Stitching Day at Krazy Cow

I enjoyed another stitching day at Krazy Cow today.  I had intended to get out some machining to do, but ran out of time to sort through my extensive UFO pile.  So in the end I didn’t take my sewing machine with me.  My light box got an outing instead and I spent some time tracing off a stitchery pattern.  Then of course I had my old faithful Christmas stitchery to work on.

New quilter Helen attended the stitching day for the first time with a very striking pink and lime green quilt with a colourful ladybird feature fabric.    Not only was this her first quilt, but she had put it together all by herself, and had started straight line machine quilting.  She had the binding stitched on by the end of the day, and just had to hand stitch it down on the back.  A wonderful effort for a first quilt indeed.  This pretty quilt is a gift for Helen’s little grand-daughter. 

Helen and her first quilt

Ann had been busy practising her free motion machine quilting at home all week.  Our teacher Luchelle had even more tips to give, so I pricked my ears up too.  Even though I have been quilting for some time, I am certainly no expert.  One tip I picked up was to bring the bobbin thread up to the top, something that I never seem to do.   Luchelle also gave us some tips on applying quilt binding that I did not know about. 

Luchelle demonstrating machine quilting to Ann

Customers wandered in to the shop, and down to the classroom area to see what everyone was doing.  I bought my self a new Clover “quick-unpick”, and a delicious coffee to have with my home packed lunch.  There is nothing nicer than the smell of freshly brewed coffee, is there.  After lunch Luchelle showed us a couple of her art quilts, constructed of tiny pieces of fabrics and lace glued down then held in place with  free motion machine quilting. 

“Mannequin” art quilt

Another lovely morning spent at Krazy Cow, then we spent the afternoon trying to find ourselves a new doctor.  Seems that doctors are in short supply in our new home town, and we will probably have to go on a waiting list, and keep visiting our previous doctor back in the Hutt Valley for a while.  We will just have to keep our fingers crossed.