First day of Summer at Stonestead

Today is the first day of Summer and what a glorious day it was, so nice and warm that the Stonestead Stitchers sat outside in the lovely garden, instead of meeting upstairs as we had done over the colder months.  We dragged one of the large timber  picnic tables over to join two up together to give us a bit more room.  Luckily there were nice big sun umbrellas shading the tables, and Kevin from Stonestead also provides the much needed insect repellent.  Another quilting friend, Jenny H, came over to see what all the noisy chatter was about, and kindly took a group photo for us.

Stonestead Stitchers working in the garden

We all worked on our own individual projects, and the conversation ranged over all sorts of topics, Christmas of course, and family and food got a mention as well.  I was working on a Christmas project, and put the last few stitches in, I’m pleased to say, and will show it closer to the “big day”.  Ruth had brought along her lovely piece of Mountmellick embroidery.  This is a long term project and she is making good progress with it.  She hastened to add that she has also been working on other projects too.

Ruth’s Mountmellick embroidery

Dorothy was adding green hexagons down the side of her Grandmother’s Flower Garden blocks.  This popular pattern is made with in the English Paper Piecing method to ensure accuracy, and seems to be enjoying quite a revival lately. 

Dorothy’s pretty flower blocks

Pretty little gift boxes seemed to appear like magic from Vicki-Ann’s talented fingers.  She makes lovely cards too.

Vicki-Ann making gift boxes

Christmas must have been on Cheryl’s mind, as she had brought along two Christmas quilts to work on.  This lovely large Christmas quilt was a “block of the month” and Cheryl button hole stitched around all the appliqué blocks.  She has now machine quilted around the blocks, and still has hand quilting to do in each block.  It’s a big quilt, so that will keep her busy for a while, I expect.

Cheryl’s Christmas quilt

Cheryl had brought along another projects “just in case”.  She is making this Christmas wall hanging as a gift for her SIL, and just has the binding to complete.

Christmas wall hanging

Now it is December, we just have one more fortnightly meeting of the Stonestead Stitchers before Christmas is upon us.   Hope it is another lovely fine day so that we can enjoy sitting in the peaceful garden again.