It's our annual Quilt Show this week and yesterday I attended the set up.  A great range of quilts will be available to browse around and I thoroughly recommend you make some time to pop in and see the quilts. If you'd like to see the winners - pop over to Queensland Quilters Website.

 I managed to photograph my three quilts that I have entered.  No prizes this year, but I'm very proud of the quilts I've shown. 

This first quilt was completely hand made and hand quilted using a gold thread.  I used a paper piecing method to put the hexagons together, and also used a vast array of border prints to give the hexagons a frame. 

Of course, I ran out of black fabric towards the finish and so had to use some teal silk to make the black fabric last the distance.  I call this one Hexaggeration and it sits above our piano in the lounge.

 

 

The next quilt is a quilt I started in a workshop with Kerry Glen who owns 

 Tulis Textiles in New Zealand.  I changed the design considerably, and finally ended up with this completed wall hanging. 

I used the quilt as you go method in joining the blocks, which allowed me to machine quilt each block separately.  A delight to make and I'll be making another version again.
I call this one Cycles of Life.

The final quilt I entered is a needleturned applique quilt that I've had on the go since 1997.  In fact I finished piecing the quilt top the day Princess Diana died in Paris - 31st August 1997.  I call it Celtic Rose in her honour. 

The celtic patterns come from an old publication by Patricia Campbell with a huge amount of patterns.  I designed the applique borders myself and am pleased with the result.  This quilt is the only quilt I have hand quilted.

 

 

 

My darling husband and I spent a morning re-upholstering our dining chairs and a couple of "captains" chairs.  After getting a quote for $100 per chair from a commercial upholsterer, we decided to give it a go.  We purchased a little short of three meters and an electric staple gun.

It was so much fun and we're so pleased with the result.  MD did the stapling, while I manipulated the fabrics and made sure we didn't get any pleats on the front of the seats.

I love before and afters and we're pretty proud of these!!

The new chair is the lighter colour.  Yeah us!! 

Happy Birthday to our Sisters of Stitch group who celebrated their fourth birthday last week.  We had a hoot of a day - a beautiful cake made by Noelene - can you see the Linus Quilt and the ball of wool and needles?  Just gorgeous Noelene, and the patty cakes were delightful too.

Our cake was cut by Melissa (together with Felicity due in 10 weeks).  We played some word games and as always, some took the games very seriously and there were a few disputes over the allowed answers. 

To celebrate our fourth birthday, we donated 55 books to the Royal Children Hospital School which allows long term hospitalised children to have as much of a normal program as possible.  The library is always in need of resources, so it was our pleasure to collect gifts to them.

 

A terrific array of beautiful home made goodies were there for us to share.

 

Thank you to the Brisbane City Council Library service for making it possible to hold our fortnightly gatherings at the library - free of charge.  This means that we don't charge our members and that means as many people as possible are able to join us.
 

Hardanger Cushion completed!

Not having a reliable computer connection all week forced me into doing other things and amongst achieving to cross of stuff on my to do list, I also managed to complete this cushion cover I'm making for my lounge chair.  The lounge chair is floral in pastels so I selected the pastel perle cottons I had in my stash and started stitching.

I didn't use a pattern, just made up a grid and tried a few things out.  I'm really pleased with the end result and now I just have to find someone to make it up for me.  I've started on another for the same lounge suite, but this one will be in dusky pinks and greens.  I'll show you it when it's finished too!

 

Today we had our fortnightly meeting of the Sisters of Stitch, and one of our lovely ladies Robyn, bought along a couple of cuties for us to see.  These little twins were made in porcelaine by Robyn, with all the painting of the faces etc by Robyn and Robyn also designed and made the little outfits (including the toy rabbit) using very fine cotton and beads.  I just love these delightfuls, and thought you might like to see them too.

The following link will take you to Robyns website for more pictures of her wonderful creations.

Here's Robyns webpage if you'd like to see more

Robyn is just one of the crafters from the Sisters of Stitch who quietly go about their crafting.  I'm sure you'll agree she is one talented lady!



 

I've been busy finishing off a quilt that the Sunshine Linus members are donating to the Cystic Fybrosis Charity on the Sunshine Coast to auction off at their annual fundraising event in April.  It's a very pretty quilt (a Kalaeidoscope pattern) and we hope it raises lots of funds for this very worthwhile cause. 

When presenting a quilt, I think it always looks professional to present the quilt in a bag.  I've been making these (Pillowslip) bags for years and thought you might like to see it.




Here's the bag with the quilt in it - looks like a pillow slip but protects the quilt.

 



Here's the quilt - notice the fabric on the bag is the same as the fabric used as the backing of the quilt.

If you'd like instructions for making this quilt bag, here's the link:  http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art179644.asp

Have fun!

 

I've been busy making some little baby shoes for our Sunshine Linus stall in August.  You will probably know that I have a few little fettishes, and baby shoes is one of them.  Anyway......

I've made these three pairs, but have found it difficult deciding on a way to close them up.  The pattern calls for ribbon and in the above photo you can see that's what I've used.  These shoes were made of quilting fabric on the outside and felt on the inside.  They're soft, but perhaps not soft enough.  I stitched the ribbon onto the shoe, using a decorative embroidery stitch.  Not entirely happy with them.

These pink ones are made from felt both inside and out, and I embroidered some pretty stitches to hold them together.  I'm really pleased with the result, but still can't get an idea for closing them up.

 

And finally, these shoes are made with felt on the outside and quilting fabric on the inside.  I've button holed them together and they seem quite Ok.  But again, how to close them up?

 

Any advice would be very much appreciated!