Farewell to the Friday Stitchers

My monthly stitching group, the Friday Stitchers, had an end-of-year get together at my all time favourite cafe, Fig Tree on Friday.  As usual, there were plenty of great food choices, and I decided to move away from my usual corn fritters and bacon and try something different.  The mushroom and blue cheese filo parcel was great, followed by a slice of Louise cake and a large latte.  And, as is the tradition in our household, I couldn’t leave without buying two Eccles cakes to take home for our supper.  Several of the other ladies followed my example and took home a little something for their husbands too.

The Friday Stitchers at Fig Tree

Fig Tree Cafe is the only cafe in the Wellington region that has a unique setting within a charming restored chapel.  The dining tables are lovely vintage timber from yesteryear, as are the fine china tea cups, saucers and plates.

 

Pretty crockery

I have been meeting with the Friday Stitching group for several years now, but with us moving out of the area it was time to say goodbye to the ladies.  No doubt we will cross paths from time to time at quilt shows.  So farewell ladies, and thank you so much  for your companionship at our monthly meetings of the Friday Stitchers.  I’m hoping that I can find another like minded group in the Levin area to fit into.  If any local ladies can help, please let me know.

Friday Stitchers get-together

It’s been a long time since the last monthly Friday Stitchers get-together, so it was good to catch up with everyone again.  This is the first meeting of the year, and will be my last for a while, as we heading south on Monday for an extended caravan trip.  Seems that most of the ladies have been quite busy over the last couple of months, with several finishes brought along to show everyone.  Joyce in particular had been especially busy, and had three quilts to show us.  The black and white “Snail Trail” with a touch of red is all finished and ready for her grand-daughter’s wedding.

Snail Trial wedding quilt

Joyce had added a narrow folded inner border in red just inside the binding and this looked particularly effective, we all thought.

A touch of red in the binding

“Through the Cottage Window” was made by Joyce for the challenge at the recent Stonestead outdoor Quilt Festival – unfortunately I was away at the time so never got the chance to attend.  Now let me see – that looks like a pussy cat gazing out the cottage window at several quilts hanging on the clothes line!  What a clever idea Joyce came up with.

Through the Cottage Window

Anne was busy stitching down the binding on a very colourful house quilt she had made in a class at Thimbles and Threads, with trees of different shapes between the houses.  The narrow striped inner border and the spotted outer border add a nice finish to the quilt. 

Anne’s House quilt

Another bright and cheery quilt was the cot quilt just completed by Christine.  This one is going to a friend for her little grand-son.  Here’s more of the great striped fabric, and it works so well as sashing between all those colourful blocks.

Bright and cheery cot quilt

Back to Joyce again and here she is hand quilting her lovely quilt made with lots of New Zealand fabrics.  That’s going to be a big job.

Joyce has started hand quilting

There were several other ladies busy chatting and sewing too.  Several were working on hexagons, and Judith was stitching down the binding (more stripes) on her glorious blue and white hand quilted masterpiece, while I was working on my last teddy stitchery block.  We had a lovely afternoon together, and it turns out that several of us will be enjoying holidays over the next few months.  No doubt there will be lots of news to catch up with on my return from our South Island holiday.