August UFO Night

I love UFO nights, with the chance to sit and stitch with fellow quilters.  My new quilt club, Town and Country Quilters, holds this event  on the last Friday of the month.   I missed the previous one as we were away somewhere or other in the caravan, so I was pleased that this date suited.  Everyone brought something to share for our Pot Luck meal, and as usual, there was plenty of food.  New member Cheryl made a bit pot of delicious chicken, corn and noodle soup, lovely and thick, which went down a treat with some crusty bread.  With hot savouries, pizza, salad wraps, salmon dip with crackers, cream puffs for dessert, and ample tea and coffee, we were well fed indeed. And as seems to be the custom, a nice big bowl of bite sized chocolate fish to nibble on as required.

There were all sorts of different projects being worked on, both by hand and machine.  Jan was seated down in the corner and brought along her colourful quilt to show us.  This had just come back from her daughter who machine quilted on her recently purchased long arm machine.  This quilt design (Geometric Delight) was featured in issue 60 of New Zealand Quilter Magazine.

Jan with her geometric quilt

Jan was working on her blocks in black and white with a touch of red.  The design is ”Rambling Rose meets Jamestown, from Grandmother’s Garden.  This will be a surprise quilt for her son and his wife, and features both log cabin blocks interspersed with different pieced blocks.

Surprise quilt for Jan’s son

There was a group seated at the tables in the middle of the hall, all working away quietly by hand.  Or not so quietly, as the noise level tended to rise now and again when they were discussing an interesting topic.  Vicky was working on her Stretched Hexagons in autumn colours.  The hexagon blocks are joined together with tiny little squares.  It all looks much too hard for me!

Vicky’s Stretched Hexagons

Janelle is taking part in a BOM quilt sent out from USA, so gets exciting parcels in the mail box.  These small appliqué blocks are in Civil War fabrics and all those different colours will look wonderful together.  She was preparing her next block for appliqué, using freezer paper and soluble glue.

Jannelle with her Civil War blocks

Our President Leigh was surrounded with cat blocks, a Tall Poppies block of the month  pattern, “There’s no such thing as an Innocent Cat”.   She was putting all the pieces together for her Aloysius cat block ready for appliqué.  Aren’t these cats just so cute?

Leigh’s cat blocks

No one was sure what Kaye was up to.  She had blocks of foam rubber and lots of bright fabrics on the table.  She was making Play Blocks, a little bit like a Rubik Cube, she said.  By the end of the evening she was well on the way with constructing this very difficult looking project.  Kaye had made one before, and declared she would never make another, but…….

Kaye working on her Play Blocks

New member Cheryl (who brought that tasty chicken soup)  was stitching up a very colourful Dr Seuss 4 patch quilt.  This will be a gift for her lucky little great-nephew, who is sure to love his new quilt.   I remember when my grandchildren children loved to visit and read my set of books when they were little umpteen years ago, so it is good to know that Dr Seuss is still popular today.

Bright and colourful Dr Seuss 4 patch blocks

Sandra always brings several projects, and I loved the long appliqué border she was working on.  I want to do something similar so it was good to be able to talk to Sandra and get some helpful advice on how to go about it.

A couple of Sandra’s projects

Also on the go was Sandra’s quilt top made from a lovely range of batiks.  This is a simple block, but so effective in all those lovely colours.

Sandra's batik blocks

I brought along my light box and spent several hours tracing out a pattern – and I still haven’t finished!  I  should have realised that this rather intricate pattern would have pages and pages of big and little shapes to trace off.  This will be for my elder grand-daughter, but I feel  it may well be a long time in the making!

What I was working on

It was an interesting evening, with tasty food and good company.  Many thanks to everyone for putting up with me and my camera as I checked out what everyone was doing.