Parua Bay

Yesterday we had a ‘Sunday Drive’ on a Saturday, and ended up at Parua Bay Tavern for a late lunch.
It was such a beautiful day we ate outside, overlooking the water and watching boats slowly coming and going.
The Tavern was quite busy and had a lot of day trippers popping in for lunch.
I thought the water had a 'painterly' look to it as it was calm with only a few ripples

The Jetty at Parua Bay Tavern, taken from our table.

The Coast Guard going out to cruise around the boats.  (Also taken from our picnic table)

Now for a puzzle. When I took photos off my Husbands camera, there was this shot. 

What do you think it is?

Cotton wool, batting, snow?

No it is looking out the plane window, on Husband's recent flight to Wellington.

He said it was very cloudy, now I believe him!

 He took this photo especially for me because he thought it looked like quilt batting :-) 

Sun rising over the clouds

Here you can see the Sun coming up.

He always takes photos from the plane and they usually come out quite good.

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend too, 

How to make a 3D Bow Tie Block

This is the block that Lynda demo'ed at our last club meeting. It's really easy, looks much harder than it is.

Start with 5 squares, 2 background and 3 bow tie colours.

Fold one of your bow tie fabrics in half.

Make a sandwich with a background square, the folded square, and another bow tie square.

(right sides together)

NB the arrow in the photo above is pointing to the edge of the fold, on the folded fabric square)

Sew your seam catching the folded fabric between the other squares.

This is what it looks like after you have sewn  the seam, and folded fabrics back. 

Now repeat and sew the other 2 squares to the other side of folded fabric.
NB make sure your fabrics are placed, the opposite of last time so you end up with this.

Lift it up and open the little pocket made by the folded fabric.

Pin the ends, then gently squash block together so the centres meet. 

Pin the 'pocket' edges into the seam. Don't worry if this is wonky and not straight it works out!

See still looks a bit wonky when sewn, but take the pins out and....

Open it up to reveal a beautiful 3D Bow Tie block

Show n Tell & Meeting August 2011

Sorry for the long wait, life has been busy and when it slowed down all I wanted to do was sit in front of a heater this week. Overseas readers won't know but we have had a Polar Blast from Antarctica this week in New Zealand. We have even had snow in parts of the 'winterless' Northland. No snow here but I have been wearing thermals all week, and today when it was 15C I felt warm for the first time in ages! Which is funny because I usually think it's cold when it's 15C !  Anyway onto the long overdue Show n Tell from last Saturdays Quilt Club Meeting.

These three pictures are in one wallhanging called 'Cruisers Capers' but I wanted to take close ups so you could all see the details.

This gorgeous little dog is Sonya Prchal's. She printed photos of Cruiser onto fabric and the thread painted them with free motion embroidery.

Sue Gillard purchased this fabric from our merchant at last months meeting (Country Dawn) and whipped up this casserole carrier.

Opps Camera was on the wrong setting! Sorry about that. Pauline Schon wanted to try a tessellated star technique, so made this placemat. That's a good idea to made something small when you want to try a new technique. 

Carmel Spray made this table mat, to try out a pattern from a library book.

Shelia Ujdur made this stack n wack quilt using an Australian fabric she bought a few years ago. The large print was perfect for this technique, and when you have a close look there are a lot of Aussie bugs and animals. See the grubs n bugs in the close up below?

This is 'Fishy Tails' made by Sue Gillard for a yet to be born great nephew. Sue said she wouldn't attempt so many half square triangles again in a hurry! The pattern was from one of our club library books.

Opps wrong setting on camera again! 

But this lovely Ryan McKenna quilt was made by Dorothy Tersptra.

Same deal with the camera sorry, must check photos before quilts taken down next month!

Carol Mayes made this quilt using the fabric her daughter in law gave her. Her daughter in law really liked the fabric so Carol decided to make this quilt for her. 

Carol Mayes also made this incredible piece to go on the bottom of her bed. There is so much to look at, with so many different embellishments. Carol said she had been collecting items for years and started making this coverlet while recuperating from surgery. Below is a close so you can see all the work involved. Carol said she enjoyed every stitch, and couldn't put it down. (close up below)

'My Blue Heaven' by Shirley Julian inspired by a wall hanging made by Larkin Van Horn, that Shirley saw at Queenstown Symposium. Shirley said 'its really a machine quilting sampler, and was fun to do'.

Same panel two different looks. Wall hanging and quilt by Petra Pilkington. 

These beautiful butterflies had no label & I can't remember who made them. Please someone leave a comment and let me know so I can update the post. 

This quilt was really lovely, and very big! I couldn't get it all in the photo, but there are triangles on the left hand border too! (Also the wide border is a lovely yellow/cream not the white of the photo). It's called 'Sweet Dreams' and Shirley Julian made it.

It is the 3D Bow Tie block that Lynda Demo'ed how to make at the meeting, but instead of using matching fabric to make the bow, Shirley has made a scrap version with all the blocks having a 3D black centre. Sandy Robinson quilted it, and Shirley said she is thrilled with the results. (close up below)

This is one of the club charity quilts. It was put together by one of our satellite groups & quilted by Leonie Wihongi

'Cone Flowers' by Gaylyn Barclay. Gaylyn was inspired by a Quilting Arts Magazine. It's white fabric, free motion quilted & coloured by water soluble pastels. 

Pam Carr made this from a sample pack of fabric, and hand quilted it using crochet cotton.

I love the large ric rac.

Also on Saturday we celebrated Audrey Cox's 90th Birthday. Here's Audrey cutting the cake & Fiona presenting her with flowers. (Fiona made several large cakes so we all got to have a piece. It was so yummy there were requests for the recipe to be in the next newsletter, so watch out for that.)   

Lynne King (right) was our guest speaker at club. She spoke about flower pounding & gave a us all a demo too. Her last class was very popular so there maybe another held soon. So see Lynne Wilson if you are interested in doing the class.

Dargaville Quilt Show

Fiona, Margaret & I went to the Dargaville Quilt Show last Friday.
We meet at Fiona’s and I thought you’d like to see Fiona’s baby lambs,
it means Spring must be coming soon!







Fiona’s husband said I could help him
cut their tails off soon.
No thanks I’ll just take photos.






OK on to the quilts now.
I just took a few photos, there were a lot of quilts at the show, and the venue was really nice,
so well done Dargaville Quilters.


This is an amazing quilt using different fabric and technique's,
sorry I couldn’t get a straight on photo.
 (the orange at the bottom is from the quilt displayed on the other side)








Here’s a detail from the border.
The fabric is folded into 3D origami Kimonos. 








Fiona really liked this one, and thought it could be a good way for her to use some of her
New Zealand fabrics.





There were several wallhangings on display made in this class. This was my favourite as the colours glowed.

I really liked this. The details are great. Click on the photo to enlarge it and have a look at the details; keys, woven baskets, tattoo, shells the more you look the more you see.
 (on my computer I have to click on photo, and then click again on the photo that comes up to get an enlarged view, so try this if you only get a small photo when you click) 




These wall hangings were really nice, this is just one of the feature blocks.
I’m sure they will be appreciated at the Hospital.



After the Quilt Show we had a bit of retail therapy with Country Dawn (who said they are thinking of moving into a shop in town). Then at the Dargaville Sewing Centre (Janome) which has moved to a bigger shop on Normandy St.


When we returned to Fiona’s the chickens were out, but they didn’t like having their photo taken and ran away.


PS: tutorial for the 3D Bow Tie Block we demo'ed at Club Day, should go on tomorrow and then Show n Tell from Saturday after that. Bye