It was great to return home (after three months away travelling around the South Island) to find that I was just in time to attend the May Stitching Monday. With us on our travels, this is the first monthly meeting of 2012 I could attend, so it was lovely to catch up with everyone again. Shall I take my sewing machine, I pondered, or just work on hand stitching? The sewing machine won, but I must admit I didn’t do too well at all. The plan was to stitch up my Rail Fence blocks which I had made, recording places we had stayed, and attractions we had seen. So I duly pinned them in twos and away I stitched. So far so good. But…..I forgot that two of then go one way, and then two more go the other way, to make the pattern appear. Silly me, now I have to unpick half of them, and restitch with the blocks the other way. Guess I should have laid all the blocks out first to get the correct orientation!
Stitching my Rail Fence blocks
I’m sure the other’s were thinking straighter than me and working much better. Jeannette showed her Disappearing Nine Patch which she is making for friends to use in their house bus. The colours all work so well together but there is a little secret in this quilt. Jeannette has used some recycled fabric, from denim, to jacquard, to stretch, and has stabilised where needed. Just goes to show that anything goes, it treated with care.
Jeannette’s Disappearing Nine Patch
Heather is on a mission to use up all those recycled shirts she has been buying from Op Shops, I think she is up to Shirt-tail quilt number eleven now. But she is fighting a losing battle as she keeps buying more, and some of her other quilty friends have started their own Op Shop Shirt Challenge too. Here are two she has recently completed, both beautifully machine quilted in Heather’s indomitable style.
Two more quilts made from recycled shirts
Black, white and yellow was chosen for this stunning quilt that Joyce is making for her grand-daughters 21st birthday. It’s almost done, as Joyce was busy stitching the binding down. She’s very shy, so she says, and is only allowing her fingers to be photographed!
21st Birthday quilt
Maureen was busy most of the day preparing hexagons for stitching, and Margaret had a whole lots of squares ready to make up into four patches to use in another scrap quilt. Margaret’s aim is to reduce her stash, but as every quilter knows, making scrap quilts hardly makes a dent in in it.
Blocks in Margaret’s latest stash busting quilt
Another scrappy quilt under construction was Petronella’s Pot Luck flip and sew blocks. These are being stitched over pages from a telephone book, and is a long term project, I imagine.
Pot Luck blocks
And for something completely different, we watched Gaye as she was working another her current assignment for her City and Guilds course. Her triptych represents a scene from the West Coast of the South Island.
West Coast triptych
It was a very enjoyable day, thank you ladies for your company. Guess I had better get busy with my quick-unpick and start fixing those blocks up.
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