Happy Birthday Kath............

Lets start this week off by saying Happy Birthday to Kath and thank you for the cake.  We had a visit from Lola this morning, she works in the town hall and was very impressed with our work on the raffle quilt, she will be buying tickets come Oct.  Here she is chatting to Jenny and Gwen, both back from trips this week.

Gwen, Jenny and Lola (from left to right)

Cath is making a cushion for her grandson, who seems to have ended up with a black eye after a recent game of footie.

Here we have 2 mug rugs for friends of Pam, aren´t they great fun?

Helen

Lovely to see Helen back, she is doing the Ineke Berlyn Journal Quilt course and this is January's underway.

Rozanne left with Elsje and Catherine

Rozanne seen here learning how to make crocheted balls, she thinks they will make great Christmas tree ornaments with a little tweeking.

Margaret was trying out a bag pattern to the size of Ryanair's new cabin allowance.

Eloise (right), and Vanessa

Eloise is back after being unwell for several months and was putting a lining into some curtains.

Vanessa is going great guns on a quilt for her new baby grandson.

Gladys is still plowing on with crochet squares for the exhibit.

Helen popped in and helped out with some embroidery on one of the butterfly blocks she designed.

Rozanne brought along some bunting she made from left over fabric from a quilt, it is all buttonhole stitched by hand and has her grand-daughter's name appliqued onto it.

Merlynne has been busy embroidering tops for small ceramic boxes, she plans to give them away as gifts.

Linda is still awaiting the arrival of a grandchild, so decided to recyle some wool into a fetching jacket that she modeled for the camera!

Jacqueline is embroidering another panel to go with one she completed some time ago,

and I, Yvonne, have finished a small wall hanging with sashiko stitching.   Finally a big thank you to all the ladies that worked on the butterfly blocks. Sorry, no pictures this week they were all whisked away for more work to be done on them.   All in all a good meeting with 26 ladies in attendance.

Happy stitching, until next time.   Yvonne

Yvonne here reporting in......

This week Yvonne  is back here on blog duty as Linda is on tenterhooks awaiting the arrival of her grandchild, due any day now.

Pam & Ann are still working on their row x row quilts and Linda is knitting a colourful baby jacket, fabulous soft yarn.

Cath's row by row is getting ready to be quilted, just love the country colours and  Linda's is in 3 pieces which she feels will be easier to quilt under the domestic machine and join together afterwards.

Christine and Chris seem to be sorting out the world's problems while Louise is working on crochet squares

Carol is sewing small log cabin blocks to make cushions, she is using left over scraps from a quilt, and Christine is making a crochet blanket.

Elsje, Sue & Gladys are all busy with hooks and knitting pins (above), while The new lady Catherine is making a curtain to hang in a Moroccan themed bathroom and knitting a sweater in one piece (not sure about the sleeves!)

The charity quilt is looking good, here is a sneak preview (work in progress).  

Vanessa buttonholed around one of the designs today and Margaret was doing some hand embroidery on another whilst Rozanne was hand piecing and chatting.  Vanessa, Ann and Carol in the background.

Good to see Tricia back again, she brought along some oriental fabric she hopes to make into a wall hanging.  Getting advice from Kath.  

Carol is still embroidering her geese.

Ann is finishing the binding on her lovely bright square dance quilt.

And finally we find Jan cutting up the last of the precious steam-a-seam!

Hope to see you all next time, happy stitching ,Yvonne.

Linda here this week.....

Thanks to Linda for getting these photos and text to me, though I'm a bit late posting them again!

This week twenty four ladies came for a sew, knit and natter!

Jill has put a large section of her Row-by-Row quilt together seen above,  and has started quilting it by machine.  Ann is also working on her quilt and is seen on the  right below, discussing it with Pam who freely admits she didn't apply herself hard this week!  

Quite a few ladies were working on panels for the charity quilt to be raffled in October.

Chris and Cath

Gladys and Vanessa

Helen showed us all a bag she has been making for her sister this week.  She can't be persuaded to run a workshop though, as many ladies were impressed with her work.

Here she is showing it to Carole (left)

And the finished bag

Carol shared patterns so I imagine we will be seeing more of these cute teddies soon

Carol and teddies

Ann has knitted a baby jacket and mittens for the imminent arrival of my (Linda) first grandchild, so cute, it's just missing the buttons now.

Elsje brought a friend along with her.  She is getting started on Christmas decorations already, and is seen here cutting and stitching an angel.  Elsje's skirt can be seen on the table next to her friend (apologies - we didn't get your name as it was a busy week).  Sorry Elsje, that I didn't get you in the picture too.

Again most ladies left at lunchtime.  Although it's warmer outside, it's still a little chilly indoors for sewing all day.

I hope to see everyone again next week with my completed panel for the charity quilt - that is unless my grandchild decides to make an appearance in the meantime.   Linda

Just a little footnote from me (Rachel) to say don't forget to pop over to the Group Website  .  The Member's Stitching Corner has changed, as has the video, along with the usual updates to gallery pages.  A new gallery page has been created to enable you to follow progress on our group charity quilt too.  At the moment this can be accessed by clicking on the photo in the top right hand corner of our Home page.

Jill also sent me a photo of her charity quilt block (above).  It's now ready for the machine applique stitching, then the stems and butterfly eyes etc, will be added in hand-stitched embroidery.

I'm enjoying seeing what you are all getting up to back home while I'm here in beautiful, dry, sunny England, so keep stitching!    Rachel

Group Quilt.......

Many, many apologies for the delay in this posting.  Many of you know I am in the UK now and just didn't find the time to write this before leaving.  I'm trying to make amends now.
Last week's meeting saw group members make a start on the group charity quilt, to be raffled later this year at our bi-annual exhibition.
We started off by having a general overview of how we would approach this new challenge, and members eagerly awaited their first glimpses of the the sixteen designs Group member Helen Bush has drawn for the quilt blocks.  This year's theme is butterflies with a few flowers sprinkled in.
In advance of the meeting, the blocks had been assembled into kits, which included the block drawing and background fabric along with applique fabrics and other materials needed to complete the block.  These were soon distributed to the more experienced patchworkers who were then allocated a team mate who would help with tracing and cutting of the applique shapes.

Gwen, Margaret and Rozanne working on their blocks

Yvonne

Louise, Jenny and Katherine

Jenny watching Gladys and Pam

Helen above and Jill below, tracing their designs

Gladys tracing on the lightbox

Margaret's block ready for the machine applique stitching

Cath encouraging a terrified looking Margeret

Christine and Jenny attaching the applique to their backgrounds

The beginnings of Pam and Glady's block

Rozanne painstakingly adding the applique pieces to her butterfly

Jenny and her team  with Jan searching through for just the right fabric to complement the wings on her butterfly

Gwen's design above, and Christine's below, ready for the applique machine stitching 

I can't wait to see the other blocks as they are made, and at the end of this session we all agreed that this quilt will be stunning when it's finished with one member asking if she could keep the quilt if her raffle ticket was pulled out at the draw as the winner!!

Pam brought in her finished denim and flannel quilt to show us, made from recycled jeans and shirts.  She has made this for her son-in-law, who's initials Pam has embroidered in the centre, and says it was quite hard work making it because as it got bigger it became very heavy.  All the seams have been snipped individually with small scissors too, so this project was a real  labour or love!

Christine has finished this lovely quilt above, all hand needle-turned applique and hand quilted, and just has the binding to add to her class sample Row-by-row quilt below.

Pam and Jill also showed us their finished bags.  Pam's bag above and below has a posh pocket inside and motifs front and back

while Jill used more of the same fabric for her motif and added button details to her bag above.   

We welcomed Jenny back to the group after a long absence this week.  Jenny spent the session working  on a new top canopy for her garden swing bed.

As this blog is so late being posted, I already have photos from Linda from the meeting this week but I'll stop here, and I'll post those in a day or two.  Don't forget to check out our website to see more of the work made by our talented group members.  Have fun stitching, see you all next time and thanks for stopping by.                                                                            Rachel