Stawell Quilters Fat Quarter Christmas Challenge...Received...

I bought a fat quarter when we went to Geelong early in the year for the Stawell Quilters Fat Quarter Christmas swap...I liked the colour and thought there was a good mix of other colours in the pattern for someone to run with and be able to put other fabrics with it without it being too restrictive.  From this...

I received this... 

Isn't it fabulous! A giant hexie (my favourite shape) and the lovely lady who made it for me included perfect complimentary fabrics to the one I put in the paper bag, she picked up the colours in the pattern perfectly.  The small centre hexie is held in with a magnetic bag closer so the scissors can be removed for use

and then the hexie clipped back on with the scissors tucked into their holder on the side...clever...

The presents swapped were all so imaginative and well thought out but I think I scored the best of all...

Happy Stitching...

Stawell Quilters Fat Quarter Christmas Present Swap...Made and Given...

Again this year I played in the Stawell Quilters fat quarter swap for the Christmas dinner.  A fat quarter is given in a brown paper bag with your name on earlier in the year, the bags are put in a basket and randomly distributed to each player and a present is made for the person whose name is on the brown paper bag with/incorporating their contributed fat quarter.  I got someone I didn't know "HS" who had put in an interesting piece of fabric and was relying on my friend's knowledge of her likes.  Then I met her briefly at the Quilt Show and took particular notice of the quilts she had hanging (and her challenge piece).  My first thought at the start was to make a block keeper and I wavered back and forth and mucked about with patterns and ideas and in the end came back to my original - and made a block keeper.  I had found a watercolour type fabric in Spotlight not long after the paper bags were distributed which had exactly the right colours in it but I struggled with how to re-imagine the given fabric...which I really liked by the way...

Then inspiration struck and I came up with a dresden plate...

(I had to pinch a picture from the Group as I forgot to take one of it finished)

I was happy with how it turned out...not so much the project pocket that was to go with it that we won't discuss (it is still on the sewing table thinking about its bad behaviour!)...and HS said she didn't have a block keeper and was happy with it...she likes circles which I'd forgotten about from the Club challenge but which must have been there in the sub-conscious!!

While a little stressful thinking what to make I do like this swap and hope the Group continues with it...if you are on the BookFace and search Stawell Quilters Inc all the lovelies that were made from the fat quarters are on the Christmas Dinner post, I have no idea how to link to that particular post and BookFace is tiresome so I'm not going to even try.

Happy Stitching...

Embroiders Guild Christmas Challenge...

Guild had a challenge for those attending our Christmas lunch...one of the Committee members made up packs from her sewing room (she wanted to have a bit of a clean out) and the challenge was to make an item, any item, utilising what was in your pack...and no two packs were the same except for just about all containing floss skeins of yellow/gold hues, she had a lot of yellow/gold floss from a previous goldwork project she wanted gone and the challenge packs offered a perfect opportunity.  This was my pack...

For some reason when I saw the fabric I thought of sunflowers - seriously my imagination is weird sometimes - and a pincushion.  Well, the sunflower stuck but as it morphed from a stitchery to a wool felt arrangement the block size increased and a pincushion the size of a small ottoman morphed into a small block keeper, then I decided to "frame" the block so it went from 8" to 10"... I called a halt to any further "improvements".  I used an old Leanne's House pattern as the basis and construction method.

It was fun to play with the wool felt and I'm rather impressed with the bullion stitch bumble bee as I managed it first time without any pulling out and restitching - even if the wings are a bit vampire bat-like!...I was going to do french knots for the stamens but after doing a few decided it looked ridiculous so used black seed beads stitched on with the yellow floss instead, much happier. 

Had fun and it's useful.

Happy Stitching...

Stawell Quilters Exhibition Challenge...Circling Parrots

The Stawell Quilters Bienniel Exhibition was held in October and the member's challenge was ܏set - a green batik or, when the Craft Shop ran out of the green and there wasn't more to be sourced, a purple alternative, the theme: circles and a couple of technical parameters. Mmmm...from the fabric my mind went to Gariwerd/The Grampians and that led to birds and circles to looking out windows and the end result doesn't convey any of that - ha ha, an art quilter I am not!... At the last minute (like when my friend was collecting it from me at work to kindly take to the venue the morning of set-up) it needed a name so quickly we came up with "Circling Parrots". 

I played about with different things on this small quilt...crayon colouring of the birds then back stitching the outlines which I really enjoyed...hand and machine applique (consistently not flash at the machine applique so that became a design element in itself I decided - yep, artistic licence of the broadest variety, he he he) and a bit of machine quilting because the hand quilting wasn't working so it got frogged...

When I rocked up to the Exhibition on the Saturday I was told to "go look at the Challenges" ... huh? what? ... surely that is a mistake! a blue card pinned on my quilt - third place ... I'm still a bit flummoxed as to why but I'll take it and say thank you ...there it is hanging on the top right hand side...how fabulous are all the little quilts...

It was a fun Challenge...

Happy Stitching...

More Secret Sewing - SQT Small Quilt Swap 2018

Found in drafts...from July!...time it was updated and posted...the first time ever it wasn't a positive swap experience from my side as disappointingly I didn't receive anything in return and so the post was left to languish in drafts...
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I joined in again with the (was Yahoo Group now Groups.io) Small Quilt Talk annual Small Quilt Swap.  This is the wee quilt I sent...

(The day I finished it the sun was actually shinning and it wasn't raining

so I took it outside and pegged it on the yard fence)

Her interests included beach/water, outdoors/camping, travelling and music festivals so I tried to incorporate those with the little embroideries...she also liked scrappy and I love to play scrappy so that was fun...I didn't take a photo of the backing fabric but quite randomly in Spotlight I found a fabric that was printed with words relating to camping/the outdoors and woodland animals and that so fitted the bill...hand pieced and hand quilted with a variegated Auriful 28wt thread, I had planned big stitch quilting in 12wt thread but the big stitch look didn't do it for me so ditched that idea.

The whole package...

The quilt is about 18" square (I think maybe 18 1/2" - anyway somewhere in that vicinity)...

Happy Stitching...