Finally gave Mark his Quilt

Mark came home this weekend! It has been great to have him here, and I finally gave him his quilt to take home. Other times he has been home he had no luggage space to take it back to Sydney. (Also last time I hadn’t  finished quilting it either!)


Here he is checking out all the NZ fabrics.


I collected heaps of New Zealand themed fabrics to make this quilt, and like any good quilter I have heaps left over.


This is the simple label I made for the back, with simple washing instructions! I hardly ever make labels quilts (I know I should). What about you, do you make labels for every quilt, or just ones you are going to give away?

25 Years of Show n Tell

Wow it's over a week now since the last club day, where has the time gone? All week I have been meaning to post, but you know life gets in the way. Nothing interesting to share just the normal work, kids, & husband stuff, anyway on with show n tell...

It was our clubs 25th Anniversary so we had cake!

Jocelyn made this yummy cake and had it iced with our club badge image.

Here's Jocelyn (our President) with members Relda & Gaye cutting the cake.

Table runner made by Pam Carr

'It's a Mystery to Me' by Janet Geeks. Mystery quilt made through the Ngunguru quilt group.

Disappearing Nine Patch by Hazel Phillips

Maureen Gray made this wall hanging to use up her NZ fabrics.
She is going to make another one as she still has plenty of fabrics.

Sue Gillard made this quilt for her brother's 70th birthday. Sue says 'He has a chihuahua which rules his life, so they can both cuddle up with this lap quilt while watching the Rugby!'

Sonya Prchal painted & machine embroidered this little beach scene.
 She will be adding this  to the classes she teaches.

Pam Carr bought is this is a 'Round Robin' quilt from 1996 to share as part of our 25th Anniversary celebrations.

It's a long time since we have done a shared project, maybe it's time to do one again.

Finishes, Birthdays and More

I finished my blue/yellow 'Made in Cherry' quilt. If you came to our recent Quilt Show you may have seen me machine quilting it, and trying to explain what I was doing to non-quilters.
Working on the demo table is always a fun thing to do at the Quilt Show, it's really fun answering questions from interested people.
The most asked question was 'Is that design programmed in your sewing machine?' So then I had to explain about free-motion quilting. :-)

I didn't have any blue pegs Sonya, so I used yellow instead!

                
I'm happy with my quilting, it's nowhere near perfect by any means, but I feel like I getting better!

So now I'm going to start on my other Made in Cherry quilt. I pin basted it using this closing tool I bought from Carol Mahoney (merchant at our last club meeting). It really saved my fingers from getting scratched and sore.

In other news I bought some stickers to bling my Janome. 

Why don't sewing machines come in different colours like cars? Wouldn't that be fun when buying a new machine saying "I'll have that one, but in red please."

  

My youngest Brad turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, we talked him into coming with us (Mum & Dad) to Auckland for the weekend. Parents of teens will understand about him not being keen to go away with his Parents! But he actually enjoyed the trip :-) . Here he is in the Sky Tower.

The other birthday was the Sky Tower, it turned 15 on the weekend.
The last time we had been up the Sky Tower Brad was about seven years old, and he couldn't remember it at all, so I'm glad we went again.

Sky Tower Auckland, New Zealand

Here's some photos I took from the Sky Tower.

Rangitoto Island  in the distance. (it's a dormant volcano) 

Mount Eden another old volcano in the background

CBD as the lights are coming on.

The Auckland Habour Bridge (top right)

Show n Tell August 2012

Well the meeting last Saturday went really well, and we even had quite a bit of show n tell. Usually after a Quilt Show there's not much at the next meeting, but we were lucky that new member Daphne Humphreys bought several of her quilts to share with us all.

Daphne Humphreys make this hand pieced quilt over 20 years. 

The design came from a photo in a book that her great-grandmother gave her. The original quilt is in the Royal Albert Museum and was never finished.

Daphne loves hexagon and crazy quilting. She has embellished each block. Amazing.

I love the Kowhai flowers on this block

Daphne made this hexagon quilt in country colours for her Son

detail of all the interesting fabrics

These large hexagons are Daphne's are 'Crazy Quilt Journal Project for 2012' 

Love this one!

What a great way to celebrate an anniversary.

Terri Mills made this lovely machine embroidered bowl using wash-away 

Pamela Danher made this crazy quilt using up a lot of her scraps. Pamela said it was fun and quick to make as it has no batting, but is backed with a heavy furnishing fabric and tied.

close up of one of the crazy blocks

This beautiful scarf (it's folded in half) was made by Dorothy Terpstra

Jenny Gough bought this on a recent trip to America. She fell in love with it, but thought she wouldn't be able to afford it. 

 When she asked about the price she was told $18 plus tax. Jenny's husband now wonders why she buys fabric to cut up when you can buy quilts so cheap!

Carol Mahoney of Carols Quilts was our Merchant and Guest Speaker at the meeting.  Here she is talking about some of her quilts.

She has recently started her own business selling templates, she has all sorts from hexagons to kiwis. I bought one of her tools and I'll show you that in another post.