The Morrell's European Holiday and tomorrow is Thursday Secret Sewing.

On Monday I felt like a Mum sending her beloved child off to camp ! I have lent the Morrell Quilt to Petra from Petra's Patchwork and Quilting in Zutphen and Den Haan and Wagenmakers in Amsterdam. I feel like I have known Petra forever so know the quilt is in excellent hands. She is displaying it on her stand at the Pour L'Amour du Fil Quilt Show in Nantes in France and The Open European Championships in Veldhoven. It will be back home again for Quilts in the Barn later this year.

Tomorrow is Thursday Secret Sewing and we are heading down to Clare's holiday house at Barwon Heads. This passion takes us far and wide !! We don't mind what distance we have to travel for a day together. I've just been baking some chocolate cakes to take but was also trying to organise a new baby quilt for Maggie to start tomorrow...... got a tad carried away and from my sewing room could smell burning chocolate in the kichen. The thermostat on the stove must of had a hissy-fit and low heat became full on. The smell filled the house...absolutely foul. Our food addicted Springer Spaniel, Flic, got all excited thinking the mess would go to her instead of the bin ! The look on her face when I told her she couldn't have chocolate was very sad. Fortunately, due to my chocolate addiction I had another block of choccy and could start all over again. This time staying in the kitchen ( but I did move the fabric I was playing with into the kitchen with me !)

Maggie's quilt was going to be very simple....or so I originally planned. I have so many UFO's ( see one of Merri's earlier blogs re the no. of these we each had ) to finish as well as 2 Significant Pieces of Work... SPOWS....for Quilts in the Barn ,another time consuming project seemed out of the question and I also thought 5 week old Maggie would like it before her 21st birthday!


I was teaching up at Threadbear on Sunday and bought some gorgeous "pretty" little girl fabrics from a 30's Collection by Lecien (2nd photo) then added a few from the stash ( I must confess I did lightly tea dye the new ones... they were a little fresh for me. (1st photo) I now can't decide whether to do a minature Granny's Flower Garden or a mini version of the quilt I'm doing for Ballarat. (last blog ) I think this might be a decision for the sisters tomorrow.I'll keep you posted.

Getting back to our UFO's , after I read Merri's blog re the same, I went searching to see what I could finish for the show. The no. was a bit staggering and it was kind of like Christmas finding all this old stuff!! ( I used to be well known for not finishing...LOVED starting ) I did find my daughter Nicci's unfinished 21st Birthday Quilt.... she is Jake and Maggie's Mum and is now 37!! Sorry Nic. But it's now on the list. Most of the fabrics look like I made it yesterday, I'm just going to change the set in triangles.Machine piecing will be a welcome change from all the applique of late.The Aussie girls reading this may recognise John Farnham's signature in the top block!!!! After my gorgeous Brian, no.1 son and grandson and no.1 dog ,John is my very favourite male person and of course the best performer in the whole world !!

My next UFO to get stuck into will be my Baltimore... more on that next time.

Di.

PS I will master the photo positions 1 day!!

Edited by Deb for photo placement - I hope I put them in the right place Di!

The "Secret Sewing Saturday" March edition!

On Saturday 20th. March, 2010 several suspects carrying rather large bags and sewing paraphenalia began arriving at ther designated address.
The following is just one account of how the actual event unfolded and names may have been changed to protect the innocent!
Well, maybe not so innocent!! Especially when it comes to the patchwork and quilting we al love.
Or, should I say share with a passion! I just love those Saturdays when we all meet and share our lives, our quilts and our ideas!
This time it was my place and the time just flew by!






We may have even got some sewing done! in between the show and tell and the eating bit!
Speaking of "show and tell" bit here is Ann (top) with another masterpiece nearly complete!
Deb (on the left) showing her work in blue, white and yellow!
Merri also had a beautiful piece to show....originally inspired by Kim McLean's "Turkish Tiles" but radically different and unique! Merri? Does your quilt have a name as yet?
Have you noticed something about this group? We seem to all make rather "big" quilts!
That's it for this post..but stand by for some really exciting news about a rather stunning quilt that some-one out there may get to keep!
Cheers!

2nd Edition 21st March...I pushed the wrong button and published the first bit too early !!

I am very computer illiterate,therefore it is mildly amazing I have acheived what I have so far. I have just learnt what button not to push at a certain time but still not how to get the photos in the right position. DEB....HELLLP!

The top ph
o

The top photo is the raffle quilt for Quilts in the Barn that we are all working on. It is a repro of the quilt on page 75 of Quilts of the Oregon Trail.Yesterday was Secret Sewing Saturday so we layed all the blocks out to work out their order,then we'll stitch it together and turn it over to Helen Hayes to weave her majic with the quilting.

the next photo is one of the new quilts I'm working on .I've designed it for a class I'm teaching at the Ballarat Quilting Weekend in August this year. It has a Broderie Perse and Hexagon centre with small diamonds making up the bulk of the quilt then more borders to finish.I'm hoping for an English Frame Look.

I'm now starting to ramble a little so will save the next bit of news till next week (yes, I do mean next week !)

Happy Piecing

Di.

21st March 2010 Finally !! My 2nd Blog.

Having told myself I would update weekly ( I figured this meant that no matter what ,I would stitch like crazy each day ,no matter how bad the house or the garden looked!! ) 2 months have flown by. But I do have a really good excuse......I've been very busy becoming a Nana for the 2nd time. Maggie Grace was born 3and a half weeks early on the 22nd Feb.We were lucky Mum and Bub very healthy. Maggie is tiny and just back to birth weight this week.Sooooo cute. Oh I can feel another Quilt coming on!!! Almost 11 year old Jake is very proud of his baby sister. Life is great and now (hopefully) back to what we call normal.

We had our Secret Sewing Thursday on the 4th March at Barb's .Barb's show and tell was her Antique Wedding Sampler (AWS).The only words to describe it are stunningly spectacular.It is a series of pieced& appliqued blocks with lots of Broderie Perse. Barb's Broderie Perse has to be seen to be believed. She even changed the colour of the thread every time there was a change in the fabric shades. Just beautiful.We are all gobsmacked!! Hopefully it will be finished in time for the Quilts in the Barn at Wonga Park mid October this year ( those who read Deb's blog Needles, Sticks and Hooks will know how excited we were to be the exhibitors at the next show ) Photo shows our very proud Barb with Merri taking in the quilt.

A cacophony of sound & riot of colour

You can all see that we are not great at blogging updates but I think that's because we are all so busy sewing.

Many of us met on Thursday at Barb's ( who cooked us beautiful lemon cake and spinach quiche). Ann was well into her DNQTT and it is looking splendid with its paisley greens, pinks and other "murky" ( I mean this in a kind & loving way) tones. Chris was working on her piecing, I think for Mrs William ( but I might be wrong about this). Kerry had her C19th Flower Baskets, Barb was onto the Burnt Quilt (yeah, another one of us), Clare has returned to Primarily Patchwork's Border of the Month quilt so was sewing green leaves, Julie was doing large stars for the outside border of the Burnt Quilt. Di had her beautiful applique for the Poppy's quilt, (a Primarily Patchwork pattern) and I was doing more wedding rings.

Of course, when we meet there is an initial cacophony of sound as we all share our glad tidings & catch up on each other's news. Our meetings have taken on some sort of lovely ritual now , so there is the greeting phase, followed by the "show & tell" phase, then the sewing phase, the eating phase & perhaps sewing again until home time. Not that any of us gals are easily contained by routine! There is lots of "colour & movement" when we get together. Chatting, sharing fabrics, swapping ideas and patterns It is such fun!

This week, Barb had her Antique Wedding Sampler ( a beautiful pattern from Di Ford's Primarily Patchwork) all ready for us to look at and help her in the placement of the squares. Of course Di has a great eye for this, so by the time we left Barb had it ready to do the sashings.
Di took photographs & will update you soon with pictures.

I had my newly returned Turkish Tiles back form the quilter for my show & tell. Katrina Wilson did the quilting & I was sooooooo happy with the look she achieved. She is a very talented quilter. Now for the binding - once again my "sisters" had some advice for me about colours for this job.

More from us soon.
Happy stitching
Merri