Gift Blocks

Along with several other people, I volunteered to make blocks for a quilt for someone's significant birthday in a few months. The background fabric was provided, and a photo of blocks already made, as reference for the sorts of fabrics we should use.

Here are my two completed blocks, and then the reference photo:

I hope they will blend in well enough. I think the final quilt will be 4 x 4 blocks. I will look forward to seeing it when it is all assembled!

Violets and Voting and Falling

This morning I met up with Sue from Mother Patchwork, who lives some way west of here but was in Ballarat for the day. Last week I admired her African violets and she offered me leaf cuttings so I could grow my own. But instead today she gave me this:

Thank you, Sue!

Afterward I went to visit this place:

Sorry it's not very clear. There was non-stop traffic on this road and I had to snap the photo between vehicles. The empty shop across the road is not quite empty at the moment. The posters along the fence are the clue; it is a pre-poll voting centre for the federal election. There are various criteria for being eligible to vote early, but for me the most relevant one is that I live more than 8km from a polling place. Despite the busy-ness of this voting centre (apparently 6000 people voted here yesterday), voting was a fairly quick process as they had many staff and many booths available. There was almost no waiting. It was much faster than the last federal election where I had to queue (in the cold, and with no sausage sizzle) for about an hour.

Not long after I arrived home my father rang to tell me that Mum had fallen this morning (while I was enjoying a coffee with Sue) and had been taken to the Emergency Dept. So I drove back into Ballarat and spent the afternoon sitting with Mum while the staff did tests and took x-rays and decided there was no damage other than bruising. She was discharged just before dark, so was able to go home and sleep in her own bed. This was her second fall in a few days (the previous one was on Saturday). Each time I wonder how many more days we will spend in Emergency before they refuse to send her home and she has to go into full-time care.

Meet the Makers Quilt-In

Fortunately the hall where the Lions Club Quilters held their Quilt-In today was air-conditioned:

Otherwise there may not have been nearly 90 attendees. I wouldn't have been there, anyway! It was a hot day outside. I was happy to sit and stitch in the aircon, and finish the binding on my Good Fortune quilt. That's it on the chair at the bottom right of the photo.

In stitching down the binding I managed to empty another spool of thread (Hooray), but I won a door prize which added 4 more spools to my stash (Oops)!

The main event of the day was a talk by Susan Mathews, about her artistic journey. I love her work, particularly those based on Australian native plants. I've shown one piece of her Banksia series on my blog previously, at the Golden Textures exhibition 2 years ago.

Today this piece, Ode to Banksias 7, was unveiled as the latest acquisition for the Quilt and Textile Collection the Lions Quilters are putting together:

This quilt has been awarded Highly Commended, Art Quilt Australia 2017, and Best Use of Colour (Innovative), World Quilt Competition 2018.

Susan used lino printing and screen printing to create the design, then added amazing quilting. A couple of close-ups to show how her quilting adds to the depth of the design:

Unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the thread she uses for her quilting, but its beautiful sheen adds to the sense of light in her quilts.

All in all it was a great day out, with good company, yummy morning and afternoon teas, refreshing aircon, and a finished quilt to show for it.

Jean's Good Fortune

A friend sent me these pictures so that I could add them to the Good Fortune link-up.

This is a graffiti-covered wall in Melbourne:

Jean made Good Fortune for her grand-daughter, who loves yellow and loves this wall.

Jean used the wall as inspiration for her Good Fortune colour scheme:

Her grand-daughter loves it!

I will add a link to the final Good Fortune link-up when it becomes available. Here is the Link-Up!

Christine Lethlean Workshop

Yesterday I had the fun of attending an all-day workshop hosted by Ballaarat Quilters. Christine Lethlean of "The Margie and Bert Studio" in Clunes taught Making Art with Textiles. I don't think I could say I made "art", but I did have a great time playing with fabric.

Some of the inspirational pieces Christine had for us: 

Happy people surrounded by piles of fabric:

We had been given a list of requirements, and I had everything except the first item on the list, an idea!

The first part of the day involved layering many small pieces of fabric, then stitching them together in some manner. This becomes the background of your piece. I had taken some denim to use as background, but I didn't use it. This is what I ended up with:

It was one of those activities that you can enjoy without having a clue what you are doing or where it is heading. This piece is up to four or five layers of fabric, from upholstery weight to chiffon. I stitched them together with three different threads, although that is not at all obvious in the photo.

There were people who had brought along ideas. One person's foreground was to be large colourful chook, another's a picture of an outside toilet. Having no ideas of my own, I went for the default: a vase of flowers.

Flowers roughly cut out and arranged:

Vase shape cut by Christine from one of the fabrics I had brought along:

Then you have to deconstruct everything you have done, to start sewing the parts to the background individually. The previous photo is a guide to where to to place the pieces as you progress, but things moved around a bit as I worked. And I was so caught up in the process that I didn't think to take any progress shots. This is what I had by the end of the day:

I was stitching down the blue and brown flower in the centre (which hadn't even been in my initial arrangement, but I ended up with a bigger gap to cover in the middle than I had expected) when my bobbin thread ran out. It was about pack-up time anyway, so I left it at that.

The second half of the workshop is next month.

Amitié

Today a group of quilting friends took a trip down to Torquay to visit Jen Kingwell's shop, Amitié.

We sat and sewed, ate lunch from the in-store café, and probably all splashed a bit of cash on lovely fabrics and patterns.

The very high ceiling means there is plenty of room to display quilts above the stock shelves:

See the quilt up above the Featherweight? I photographed that because of a design idea I've had in one of my sketchbooks for ever. I based it on the robe Katharine Hepburn is wearing in this scene in Adam's Rib:

Trailer screenshot uploaded by Lobo512 at en.wikipedia - Adam's Rib trailer, as featured on the DVD, Public Domain, Link

One day it will get made maybe!

There is lots of room between the shelves, too. The fabrics are all arranged by colour:

What I didn't photograph are the little baskets of 1/16ths scattered around between the shelves. They're ideal for if you just need a touch of something. For example, the background I've used in this week's temperature rosette came from one, as did today's hexie:

This is week 51. So close to the end. Here are the temperatures:

18/05/2018    13.1    aqua/teal
17/05/2018    10.3    aqua/teal
16/05/2018      9.3    blue
15/05/2018      9.8    blue
14/05/2018    14.3    aqua/teal
13/05/2018    11.2    aqua/teal
12/05/2018    11.3    aqua/teal

It really feels like winter has arrived. I know last year in the week before I started this quilt there were three "green" days - ie temperatures between 15 and 20C. But this year it seems green is gone.

Linked to Sarah's weekly Weather Report here.

Sewing Bee

We started the day with donated blocks, roughly sorted into piles of warm, cool and neutral colours:

And ended the day with 12 or 13 assembled quilt tops of various sizes:

Along the way there was a lot of:

Cutting.

Shuffling of blocks, and arranging them on every flat surface.

including the floor.

Sewing.

Sewing machines included my Singer featherweight, a 70s Husqvana, a couple of Pfaffs, several Janomes and a couple of Berninas.

Eleven machines in all (one not visible), and two more volunteers who concentrated on cutting, pressing, and making cups of tea.

Ironing.

Then lots of finished tops.

And happy quilters! Particularly me, as I had been worried that no-one would turn up, or that everything would go wrong and the day would be a complete disaster. But in fact there were lots of volunteers, and everyone seemed to have a good day. Phew!

Another Christmas Do

This is part of the surroundings of the venue for my latest Christmas break-up lunch:

Beautiful, isn't it?

It is the Warran Glen Garden Centre and Café, which apart from having a large gift shop, a large café, a large garden area, and plants for sale, has a bonus just beyond the Japanese maples:

Can you see what is inside? Quilt fabric!

Clair's Fabrics is an online fabric shop, which has been open as a corrugated iron (rather than bricks & mortar) store here for just 5 weeks. Clair has a fantastic range of fabrics, and made us very welcome. I think a fabric shop in a nursery is just about the perfect combination!

A happy band of quilters sat and sewed, purchased some fabric, ate scones with jam and cream, had some show and tell, and just generally had a great time.

One of our number also made the Gourmet Quilter "What's in the Box Mystery" this year, and this was our first chance to see the two versions together:

Mine on the left, Shirley's on the right.

I was very lucky with my lucky-dip prize:

A beautiful book of garden info and pictures.

It was a long day. This wonderful venue is about 150km from my place, so it's not somewhere I will be visiting frequently.  I broke up the homeward journey by visiting my son, but I was very tired (and happy) by the time I got home.

Gifts from Friends

Today I went into Melbourne to meet up with some quilting friends, and came home with a couple of goodies:

The catalogue because Ikea don't deliver them way out here in the sticks. Last month after my quilting meeting I went to Ikea to get one, and they didn't have any in the store, either. So thank you to the quilting friend who brought one along for me today.

The marmalade (yum!) was because of a comment I made on the maker's blog when she spent a busy day producing 22 jars of it. Now she will only have to eat 21 jars!

Amazing Stuff

Today was my quilt group's AGM (annual general meeting). Our guest speaker was Kerry Gadd.

Some of her amazing quilts spread out for us to get a closer look after the meeting.

Also at the meeting I was presented with this:

Now I need to learn how to care for phalaenopsis.

Lions' Quilt-In

Attended the Lions Club of Quilters Quilt-In at Brown Hill, Ballarat, today. A highlight of the day was a talk by the creators of the Lions Centenary quilt:

 And the chance to get a close look at some of the details:

There is a lot of symbolism in the quilt design, and the workmanship is amazing.  The quilt has been touring around Lions club meetings, and will be going to Chicago in June for the 100th Lions International Convention. Its eventual home is intended to be a museum which is still in the planning stages.

A Sad Day

Farewelling a gentle soul.

Slightly Scary

Today I attended a new quilting group, which wasn't as scary as it might have been because I knew one other person there. This was the lovely venue:

Vivienne's Retreat near Gordon, which is about half-an-hour's drive away from home. It is a B&B which hosts quilting retreats, and also monthly sit and sew sessions. That quilted sign out the front says, "Quilters of the Big Room", and we were indeed in a big room which extends almost the full length of the house.

While there I finished appliquéing my flower ball to its background, so later at home I very carefully cut away the excess background:

Fortunately I didn't snip right through to the front!

Geelong Quilt-In

Spent the day with quilting friends at the Geelong guild's annual Quilt-In. The entertaining guest speaker was Irene Blanck, who also showed lots of her quilts. One of her messages was to make quilts you love, and not "give a rat's" what other people think.

I compared binding tools:

Won a door prize:

The purple coaster was one of the gifts given to everyone who attended. The rest of the goodies were my door prize. That makes two door prizes out of three attendances. Not bad!

And I stitched down about two thirds of this binding:

Workshop with Linden Lancaster

This weekend I am doing a two-day workshop with art quilter, Linden Lancaster.  I've met Linden before, as she was a fellow student in the workshop I did with Jenny Bowker in 2013. Since then I've seen her quilts win a few prizes. Lots of her pieces were displayed around the classroom:

 To inspire, and also illustrate the principles she was teaching:

I loved having the opportunity to get a really close-up look at her work, as she explained techniques, design principles, and her use of colour.