Paddy's Market at the Embroiderers Guild.

Paddy’s Market
Saturday November 5, 2011 10am to 1pm
The cupboards of Embroidery House are full to explosion point with donated goods that will be moved on at bargain prices. Our members have been busy cleaning out their sewing rooms as well as producing fantastic products to sell. Books, fabric, canvas, threads, hoops and frames, wools, notions and more. Be early to search for that fantastic find at The Embroiderers Guild, Victoria. 170 Wattletree Road, Malvern. 3144

Crazy patchwork block

For the Skill Builder Samplers last week, Leila asked us to make a crazy patchwork block. I was happy to do it, as I love this technique. I used some of my opshop ties to make this block. The photo does not do it justice however; the colours are much more 'purple' than what they look here. Additional comment Thanks to all who commented on this block. I don't plan to embellish it in any way at this stage, but I am thinking of making some more blocks with the ties, perhaps a different colour scheme for each block. Goodness only knows I've got enough differently coloured ties to do another 10 blocks!

Photos of quilt show on other blog.

The quilt show at Nunawading was great! I've just posted my photos on my Quilt Show Blog here. I would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment on there if you have a look at it. That blog only had two visitors when I posted the last lot of photos from the NOTY quilt show at Eltham Community Centre. At least, only two bloggers kindly left a comment to let me know they had stopped by! I just want to know if it is worthwhile continuing to do this; if not, I won't bother any more, as it takes a while to transfer the photos from my camera to the computer, then on to the blog. I do know how much I enjoy seeing photos of quilt and craft shows in other states of Australia, and around the world, that I would never see if people didn't post photos on their blogs.

Another Quilt show in Melbourne suburbs this week.

Eastern Palliative Care is holding its inaugural quilt show on Friday 21 October and Saturday 22 October at the Nunawading Uniting Church 355 – 357 Whitehorse Road Nunawading from 10 am – 4.30 p. Beautiful quilts, some never seen in public before are coming from metro and regional Victoria, interstate and overseas. Retailers will be in attendance, there will be demonstrations and fabulous refreshments. All proceeds will support Eastern Palliative Care in the provision of its free, specialist in-home palliative care service.

How to make mini Christmas stockings.

Last week I posted a photo of some mini Christmas stockings I'd made for a charity group. I made some more this weekend, and took a couple of photos as I went along, as a few people have asked me how I made them. First step is to cut strips of Xmas themed fabric and sew them on to calico or other foundation fabric on the angle as shown here. (I'm sure most of you would know what to do here - the first strip is face up, sew the next strip face down on the first, press back, and so on). Next step is to make a template of the stocking, and cut out two from the strips, remembering to reverse the template for the second cut. Sew bias binding across the top of each piece, lay them right sides together, sew up all around to the top, and turn right side out. The first time I did this, I sewed the bias binding to the top after I'd stitched the stocking pieces together, but it was so fiddly, I did it the easy way this time. It probably isn't as neat as some people would like, but hey, they are going to be filled with candy and given to underpriviledged children - do you think they will care about a bit of untidy binding?? I nearly forgot - add a piece of ribbon or ric rac to the stocking somewhere, so it can be hung from a Xmas tree or whatever.

Owls and Pussy Cats.

Thank you to those who left comments on the previous post about the Owls. I have decided to leave the metallic running stitch around the owls, but I removed what I'd done from the feet, as it really looked 'clunky' because they are small in comparison to the rest of the design. I re-stitched them in the same gold thread that I've used to backstitch around the moon, and they (feet) look heaps better. I've got a few small finishing touches to add, and when it's all done, I'll post a final photo.
I probably won't be posting anything here for a few days now, as I am going to get stuck into the Rainbow Kittens to try and finish them for the Whittlesea Show in the first week of November.

Owls wall hanging just about finished.

I was determined to finish this today, and it is all done apart from the final hand quilting of the border, and the moon and stars. I am going to place a gold bead in the centre of each star as well as stitch around them, as I saw something similar at the Quilt show on the weekend, and it looked lovely. I'm not 100% happy with the trapunto work; the padding itself looks good, but I've used a metallic thread to quilt the owls, and it looks too hard. You can't really tell from this photo, but close up...I'll see how I go for time, I might pull it out and redo it in gold stranded cotton, which I will be using on the moon and stars.

NOTYQ Exhibition at Eltham Community Centre today.

NOTYQ stands for North Of The Yarra Quilters, who put on a display of their members' quilts every two years, and it is always a fabulous exhibition. I took 38 photos, and have posted them all on this blog for anyone to look at. I keep that blog just for my photos of the quilt and needlecraft shows that I go to, so that I can delete each show when I post photos of a new one. If you happen to visit the blog, please leave a comment so I know you've been there; there are never any comments on it, so I have no idea if it is worthwhile posting all those photos!

Quilt UFO at opshop.

I have volunteered to work at our Brotherhood Of St Lawrence opshop for two half days a week, and am thoroughly enjoying the experience of helping to sort out all the stuff that people donate every day. This morning I found this unfinished quilt, and asked the manager to price it so I could buy it. She said she didn't really know what they would put on it, and asked me to suggest an amount. I said $10, and she was happy with that, as most of the goods in the shop are under $10. It has the batting and backing, and has been partially hand quilted, so that needs to be finished off, and the binding added. I've brought it home so I can send it to Jan, to finish off and add to her next shipment of OzComfort Quilts. I hoping she will be able to finish off the quilting by machine, as it would take ages to finish by hand, and Jan does so many quilts for her OzComfort Quilts, I hate to think I might have given her an extra workload! Tiger kept on strolling in front of the quilt every time I tried to take a photo, so after three attempts, I just left him there!

Mini Xmas stockings, mug rugs and coasters

Jan over at Oz Comfort Quilts has asked her followers if they would make some little Xmas stockings to be distributed to needy children via various charities. I have had a pattern for these for a while now, and was glad to use it for one of Jan's charity projects. I'm sending them on to her with my recently completed quilt top. I exchanged mug rugs with Jean in New Zealand a while ago, but have only just got around to photographing the rug she did for me. We had a giggle over the size of hers - it was the first one she'd done, and when she received mine, she realised hers was a tad large! But I assured her it didn't matter - mats of any size are useful on coffee tables - our remote control caddy sits nicely on this.
This mug rug is from Wendy in the USA - another exchange partner. I sent her a mug rug, tea towel, napkins and Tim Tams, and in return she sent me this lovely mat, two sets of beautiful coasters, and a packet of chocolate flavoured licorice. I'm afraid I wasn't too keen on that, so I shared it with my American friend here, and Ken has scoffed the rest of it!

Progress report on my current projects.

I have started the Trapunto stitching on the Owls wallhanging. It is slow going, because I am using gold thread, to blend with the gold printed outline of the owls.
The Rainbow Kittens haven't been pushed to one side. The blanket stitching around the cat has been completed on three blocks, and there are three to go. I half finished one today while I was at the Guild.
All the pieces are ready to attach to the background fabric for my 'Abandoned At The Opshop' project, and I will probably work on this next week.

Showing off my work!

The Embroiderers' Guild change their gallery display once a month, and invite members to submit their work according to the theme selected for the month. For October, the theme is 'Flowers', so I submitted my Iris wallhanging and the smaller YoYo flowers hanging. When I arrived for my volunteer duty today, I was tickled pink to see them hanging up with all the other beautiful embroideries! When you enter the Gallery, this is on the left side (the tables and chairs are there because there was a class on before I took the pictures): And these are on the right: My small floral hanging is under the larger quilted item on the left. The Iris quilt is at the end of the row. The Guild members there today said it really made a statement with those purple fabrics! They were surprised when I told them the centrepiece was a tea towel.
They stay here for the month of October, then I'll be taking them to Whittlesea, and later on to Lilydale for the Homecraft shows.

Grand Final Day.

I had a most productive day - my Grand Final was the completion of my second 'charity quilt' top for Oz Comfort Quilts. I added the border to finish it off, and it is ready to send to Jan to make up into a quilt. The colours of the border fabric don't look much in this photo; they actually match the brown blocks rather well. With the two four patch squares and patterned fabric left over, I made a little block for myself as a memento of this quilt! While I was looking in my books for instructions for Trapunto, I came across instructions for 'reverse applique', in my old book Reader's Digest Book of Needlecraft. I haven't looked at this book for years, but I can't bring myself to part with it, as it does give very detailed instructions for many kinds of needlework. I did find a kind of Trapunto, but not quite what I want, and while I was flipping through the pages I came across a chapter on Reverse Applique. I'd seen this on a few blogs, and wondered briefly what it was all about. Now I know! I did a quick trial run, using three fabrics. They are stacked on top of each other, tacked together, and pieces cut from each top layer to show the layers beneath. In my case I used a piece of patchwork fabric with sun and stars as the bottom piece. On top of that is a piece of fawn colour, then the green floral. A square piece was cut away from the green, then a circle cut from the fawn, to show the sun. At the last moment I cut a bit more to show one star! Before the pieces are cut, the edge is machine stitched to hold the fabric while you cut. A very interesting exercise!

Progress on my Owls.

The border is done. I took this idea from the many quilts and wall hangings I've seen at craft shows and in magazines - so quick and easy. Just sew strips of fabric together, then cross-cut them to make new strips with little blocks of each fabric! My next step with this is to add the batting, backing and binding, but this won't be as easy. I want to do the owls in trapunto, which I've never done before. But I've been shown how to do it, and have instructions both on the Net and in books and mags. Don't hold your breath watching for the final result! Although it would be nice if it was ready to go in one of the Shows coming up.

Skill Builder sampler block.

Last week, Leila wanted her online students to make a block at random, a picture of a house or other scene. I scribbled a few designs on paper, but nothing looked any good, so I chose this design from Susan Briscoe's book "Japanese Quilt Blocks". The colours are all wrong in this photo, but hopefully you get the gist of it: A house on a base of flowers, with a background of earthy colour, then blue mountains and sky. It didn't take long to do, and has inspired me to have a closer look at this book, which I've had for a while, but not yet made anything from it. Only lack of spare time has prevented me! So this little House was the perfect opportunity to play.

Owls Wall hanging.

A couple of years ago, my generous buddy Sharon gave me a beautiful Japanese style piece of fabric with owls on it, knowing how much I love the little critters. I've had plans for it ever since, but as we all know, when you have too many projects to do, some get overlooked in the passage of time. Yesterday I was searching for some material to make the border for my Oz Comfort quilt top, and found a nice shade of red in my stash, that I thought might suit. When I put it against the browns, it didn't really 'go', so I put it aside. Later I was fossicking among my Japanese fabric stash and pulled out the owl fabric to think about it again. It sat on top of the red fabric and 'spoke to me' - perfect for the inner border! The next wide border will be squares of various Japanese fabrics joined together in a row, and that in turn will be edged by another red tone for the binding.
So here it is with the red border, which will be narrower than this once I add the next border. I was busy with other things today - putting my name and rod sleeves on two of my wall hangings, which are going to the Guild on Thursday, to be hung in the October display of members' work. But I still had time to put this red border on my Owls!

Skill Builder Block Sampler No.11

This isn't really what I wanted to learn when I joined Leila's group, as it is more like a version of crazy patchwork cut into triangles and rejoined. Interesting but not terribly educational. Leila called it "Beacon Light", whatever that means.
I've added another three rows of blocks to my Brown charity quilt, and am satisfied that it will be big enough to cover a single bed. All I have to do now is sew a border, but I haven't got enough of the right colour fabric to do that, so it will have to wait for a few days to be finished.

Some old fancy work completed.

Today was the final day of the Embroiderers' Guild annual exhibition. I should have posted something here earlier to remind Melbourne readers of this blog to visit the exhibition if they could, as it was a fabulous display this year. Sadly they have a policy of 'no photos allowed', otherwise I would have taken a heap of pictures to post here. My favourite exhibit was a spectacular Crazy Patchwork quilt - one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
I worked in the Gift Shop two days last week, and today I was on duty as a 'demonstrator'. The Guild asks members to spend half a day (or a full day) in the Gallery, stitching one of their projects, so visitors to the exhibition can see how some of the works on show are actually created. Before the exhibition opened a few weeks ago, I noticed on the roster that there was no Demonstration stitcher on the last day, so I offered my time. I said that it would only be 'ordinary traditional embroidery' - not anything special like hardanger, drawn thread work, tatting, etc. and the person I spoke to said it would be a nice change for visitors to see someone working on 'ordinary stuff' that they would more likely to have done themselves.
So I brought along Ken's mum's 70 year old Semco stamped linen tablecloth, and assorted UFO vintage 'fancy work' which I thought would appeal to the old ladies (80+) who attend the exhibition every year. I was right! Most of the people my age and younger smiled politely at me and moved on, but the older ladies came up and said things like "Oh I did so much of that when I was young" and "I've still got all my unfinished doilies and cloths!" One lady who looked to be in her 40's came over and chatted for a while, saying she had her grandmother's UFOs in a cupboard, and had intended finishing them one day, but decided she probably never would as her eyesight wasn't as good as it used to be. I showed her the magnifing glass I have hanging around my neck, to magnify my work while stitching, and she thought that was a great idea. She wandered off to look at the rest of the display, but came back some time later, and said "You've inspired me. I'm going to buy one of those magnifying glass things, and get out Grandma's embroidery and start working on it. Thank you so much!" Isn't that lovely?
Here is what I achieved today. It doesn't look like much, but I was chatting to people inbetween stitching, so it wasn't non-stop work. I've had these pieces for so long, and they only needed about 10 or 15 minutes of work on each to finish them off. I can't remember if this was one of MIL's, or one of my former Home Care clients' work. It is very old, and has obviously been well used, as the fabric is soft from washing, and the colours faded. The original pattern stamped on it has faded to almost nothing, so I had to improvise and stitch where I thought flowers etc. might have been. It's finished for me now - not going to search for any more faded marks! This art deco style linen tea cosy attracted a few comments today. I can't remember where I got this one either - could have been eBay, an opshop find, or somebody at the Guild may have given it to me. It only need some stem stitching and satin stitch in black thread to complete it on both sides, so it is now ready for a soak in Napisan to get rid of the stains, and then I'll find someone to crochet around the edge. This is one of a pair of doilies that I have been carting around with me to hospital waiting rooms for years! I finished the other one last year, so I was pleased to get this one done today. This peacock duchess set centrepiece is another one I've been working on for years. I've been determined to finish it for once and for all, but didn't quite get there today either. But there's not much to do now, and it will be great to clean it up and display it on my dressing table with the matching doilies!
These two doilies (pictures above and below) came along for the ride today, but I didn't do anything on them because I didn't have the appropriate stranded cottons with me. So they just sat on the table to be commented on by the passing parade!

Quilt top in brown tones.

Here is what I've done so far with those brown tone fabrics. I haven't had enough experience yet to work out accurately how much fabric I need to make a whole (single bed) quilt, so I just made up a bunch of four patch squares, cut an equal number of the dark pattern fabric and joined them up. Looks like I'll need to make the same again to be big enough for a bed, but at least this time I've been making notes as I go, so if I want to do this again, I've got it all written down. Great learning curve, I really enjoyed doing this.

It's non stop sewing here lately!

Between kitten blocks, skill builder sample blocks, and other WIPs, my dear old sewing machine has been getting quite a work out. By the way, I took Doreen's advice and bought some Jeans needles to replace the Universal needle in my machine. The Singer is now singing much more smoothly, lol! Jan from Oz Comfort Quilts has been overseas on a well-deserved holiday, and I promised her I would have another quilt top for her to make into a quilt by the time she got back. She's back home now, and looking for work (ha ha!) so I spent today making four patch blocks in three shades of brown plus white, to match this fabric I found at the opshop recently. All I need to do now is to cut enough squares of that to match the number of four patch blocks, sew them together, add a border, and voila! another quilt top for Jan to play with.