Monday 30 March 2009

Fabric Postcards

I've made some more fabric postcards.
Tomorrow, in the Quilt Cave, I will show the ladies how to make them. I thought it might be fun if we each draw a name from a hat (basket!) and send a postcard to that person.
The designs don't need to be complicated....

This egg was going to be used on my Easter Bunny but it was too small.... I will have to put this one in an envelope because the curtains are 3D.

I used my couching foot and Perle cotton for the stems on this one.....

These are tiny square samples... I have had them for ever...
No points for guessing what this one is made with... fun, fun, fun.....

For this card I prepared the background from tiny strips then cut out the flowers from another fabric and appliqued them on....

This is probably the easiest one.

Sunday 29 March 2009

Quilt Class

Susana made a sandwich with her log cabin project and started working on this Pineapple Blossom project. This will also be a floor cushin top.
Susette was cutting 1 1/2" strips from all sorts of scrap fabrics. She is going to make a bag to transport her mat and rulers, these strips will make 'lasagne' for the back of it.
After almost three hours of cutting skirt hems, shirt sleeves, old blouses etc...

Alexandra hasn't been for a while, she was quilting her Rail fence quilt whilst planning her next project.

Saturday 28 March 2009

Hand Dye Workshop

With beautiful sunshine and a light breeze making it a perfect day to enjoy a Hand Dye Workshop. Helen, Irene and Amalia had a fun day.

These are some of Helen's fabrics, she chose turquoise, fusia red and golden yellow as her base colours.
The front two rows are Irene's, she chose a more muted palate.
Amalia chose the brightest base colours, not many of her fabrics are left on row 3 & 4 as she had already started to pack them away.... but they were bright!

Three happy ladies, with aching backs.... if you click on the picture and enlarge Irene (middle) you will see that we have a new blue lady! She dropped one of the blue dye pots and it covered her from head to foot... and it doesn't wash off for days! Blue arms, blue chest, neck and boobs, blue stripes on her face and neck and blue feet.... oh it was very funny!

Friday 27 March 2009

Quilt Cave

Anita brought in the fabrics that she dyed at the last workshop. She admitted that it will be very difficult to cut into them.
This is Anita's firt attempt at a New York Beauty block also her first pieced curves.

It was Blue Lady's Birthday and she brought in a cake... it was yummy. This is her New York Beauty block...

And her Easter Bunny quilt is almost finished, just lots of threads to sort out.
Anita's Pineapple Blossom quilt top, she added a piano border to use up the left over strips .

Ana is making a fruity quilt... these are the applique cherries, beautifully hand stitched.

Ursula has also finished her Easter Bunny quilt... It looks like I will be the last one to finish my bunny now!

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Quilt Class

We had a new lady today, Isabel. She is a seamstress by profession.. and it was very obvious! She chose her colours very quickly, some ladies take ages just to pass this hurdle.

She is the first lady, at quilt class, to finish a rail fence table runner top in only the one class. She will make the backing at home and attempt to finish this project.... watch this space!
Here Susana is trimming her half square triangles down to 3 1/2" ready to make the borders on her floor cushion.
Noemia added half square triangle borders to her mini scrappy bargello.

Maria made the back for her table runner... no piece of fabric was too small!

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Quilt Cave

Garen has been practicing her curved piecing technics.... I think it is fair to say that she is now an expert!
After learning to piece curves last week in the Quilt cave, we have now moved on to paper piecing so that we can make "New York Beauty" blocks.
These are some of the blocks I made to demonstrate.

Arabela has a new badge!
and here is the Diva herself... making the backings for the two Log Cabin tops she has been working on for her Mother-in-Law . Next week she should be ready to make the sandwiches.

This is one of the backings, they will both be different.

Ann-Marie came for her first lesson today. She did very well until her sewing machine decided it didn't want to play... a Lidl machine grrrrrrrrrrrr!
She was able to borrow a Bernette though, so she did get these blocks done.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Ronny's Masterpiece



This quilt was inspired by a very small picture in a book.
Ronny decided she wanted to make something like it. So, she enlarged the picture, drew the design lines onto an old cotton bedsheet and gave each part a number, about 90.
After searching for the right fabric colours, Ronny cut out and machine stitched the 90 pieces onto the white sheet, very close to each other.... from this point she hand stitched bias tape over all the joins.
Quite a simple plan for such a spectacular quilt!

Birte's Easter Bunny


Birte finished her Easter Bunny Quilt, see here... he is already hanging on her wall!!

Saturday 21 March 2009

Easter Bunny Sandwich


The title makes me laugh, Easter Bunny Sandwich, with chocolate butter.... yummy.
My Giant bunny is ready for quilting. I found this Easter eggy fabric for the backing in my stash, I was surprised to find 7 different Easter style fabrics to choose from, now why on earth I bought them in the first place just escapes me!

Friday 20 March 2009

Practical Pink Things?

At the supermarket (Jumbo) the other day, a guy was filling the apple tray...
he was taking these pink protecting things off the apples and was throwing them into a box on the floor....

I have lots of these spools of rayon thread. They are difficult to control, the silky thread slips off so easily, and I tend to get wasted thread as it knots around itself... it's a bit of a pain actually.....

I had a brainwave.... so I asked the guy if it would be ok for me to take a few home with me.... he said it was fine as they were going to be thrown away anyway.....
they are perfect!!!

I got lots and lots... recycling at it's best!!!

Thursday 19 March 2009

Quilt Cave


Garen brought in her hand dyed fabrics from the workshop on Sunday
Ana also brought hers, she started with different base colours so her rainbow is a little different...
but look at this one.... done by putting 2 layers of colour in the same pot at different times... I think this is my favourite piece....
Sally brought in her 'quilt as you go' thing from last class last week, this is one side
and this is the other. She used very ugly fabrics as this was just to practice the method.

Ursula quilted palm trees all over one of the charity quilts....

Therese finished the applique eggs, bow and basket handle on her Easter Bunny then added the borders.

I did another demonstration of curved piecing... afterwards everyone made templates to try their own curves...

Sally found a few more 'ugly' fabrics and soon whipped up this block. She liked the method without pins.

Blue Lady (Rosalia) is ahead of the game, she actually quilted her Easter Bunny today!
Garen was showing Arabela how to embroider the petal stitch....

Arabela finished all the blocks for her 2 Log Cabin quilts.... she will use this design for both of them.

Amalia got a lot done today , it's a dead give away that she was a teacher all her life, look how 'proper' she sits in the teacher chair! he he he

She was working on this Kaffe Fassett design again today, by the time she left at the end of the day, more borders had been added, it's looking very good.

16 completely finished charity quilts. We have two more that need a bit of work on the binding and 5 more need some extra quilting... but we are coming to the end of our charity stitching now as the fabric box is almost empty, thank goodness!