Surprises

Last week I entered a couple of my quilts into the local show and was pleasantly surprised. The art quilt won 2nd place and then the small quilt came third.

The art quilt was a reminder of the boab trees in the Kimberleys when we travelled through the region on a recent trip. The small quilt is a Sue Daly Design. Titled “Field of Flowers”.

Textile treasures

Recently I attended a workshop with Lisa Walton from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. We dyed fabric and then added some stencilling to the fabric and painted designs onto the fabric.

The last day we started to put the fabric pieces together, it was sort of like putting a jigsaw together, this is what my finished piece looks like, now it needs to have some stitching on it to tame down some of the colours in it.

The colours remind me of the poem by Dorothea Mackellar “My Country” the land of drought, flooding rains and then the fires that are so much a part of rural life.

Quilting

This is also another project that I have slowly been working on. It was a jelly roll that had been in the cupboard for some time when I got the idea to make a french braid with it. It has turned out to be longer then I planned and still needs to have borders put on the sides.

  I like the shades of red through to black.

 

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Wallhanger

Over the last few weeks I have been doing some secret sewing , a challenge to make a banner with 2 owls on it using the selected fabric. The banners will be aired at a meeting of the club in March and voted on by members.

Mothers Day

This is what arrived in the post for me last week. It is just wonderful and of course I was pleasantly surprised. It came from my son who is working in Port Hedland in WA. I will be on the lookout for some layer cake pattern ideas now.

Field of Flowers

I have just finished this quilt top. It is a Sue Daly pattern and has a lot of applique and embroidery in it. It is a really nice pattern and a good one to have to take along when you have sew and stitch days. It has not been quilted yet so that could take awhile to finish.

Scraps

I have had some time lately to sort out some of my scraps that have been accumulating over a long period of time.I decided it must be time to do something with them so sorted into sizes that were from shop samples and I will just sew them all together and then maybe practise some machine quilting on them. This is only one lot of scraps- then there are all those 2.5 inch squares that will have to be another top. Then there seems to be alot of useless pieces that I dont really know why I even bought them, they will also be put to good use in another scrappy top.
One thing I have discovered is that polar fleece makes a good backing for using as a display sheet to stick the pieces to. The op shops have numerous polar fleece blankets.

Field of Flowers

I have finally finished the stitching on this quilt.The pattern is a Sue Daly design. It was one of those projects which I got so far then put it away for awhile before getting back to it. This is not a very good photo, I will have to give it another go sometime.
It is a really sweet design, I still have to quilt it and bind it.There is a lot of hand stitching on it which makes it slow going for me.

Sashiko

A cushion that I made with a piece of sashiko that I stitched while we were travelling last year.

Challenge Table Runner

Today I have finished making the table runner for the quilting club when it has the open day.The runners will be on display and can be voted on by members and the public visiting.We were given 2 fabrics to use, any method could be used. It also had to be a certain size and have 2 tassels on the 45 degree pointed end. I still have the tassels to make.

One of the fabrics I have used in the centre of the 4 squares set on point, the other is the bright green fabric that I have put on the back in the corner.
We have also had a supply of beetroot which I have been bottling and also made some beetroot chutney which I had not made before. It is very nice.