a demonstration by Dina, of the X-Block rulers' ability to produce a number of complex designs from simple blocks.

Heather finished this community effort, of fun bugs in bottles. It will keep a little kids amused for hours.

International Quilt Study Center

The International Quilt Study Center and Museum, at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln is a favourite stopping off point for quilters visiting the US, and it can provide hours of quilt viewing and study online.

One of its online attractions is the Quilt of the Month, selected from the collections on the first of each month. You can visit the site regularly, and/or subscribe for email notification in case you forget - a great service for the international quilting community. November's quilt of the month is just gorgeous.

Random quilt sightings

The 1970s classic movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More was on cable TV recently, and I'm sure I glimpsed a quilt or two. Bones (Channel 7, Sunday night) centred around a young Amish man this week, giving us a quilt on the bed at his home, and at least one on the washing line (they didn't look particularly Amish!). I parked next to an elderly car in a local shopping centre recently that had a much-used Irish chain quilt that might once have been navy and white draped across its rear seat - the hand quilting stitches were embedded so deeply that it looked as though they would leave scars, but it was being used!

What's the strangest place you've ever seen a quilt or the weirdest use you've ever seen one put to?