The Sew Wots meet at last.

It’s been ages since the Sew Wots had a get together, so it was great to finally meet up again for the first meeting of 2015.  There was lots of chatter, as we all caught up with each other’s news.

Helen had been to a machine quilting class at Symposium with Australian tutor  Deborah Louie and showed us her samples.  Helen shared a couple of good tips which she had picked up from her class.  No 1- wear quilting gloves.  No 2 – use #50 100% cotton thread in the bobbin.  No 3 – use a denim needle when machine quilting.  As I’m a “not very good” machine quilter, all these tips are certainly worth trying.  After trying freehand work, Helen went on to working with stencils and quilt pounces.  It certainly sounded like a fun day.

Practise piece of machine quilting

Helen then showed us what she had been working on since we had last met up.  She is calling this her Summer Quilt, with lovely big 18in blocks and a pretty floral appliqué border.  I love the pretty soft colours which she has used.

Helen with her summer quilt top

The others were working quietly away, or not, or just chatting, depending on how they felt.  Heather was stitching hexagons together, and Pam started trimming little squares down to size using a small cutting board on her lap.  That didn’t look very safe to us, and she eventually gave up as she couldn’t quite remember what size she should be cutting!  Rae had ordered some new templates on-line and brought them along to show us.

We had a visitor come along too. As it turned out, Heather B was a foundation member of the Sew Wot group, and joined us today after a bit of a break – hopefully she will rejoin the group again.  We were very impressed with her industrious sock knitting – that is something I wouldn’t mind having a go at sometime.  The colours in the yarn make the most amazing patterns.

Heather was knitting socks

Our hostess for the morning Moira has planned her sewing time for the year with not one, but two long term projects.  She has already started work on her version of the “1718 Coverlet”, the the oldest dated British Patchwork coverlet discovered.  Armed with her copy of the Susan Briscoe book which details each and every one of the 69 quilt blocks in this historic piece of patchwork, Moira has already made two of the large corner blocks.

Susan Briscoe’s book

Two large corner blocks all done

Moira’s second project is to hand blanket stitch a William Morris quilt.  Moira loves hand work, and is stitching down the first block.

William Morris appliqué block

Moira then brought out a lovely Japanese inspired quilt, done as a group Block of the Month some years ago, as I hadn’t seen it before.  Pam purchased the pattern from Madison, USA, while on a trip, and the Sew Wots decided to stitch up a block each month to make their own version of the pattern.   Moira has just made a very pretty matching cushion.

Sew Wot Block of the Month Quilt

Pretty matching cushion

We had a lovely morning chatting away, and doing a little stitching, plus a very tasty morning tea too, of course.  It was great to catch up with everyone again after such a long break..