It's Quilt Show time

Do you want to see some beautiful quilts, traditional, art and pictorial, shop at 7 wonderful quilting shops or have a delicious coffee and cake or light lunch?
The Waverley Patchworkers Quilt Show is on this weekend. The committee and I have worked so hard on this show hoping to make it a success. There is nothing more I can do except set up the show on Friday and hope people come on Saturday and Sunday.

We printed 3,000 flyers and have none left, so maybe some people have saved them and are planning on coming. I have had displays in 3 libraries and have had the dates in all the Guild newsletters and the patchwork and quilting magazines.

This week the local paper wrote a lovely little article about the show.

There was also an article in the Waverley Review an online magazine. http://www.monashweekly.com.au/story/1802811/waverley-patchworkers-quilt-show-see-magical-artworks/

I hope any readers who live in Victoria can try and make it to our show. We have a record number of quilts. Our challenge this year was red and white and a touch of black and we have a record number of entries for that as well. I am pretty sure that we have over 65 challenge entries which is a huge number for a challenge.

The Waverley Art Quilters will have a display as well so there is something for everyone.

The Quilt Show is being held at the Mt Waverley Community Centre, 47 Miller Crescent, Mt Waverley, Victoria.
Saturday 9am - 5pm and Sunday 9am - 4pm.
Entry is $8.

I have been so concentrated on the quilt show that I couldn't do any sewing. I felt too scattered and couldn't concentrate on anything, so I spent my time in front of the TV at night winding threads onto embroidery cards. Remember when I bought all those wonderful new threads?

Well I know from past experience that I won't use them when they are kept like this. So this mindless activity has given me something to do in my spare time. The threads are all wound now and ready to be put in my thread boxes in colour order.

Next week when the quilt show is over I can start sewing again.
Hope to see you there.



Bye for now,
Linda

Round Robin-Helen's Block

I am participating in a Round Robin with the Southern Cross Crazies. Last month I received Helen's underwater themed blocks to work on.

I chose her block number 3 because I liked the way the patches looked together and I thought it would suit my style of embroidery.

Helen's blank base

I have done crazy quilt underwater themed blocks before so it was easy for me to start. I did the motifs first.

I decided it needed a bit more and I had to add another jellyfish in the top right hand corner. Two looked a bit sparse and you are supposed to have an odd number of motifs anyway.

That looked better. It was actually quite a time consuming block to do. Those little fish in the centre are done with a close stem stitch and they took quite a few hours to do.

The beauty of participating in Round Robins is that you get to see the work of other people.

Here are two other blocks that had already been done by other members.

They are different to mine but still the underwater theme. The bottom block was really heavy with those rocks and stones along the bottom.

I have posted the blocks onto the next person in line and I still haven't received the next lot. I don't mind that they are a bit late because most of my time is being taken up with organising the Waverley Patchworkers Quilt Show.
This time next week we should be set up and ready to go.

Bye for now,
Linda

90 Years Young

I have a friend who turned 90 last week. She must have good genes because she is such a healthy and active lady.
Marie Hart has been a member of Waverley Patchworkers since the early days and has been on the committee for every quilt show except the last couple when I told her that she wasn't allowed to anymore! (In a nice, kind way of course). When I am asking for help at the quilt show, hers is always the hand that comes up first.

Here is the President of Waverley giving Marie a huge basket of red cyclamens.

Marie is so well loved that she has an award at our quilt show named after her. It is the Marie Hart Award that is given to a beginner quilter.
I remember Marie when I first joined Waverley; I had done an arty class at the symposium and was really out of my comfort zone. There was a kind lady serving the tea and coffee and I was telling her about my experience and she was very sympathetic and kind to me. I didn't know the lady's name at the time but it turned out to be Marie.

Now I am fortunate to call Marie a friend and am in a friendship group with her. Last week our group had our own little party for her. She was so happy and talked non stop.

Everyone has made a fuss of her and at her main party she stood and talked to everyone for 6 hours without sitting down. I don't think that I could do that.

Speaking of the quilt show, it is on at the end of this month and I am spending a huge amount of time on it. The award rosettes arrived this week and we have done the layout of the quilts. So we are on track for a wonderful show.

I chose red for the rosettes because our raffle quilt is a red and white quilt and the challenge is red and white with a touch of black. We already have over 60 entries for the challenge; I can't wait to see them all.

Bye for now,
Linda

New Threads

I have received lots of new embroidery threads in the mail. Do I need new embroidery threads? Of course not, but who can resist?
Actually I didn't seek them out myself but Viv, one of the Southern Cross Crazies had been to a shop in Western Australia where she lives and found that that they were selling out of all their stock of embroidery threads at a really cheap price. I can't remember what type of shop it was but it was nothing to do with patchwork or embroidery and they had been tucked away at the back of the shop.

Viv sent us the colour charts for all the threads and ribbon and we made our choices. They are all the House of Embroidery brand which are hand dyed variegated threads and ribbons from South Africa. It was very exciting when they arrived.

Pearl 8 Thread

Silk Thread

Silk Ribbon

The postage wasn't quite as much as Viv had quoted and so she gave us some extra supplies to make up for it. Fabric of every colour and type that is perfect for crazy quilting.

Fabric

Beads

Braids

Viv must have an amazing amount of supplies because she said that they didn't make a dent in hers. She was far too generous and I felt very lucky to have received so much.

They have come at a good time for me because I have just started a new crazy quilt and these new threads will be very inspiring.
 The Pearl 8 threads can be hard to find but I know of an online source. Lorraine hand dyes them herself and I haven't used them myself yet but one of the Southern Cross Crazies said that they were beautiful threads. The shop is called Colour Complements, I recommend that you have a look; they look so luscious to me.

I had better get onto my embroidery or my new quilt will never get finished.

Bye for now,
Linda

Round Robin Needle-case 2

I am participating in a couple of Round Robins with the Southern Cross Crazies this year and I have just finished my work on Arlene's Needle-case.

One of the group had already done some work on it and I got started on the embroidery before I remembered to take a photo, so ignore the stem stitch vine that I started.

Arlene's Needle-case

 I found it very hard to embroider on such a collection of busy fabrics. Everything I did didn't show up very well. I was doing the centre section where the needle-case would be folded over so I didn't want to embroider anything too bulky.

It looks quite pretty but can you hear me sighing! I know why I always stick to plain fabrics when I make my bases. I think Arlene was really trying to challenge us.

Bye for now,
Linda