Sales Tuesday

Judging by the number of smiling faces this week, many group members must have found "just that something" they have been looking for on the sales table.  There were boxes of fabric, bags of wool, quilting and embroidery frames, and Helen was selling lovely little pens made by her husband, from hand-turned wood .  Ann donated a huge pile of quilting magazines she no longer needed, many of which were snapped up in a flash!

Inmaculada and Cristina with the busy sales table behind them

Yvonne cutting some of the fabric Pam bought from her

Lesley and Sarah calculating what pieces to cut from the fabrics they bought in readiness for Jan´s workshop next week on folded patchwork.

Once everyone had settled down after the feverish buying spree, Michele talked to the Group about a workshop she is planning for February 26th, making fabric postcards.  Michele is part of a worldwide internet group who´s members make and swap fabric postcards, some of which are sent to fellow stitchers who became victims of the disastrous fires and floods in Australia to show a tiny measure of support from far away.

Bridget is translating the details of how Michele's cards are made, to two of our Spanish members  interested in the workshop.

Elsewhere work went on as usual, with the final touches being put on some of the mystery quilts.   

Pam has attached her appliqué designs and is now free machine quilting the quilt top and Cath has appliquéd four butterflies using a combination of the fabrics in the quilt onto the centre medallion.  Cath discussed her thoughts and sought advice on how to apply further Celtic-knot type butterfly silhouettes on the setting triangles of her quilt, I´m sure we´ll see them attached next week.

Several members of the group have purchased an on-line workshop from www.craftsy.com, called Stupendous Stitching by Carol Waugh, over the past few months.  It´s a good workshop to get to know what all those fancy stitches on our sewing machines which most of us never use, can do.  It involves couching down fancy threads and yarns and trimmings with machine embroidery stitches, adding hand embroidery and beads too if desired, onto a fabric background layered with a backing.  Machine quilting is then done through all layers before finishing off the edge of the work.  It has proved very popular and some members have made more than one of them.

Gill couching fibres onto her project

and  ........ how many is it now Yvonne??  Yvonne loves hand embroidery and embellishing, and seems to works in a series, whatever the theme.

Eleanor showed us her finished woven crochet blanket, which we tried to display "artfully" with cushions to photograph, but decided it looked much better draped over Eleanor herself!

This week we welcomed two new members, Pat from Venta Baja and Carol from Nerja.  We hope you enjoyed your first visit to us and look forward to seeing you regularly at our meetings.

See you all next week, Rachel