Lovely eye candy......

Things are back to normal  after having to cancel the previous week at very short notice, as the tables had been removed from the hall for use in a fiesta in the village. .
This is a long post so grab a coffee and join us, as there was lots of eye candy on display this week, with one of our newer members, Marilyn,  bringing some of her work to be photographed for her gallery page in our Group website.  Marilyn's work will begin to appear in her gallery over the next  weeks so be sure to return to it regularly to see these and other members' gallery updates.
Marilyn has been stitching in one form or another for many years, and particularly enjoys bobbin lace and patchwork and quilting.

Some of the bobbin lace made by Marilyn

 Marilyn likes to incorporate embroidery into her patchwork quilts, in this large bed quilt each block has a different quilting design embroidered in the centre.

An embroidered doormouse hides in in the centre of this little patchwork wall hanging

A framed country scene in wool embroidery above, with detail below

An embroidered blanket with amazingly detailed animals and a sampler in intricate stitches below, are just a few of the pieces of work Marilyn has created.

Yvonne has finished her Japanese themed wall hanging, a detail is shown below

A small portion of this crochet blanket was part of a large box of yarns and equipment which former member Sue Stead's family donated to the Group after her sad death last year.  Eleanor decided she would like to complete the blanket and found more yarn to complement the colours used in Sue's original work. 

Linda has completed her Row-by-Row quilt above, and Chris is well on the way to finishing hers too, below.  I know I have said it before, but I think these quilts will make a lovely display at our exhibition in the autumn, it's always good to see how the same design looks, interpreted by different people.  Christine Speller, the class teacher must feel very pleased with all her students' work!

Chris Bradley's project 

CarolW says these little knitted teddies could be used as tombola prizes in our exhibition, and Ann hasn't decided whether her seasonal wall hangings below, will be kept for herself, or given as gifts.

Gwen, who only has a few anchoring stitches to add to this pretty seasonal decoration, has been having a dyeing session at home recently and brought along her fabric to show us.

Yvonne seems to be powering through projects this year!  Above, is her May journal quilt for an online workshop in which she is participating.   This month's theme is "texture" which Yvonne has used plenty of to depict her seascape.  Below, Yvonne works on a project started a long time ago.  She came across it in a cupboard while looking for something else, and thought it would be ideal to bring to meetings as it involves hand stitching and the pieces are small and easily portable.

Jenny has only to remove the tacking threads and add a couple more quilting motifs then this quilt (above) that a neighbour handed over to her partially made asking Jenny to finish it for her, will be on it's way to  it's owner who I am sure will be thrilled to see all the work Jenny has put into it for her.  Next week Jenny will bring it again to show us  the completed quilt.  

Sue chats with Carole above, while Simone also works on her embroidery project.

Sheila, Margaret and Julie knit while Gladys below works on her machine embellishing blocks with embroidery for her latest quilt project

Margaret,  with Carol center, and her friend Julie visiting from South Africa 

Kath above, spent another session  hemming more sashing on the raffle quilt, which if you haven't seen yet on the web site, now has all the butterfly blocks joined together.  We decided at the meeting to add a border using the background fabric and to bind the quilt using the sashing fabric to add the finishing touches.  When Rozanne returns from her trip to the UK, it should all be ready for her to work on the hand quilting.  Several members have already expressed their intention to buy the winning ticket at the raffle!!!

Helen is working on a seasonal project which appears to involve dozens of strips of fabric.  Next time I intend looking more closely at what's involved and will hopefully have a more detailed photo.

Christine enjoys foundation piecing and is working on a new project above, while Ann is making a drawstring bag below

Pam who, because she has been entertaining visitors recently, hasn't had a chance or the space to try out her new embroidery machine yet.  Pam was hoping to go home after the meeting, to a new specially designed and finished studio where she can work uninterrupted, but had a visit from her husband Ray during the meeting just to let her know in advance so she wouldn't be too cross, that he hadn't quite finished the room!! Hope it's finished now Pam, please take photos of you working in it so we can feature it soon in the "stitching corner" on the Group Website which features Kath at the moment.

Pam with Ray delivering his "bad news"!

I think that's us caught up for another week.  Thanks for reading and I hope you too have enjoyed seeing all the lovely work produced by our group members.  See you next time, Rachel

More completed projects......

This is the first opportunity I've had to post this week, so I´ll dive straight in!    Louise has been spending some evening making a selection of doileys.  Two of which are shown here.

Kath has finished off a quilt using fabric remnants from previous projects, and is giving it to her friend's daughter.

Carol brought in her quillow to show us, seen above as a quilt and below all folded up into a cushion,

 

also Carol showed us  a bright quilt she made several years ago using Ikea cotton fabrics.  This photo doesn't do justice to those lovely bright colours.  Sorry Carol!

I spotted this little Christmas wall hanging of Cath's on the table too, Ann is borrowing it to make a pattern so she can adapt it to her own needs.

Ann says she is having a break from making larger quilts for a while, and is making use of her stash of fabric remnants to make several small projects.

Above Carol is working on a quilt for a friends first grandchild.  It's a Sun Bonnet Sue design and here Carol is battling with the embroidery stitches on her machine, which was making hard work of embellishing the applique for her!

Above, Sheila continues with her charity knits, while Louise works on her latest quilting project.  I am told it is lovely, but confess I didn't see it in detail so hope to show you next week if Louise brings it to work on again.

It looks to me as though Helen must be getting near to the end of this embroidery now, though there is so much fine detail in it.

Margaret is making Christmas stockings after finding a bag full of felt at home, and Jan and Kath spent the session hemming the sashing on the centre panels of the Group Raffle Quilt.  

Below is a peak at the centre panel of the quilt, and by next week the outer panels should be attached

Jacqueline continues with her bobbin lace, while Marilyn embroiders flowers on quilt blocks,

and Helen above, with Merlyne and Carol below, work on small cross stitch projects

Linda  below, popped in after choir practice to chat to Jan about threading her overlocker machine

Before closing this week, I must give a warm welcome to our latest new members, Millie seen lower left in the photo above, and Simone on the right in the photo below.   Millie enjoys knitting, while Simone, after walking around the room and seeing all the exciting projects being worked on,  particularly Elle's applique quilt blocks, decided she would like to learn how to applique and asked where she could find materials and patterns.  Needless to say, there was no shortage of advice for her and next week I think we may see her again with lots of supplies eager to start work!  Also welcome back to Chris, seen in the centre of the photo below, after a long absence while she was in the UK.

Elle's applique project which inspired Simone

I'm not sure why, but all except Ann, forgot it was the first meeting of the month and it should have been Sales Tuesday this week.  I got the blame for not reminding everyone on here!  It was decided to have Sales Tuesday next week instead,  so I'm reminding everyone now to bring in fabrics, yarns etc.  I'm told Pam will have fabrics for sale so if you are looking for anything, bring in your purses!  

Don't forget too, to head over to the Group Website and see the latest updates in Members' galleries.  Have a good week, thanks for stopping by.  Rachel 

Standing room only.......

We seem to be growing in numbers each week.   Maybe it was the fact we had a visit from Sue with her large selection of handbags to choose from, which encouraged  everyone to attend this week!  It seemed the majority of members found a bag they liked, and some placed orders for ones that quickly sold out.

Sue setting out her bags

Penny has her eye on the one she likes!

Many members found something they liked

Jill has been busy finishing off projects, above an autumn themed table runner and delightful place mat below.

Cath has been embroidering and quilting this panel for the end of a bed.  I'm sorry Cath, the colours didn't photograph very well and don't do justice to your work.

Detail of the hand embroidery work

Cath has discovered she really enjoys hand embroidery and decided to add some to her Row-by-Row project too.  It is very effective and adds a new dimension to the quilt.

Cath's row-by-row project

Hand embroidery adds extra dimension to Cath's quilt

This little chappie above has been knitted and donated by Gladys for the exhibition raffle later in the year, and the duck below is one of a set to be made into a pram toy by Penny.

Pam shows one of the completed Dorset buttons, (not Suffolk as I stated in a previous posting!) but I'm not sure there will be many more made to go with it.  Pam is not a fan of hand work, "too fiddly and time consuming", much preferring to get stuck into something on her sewing machine.  Talking of which, you may be interested to know that Pam made her decision to go ahead and buy a Janome embroidery/sewing machine.  She said the offer was too good to miss and now eagerly awaits her new "toy" to arrive.  It's very heavy so I don't think we'll be seeing it in the hall, and Pam will continue using her smaller machine in group meetings.  But I hope we get to see some of the embroidery work she will be producing.

Pam below, working on her scrappy quilt project (above), using up every last inch of left over fabrics from previous projects to make the backing for the quilt too.

As you can see from the photo above, there wasn't much free space this week, but Helen (below) managed to find a quiet corner to refine one of her designs for the quilting motifs for the raffle quilt, and at the far end of the table above, Rozanne managed to find space too, to layer up all the setting triangles and corner blocks, once she had traced off the quilting motifs.  The quilt will now be put together with sashing, then passed back to Rozanne so she can complete the hand quilting.

Another regular is pleased we have so many members.  Our local baker does a good trade in bread each week as can be seen here, this is just the tail end of the regular queue for bread and rolls when he arrives mid morning.

Back inside, work continues.  Here Margaret shows me one of a couple of 400g balls of yarn she's using to knit squares to join into a blanket for her 92 year old father who lives in the UK.  Margaret visits him every few weeks to make sure he is ok, as he still manages to live alone in his own home.

Christine and Cath chat while working on their quilts, and Christine showed us two finished projects too.

Christine's completed quilt for her grand-daughter

Christine has a label on the back of this quilt which shows she began work on it it 2011, so she's pleased to have finished it at last!

A few blog posts ago I said Carol had virtually finished this table cloth, but Carol corrected me saying there is actually more to be stitched than actually stitched .  Well it looks well on the way now!

Louise is seen here concentrating on practicing the technique of perfect mitred corners for quilt bindings.

Christine left with Louise

Jenny above left, discusses her findings with Jill after experimenting with fabric paint and screen prints, as part of  Jenny's "the journey" project, which  she and the Diversity girls are currently working on.

That's all again for this week, I hope you enjoy keeping up with our Group members as they work through their projects.  Don't forget to pop over to our website where amongst the regular updates, the "Stitching Corner" member has changed to Kath this week.  Next week I hope to show you the latest progress on the raffle quilt.  Thanks for stopping by.   Have a good week,  Rachel