A parliament of owls....

I promised some of the finished owls last post, here are the ones that flew in with their owners yesterday!  I think these could be popular gifts, with the girls who made them saying what fun they had putting them together.

Although there were not so many members in the hall this week, we had a general discussion about how to spend Group funds.  It had been thought that we could maybe arrange a coach hire to visit The Alhambra Palace or visit Cordoba during the Patios week in May, when balconies and courtyards are filled with beautiful displays of flowers and plants, or a trip to Granada city centre, or even The Conception Botanical Gardens in Malaga, followed by lunch at a chiringito, but at the end of the day the majority of ladies voting decided they would prefer to spend their saved money on an "end of term" lunch in the summer, and another "end of year dinner" around Christmas.  We also discussed making up a route to visit  the growing number of patchwork and wool shops, by local bus around this area.

Once the chatting was over, the serious business of stitching got under way.  Carole is desperately stitching on the binding to her latest Scrappy Illusions quilt for her son before it wings it's way back to the UK.  You may remember this quilt started life as a lap quilt, then because Carole misinterpreted the cutting instructions, she had double the number of blocks, so the quilt grew quite rapidly!

then, at the end of the meeting a photo was needed to be added  to Carole's gallery page on our website, before the quilt went to it's new owner....

and this was the frenzied activity going on outside to line up the thread tails, still needing to be stitched in, against the background fabric so the quilt would look "finished" in the photos!

Carole (left) with Cath  and the almost finished quilt!  And now Carole says she is going to be making another one.

Pam spent her session making small fabric bowls to be given as presents.

Two of Pam's finished bowls

Here Pam is explaining that the new fusible web we are trying out, doesn't seem to be quite so strong as the regular webbing she uses.

Ann brought in her completed table runner and place mats from the bargello workshop a couple of weeks ago, looking very striking in Ann's signature theme of black and white

Cath also showed us her second almost completed bargello panel from the same workshop lead by Christine, using ribbon as the sashing between bargello strips.

There were many comments on the unusual batik border fabric, which Cath said she had bought from Christine who told us that originally after having the fabric for quite some time in her stash, wasn't that keen on it as she couldn't think what to use it on, but having seen the result on Cath's panel, Christine ruefully admitted she ought to have kept it!!

Gwen brought along some of her work so it could be photographed and added to her new gallery page on our website www.vinuelasewandsews.eu  at the next update in two weeks time.  This piece particularly caught my eye...

... a small table topper made for a friend who helps out at the Donkey Sanctuary in Nerja. Who couldn't like that fabric??  I think it's lovely!

Over on one side of the hall this is an unusually industrious looking scene of some of the Diversity Group girls.  There is usually very much more chatting and hilarity going on, then much lamenting at the end of the session that they hadn't done much stitching!  I wonder if that's because Jenny was reciting poetry at her local school as part of the homework assignment in her Spanish language group, instead of being in our meeting hall!  We'll be interested to hear about your experience next week Jenny.

Carol worked on ideas for her Lucky-Dip project

and Helen worked on her Stupendous Stitching panel

Bridget adding hand quilting to her log-cabin cushion panel

and Cath's owl ends this week's post, missing out on the reunion with his fellow owls above, as he was at home doing sentry duty.  I hope you all have a good stitchy week, see you next time.......

                                                                                                         Rachel