It was good to be back at my patchwork club’s monthly meeting, after travelling around the South Island for the last three months. The hall was abuzz, as it usually is, with groups of members chatting, catching up with friends, checking out the club library, while waiting for the meeting to get underway.
Our speaker for the evening was Ruth Meier, known as “The Button Lady”, who calls herself a passionate collector of buttons. So passionate, in fact, that she admitted to buying a collection of 700kg of buttons while she was living in Zurich some years ago. She related how she and her husband hired a truck and drove through a snow storm to load up the tea chests chock full of all those glorious buttons. Ruth told of the history of buttons and had many interesting historical treasures to show, from portraits painted on ivory buttons, to the home industry of Dorset buttons made by winding thread around rings, to examples of shell, metal and glass buttons. Victorian black glass mourning buttons were popular after the death of Prince Albert, and she showed us a selection of these. There were both loose buttons and mixed bags for sale, and these seemed very popular with the ladies.
Buttons galore
Show and Tell is always a special part of the meeting, and as usual, there was a good variety of quilts on show. Sandy is very prolific and can be relied on to bring a finished quilt (or sometimes two) along to most meetings. She related how she received a bag of donated hexagons, and completed this quilt which will be donated to the City Mission.
Hexagon quilt made by Sandy
This is a very special birthday quilt made by Faye in the Turning Twenty pattern for her husband’s birthday. Her hubby is skilled at making violins, and Faye sourced many violin and musical fabrics for this quilt.
Musical themed birthday quilt
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get the maker’s name for this quilt, but it was made for a friend coping with a health issue, we were told.
A special quilt for a friend
It wasn’t all quilts on show, and I was rather taken with the little knitted dolly that Maria brought along to show us. I’ve heard several others say they want to make one too.
Cute knitted dolly
After the formal part of the evening, we had supper, (loved that apricot slice) and the opportunity to get a close look at the quilts on display. It was a very enjoyable evening, and nice to catch up with others after so long away.
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