New faces...."old" faces

It was surprising to see so many members turn up for the meeting today in the miserable wet conditions, it made us all think about friends and family back in England coping with this sort of weather regularly!  It was a lovely surprise too, to see Linda and welcome her back after her long stay in the UK.  Linda says she hopes to be with us more regularly again, during school holiday breaks in the UK, when she won't need to be at work.

Ann chatting to Linda with Christine 

Welcome back to Heather for her short visit, and Marie who is here hopefully until May, and welcome to a new visitor Chris, who would like to join the Group.  Chris came along with Sue who hasn't been to meetings for a few weeks as she's been feeling under the weather, good to know Sue feeling better.  Sue spent this week's session teaching Chris the art of paper quilling used in card making.

Sue's card

Chris' card

Sandy chatted with Margaret and Sheila, no doubt bringing Heather up to date with what she's missed since her last visit,

and there was much intrigue when Chris explained how she had made a piece of crochet work that caught the girls' attention as they hadn't seen this particular stitch before.

Elsewhere in the hall Michele explained to Ana Maria how she makes her fabric postcards.

Ana Maria joined the Group a few weeks ago, after being introduced by Jan who teaches her patchwork as part a group of Spanish ladies in her home town of Periana for 2 hrs one evening a week.  Ana Maria wanted to spend more time learning techniques so Jan suggested she came along to our Group, where Ana Maria has embarked on her first project making a patchwork shopping bag.  As well as taking up patchwork Ana Maria enjoys making crochet items.

HelenH who joined the Group just over two years ago, had never done any patchwork or quilting before, but was smitten with it after making her first quilt in an applique workshop and now attends many if not most of the workshops that are held in the Group to perfect her skills.  Up to now she has managed on a low-end basic sewing machine which has served her well, but she has now decided it's time to invest in a more specialised quilting machine that also offers lots of embroidery stitches.  Helen has been asking various Group members what machines they use, and after seeing the lovely stitching produced by Kath on her work, decided she would like to investigate further.  Kath brought her machine in today and put the machine through it's paces to an impressed Helen.

Kath and Helen with the impressive Husqvarna 

Helen brought along her finished Mystery quilt to show us,

and Ann brought along a small padded etui she has made for a friend

and her finished chopkey cushion cover from last week's workshop. 

It was good to see HelenB too today, who worked on her exquisite, intricate gold-work embroidery, which she designs herself.

Diane is working on a quilt project  for one of her grand-children.  Diane is making it in warm flannel fabrics and is considering backing it with fleece in place of regular wadding and cotton fabric backing, so that it will withstand lots of loving use and regular laundry.

Diane is adapting the design from Keepsake Quilting, to include butterflies and Scottie dogs

Diane also brought in her cushion panel from last week's workshop, to show Jan her progress.

MargaretW worked on two drawstring bags 

and showed her matching scissor keeper.

Although Jill's friend Sharon has returned to the UK, before she went she managed to complete the quilt top for the Mystery project and sent me a photo.  We're looking forward to seeing it layered up and quilted next Sharon!

Finally this week, elsewhere in the hall, members of the Diversity Group were getting messy and enjoying their "play-day", learning techniques with transfer paints, dyes and crayons.  

Helen getting set up to start the "play"  session.  

See you again next week, happy stitching! Rachel

  

Workshop Tuesday......

The cold wind and snow on top of Mt Maroma didn't deter Group members form attending this week's meeting where twelve of the twenty nine ladies joined in Jan's workshop learning how to fold small pieces of fabric Korean-style to add to other techniques to make a smart cushion cover.  Jan used a Rami Kim design to demonstrate how "chopkey" folding is done.

Jan's sample cushion panel

After warming drinks the girls got down to work making narrow pintucks in a strip of fabric for the centre cushion panel.   As always there was a large range of fabric and colours being used.

Diane used a lovely pack of fabrics she had found many years

While Mary and Cath used solid colours as their base fabrics

 It was interesting to see how the different fabrics used created an illusion of shaded textures on the pale fabrics especially.

Once the centre panels had been made it was on to the folding to produce the little folded patches for the cushion side panels.

Elsewhere in the meeting hall group members were busy too.  Christine Speller displayed three pieces  of bargello work she's made to use as samples for her future workshop.  Christine has made two bargello quilts since taking part in a Group workshop in mid-2010  and really enjoys the technique, adapting it for her new designs.

 Maria continued to  work on her Mystery Quilt, adding the first of the borders,

Gill worked on her project for the latest Diversity group challenge, using her cleverly adapted wine case light box, (the Diversity Group can be followed by clicking http://www.vinuelasewandsews.eu/diversity/diversity_gallery.htm )

and Jenny worked on the sample wedding ring block for her future workshop, and in the background Margaret, Sue, Christine, Carol and Sheila worked on their projects.

This tulip blocks form part of Rozanne's current project

and this is the striking centre panel of Kath's latest project, a king size bed quilt in Celtic Knot work.

Cath has added these lovely delicate machine appliqued butterfly motifs to her Mystery quilt,

and Helen Hulm has added Celtic Knot designs to her Mystery quilt.  (Apologies go to Helen for an earlier post where I mistakenly stated that Helen had decided not to add applique to her quilt).

These two mystery quilts are work in progress, below by Group member Chris, and above for Sharon a visitor to our Group when staying with her friend Group member Jill. Sharon attended the first two Mystery Quilt workshops, and then worked over the Internet and phone to get to this stage.

That´s it for this week's busy meeting, next week the Diversity group members will be spending the session practicing techniques using transfer paints, disperse dyes and transfer crayons, and I´m sure there will be more work being done to complete the "chopkey" cushions.  See you then, Rachel

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