Carol sent me this photo above of her quilt which she is now adding quilting to, and below Rozanne showed us her finished tulip quilt, entirely hand pieced, appliqued and quilted.
I brought in my reworked Rose Cottage quilt to show the group. I began this quilt about 7 years ago, and put minimal quilting on it, by both hand and machine because that was all I knew then. After buying my Sweet Sixteen sit down mid-arm machine recently I couldn't wait to try out some quilting on it and looked at this quilt which is used on the bed each winter, and decided to unpick all the existing quilting and rework it on the new machine, using it as a practice piece to get used to the machine. Now I am planning a new project so I can do more quilting as I enjoyed it so much and still have lots to learn about the art of free-motion quilting!
While Pam looks at Louise's ongoing knitting project, several ladies were delighted to see bags of knitting yarn which Elle brought in for them. This wool has been donated by Maggie's family after she sadly died unexpectedly in the summer. Maggie's family who knew that Maggie so enjoyed being part of the group when we first set up several years ago, thought members might be able to make use of the yarn and make a small donation to the charity which helped Maggie in the UK. Elle was amazed to receive 75€ for the charity from the sale of much of the yarn. Members who bought some of the yarn will in turn be knitting or crocheting items for more charities which they support individually. Maggie herself used to knit little baby jackets which she donated to the premature baby unit at our local hospital in Velez-Malaga.
Above, Rozanne is helping Shirley with the finishing of her knitting project and below Louise has the unenviable task of stitching together all these knitted squares into a baby shawl she has been working on for some time,
Vanessa has finally put the last stitches into her lap quilt which is only her second patchwork project. She says it has been a real learning curve, and she is already planning and drawing out the design for her next piece of work, a seasonal wall hanging with applique which is another new technique for her.
Jenny has found an old unfinished piece of work which she has decided is her "winter-evenings" project. Jenny dyes her own fabrics and has already heavily hand stitched four layers of dyed calico, and has drawn out a stylish flower design for which she is using more of her hand dyed cottons for the individual pieces which Jenny will hand-applique to the background.
Yvonne is tracing out another of the Japanese designs for one of her projects, a triptych wall hanging in creams and and taupe colours, while Gwen has been tempted by a book Ann brought in to show us.
It was good to see Helen B back this week, here seen chatting to Carole about her quilt, and Kath too who is working on two small seasonal wall hangings after being inspired by others which she saw recently completed by Ann and Helen H. The "knitting circle" are deep in discussion below,
while Pam and Ann are deciding on the layout of their wall hanging above, and below Charlotte and Michele are catching up on their news.
Jacqueline is pleased to be nearing the end of her lap quilt which, after one of her cats found it in the cupboard and had fun with the wadding sticking out around the edges, meant that she had to trim the quilt more than she intended along the sides!
After getting some advice from Yvonne, Tricia is cutting out fabric for her next project.
At this meeting we also discussed our charity quilt project for which Helen Bush has generously offered to design and draw the butterfly motifs for the quilt blocks, and we intend beginning the stitching at the start of next year. Helen has also offered to add any embroidery to the blocks which many of the group members will take part in making.
I hope you have enjoyed keeping up with all our news, do please come back again next week.
Rachel
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