Old friends in Print

Isn't it great when your favourite quilt mag arrives in the post?   My quarterly copy of New Zealand Quilter magazine arrived safe and sound, just as well I had remembered to advise my change of address.  And inside were articles about two members from my former quilt club, Pinestream Quilters.

Award winning quilter Heather Harding told of her quest to show quilters that they didn’t have to spend a fortune on new fabrics to indulge their quilting habit.  Heather has been collecting men’s shirts from Op Shops for quite some time and has made a series of quilts from them.  I remember her bringing the finished quilts to show the ladies at our regular Stitching Mondays and Quilt Club nights.  Shirt Tale Series No 13, a wonderful quilt of log cabin blocks, lots of tiny pieced triangles and stars won  the award for “Best Traditional Piecing” at last years Pinestream Quilters quilt show, as well as my vote for Viewers Choice.  Heather intends to donate these quilts to charity.

Shirt Tale No 13

I had a lovely surprise at the very last Stitching Monday I attended before moving out of the area after our previous house was sold.  Heather had made me a needle holder as a “going away gift”.  What a lovely thing to do for me.   “I’ll treasure it”, I told her, Heather is such a lovely warm hearted lady, always willing to help with friendly advice.

  A hug from Heather

The very talented June Nixey was also featured in the magazine, and she is well known for her love of scrap quilts.  She is particularly adept at using charm squares, and has taught classes on using these squares to best advantage.  Another abiding interest is teaching patchwork on Saturday mornings to her girls from “Shut In Stitchers” at Arahata Prison.  They have to work with what ever donated fabric is available and sometimes wait for ages if they want a particular colour.  June proudly brought some of the finished quilts along for Show and Tell occasionally on club nights.  She always remained quite elusive and liked to hide behind the quilts as they were being shown, so I never managed to snap a photo of her at all.  But here are three made by the Shut In Quilters, brought along to show the club some time ago, a strippy quilt, one made with a panel, and blue and peach pinwheels.  June also writes a quilt  blog, Junez Scrapz – do check it out.

Quilts made by the Shut In Quilters

How do you like to read your quilt mags?  When I receive mine, I like to quickly flick through to see what articles there are, then settle down with a cup of coffee and read it from cover to cover, even the ads.  I am a “foundation subscriber” of this magazine, and have every single one carefully stored away. 

Rummaging in the box

Do you have a box (or bag) like this?  Mine is full of little bits and pieces of fabric, and left over strips from bindings.  I was looking for a little piece of a particular fabric, and sure enough, there it was, just what I had been looking for.  I am slowly writing up my quilt journal of all the projects I have made and like to add a piece of each fabric as I go.  Usually, I have kept photos and swatches, but not this time.  Thank goodness I found what I was looking for.

My box of small scraps

I don’t usually keep such small pieces of fabric but hidden away in the box is an old copy of a Traditional Quiltworks magazine from long ago.  The idea was that “one day”   I just might get around to making this quilt out all all my little scraps.  Who knows?  Perhaps I will, or perhaps I won’t.  But the magazine will stay where it is, just in case I get inspired.  And I know where to go and rummage around for that piece of missing fabric.

Home again

Here we are home again after a lovely Christmas/New Year break in sunny Carterton.  The weather was just as it should be during this time of year, hot and sunny.  I’ll admit to a couple of rather wet and soggy days, but it seems that the whole country suffered with the rain, and some places were really hard hit.  On arriving home we saw something strange in the hall way.  “What’s that?”, Robin asked.  It was a pile of quilting magazines all over the floor.  It seems that an earthquake had sent the box flying off a high shelf while we were away on holiday.  Luckily this was the only damage and was easily put right.

Earthquake had sent the box of magazines flying off the shelf

Once home, we got on with the long job of unloading the caravan.  Empty the fridge, and wash it out all ready for next time.  In and out we traipsed with armfuls of clothes, books and and other sundry items.  While all this was happening Muffy decided that her holiday wasn’t quite over and settled back down on the caravan couch for yet another snooze. 

Muffy back in the caravan while we are unpacking

The caravan is now a “Christmas free zone”.   The Santa wall-hangings in the caravan have now been taken down and the usual ones put up in their place.  I removed the Christmas red-work cushion covers and put the freshly laundered plain ones back on.   No doubt they will all come out again next time.  Happy New Year to all readers and fellow bloggers, may 2012 be a wonderful year to you all.

Lucky me!!

The lovely Lis, who writes the Piece’n’Peace blog, was offering several give-aways  recently to celebrate her 500th blog post. (We had to relate the story of our first ever quilt, so that reminds me that I should share that story here one day, I guess).  Thanks Lis, for sending me the wonderful “Inspirational Strippy Quilts” magazine, there is certainly lots of good reading in here.  Plus an extra gift of a pack of three hanks of Perle thread in bush colours, “Hand dyed in South Africa” the label says.  Thanks so much Lis, and many congratulations on your 500th plus blog posts,  may there be many more to come. 

  My prize from Lis

We met up with Lis and Alan  in April 2010 when they were out here on their New Zealand holiday.  They were staying at Paekakariki on the Kapiti Coast, and after exchanging a few e-mails, we arranged to drive up and meet them in a local cafe.  You know what it’s like when quilters get together, even if they haven’t met before, it’s just chatter, chatter, chatter. The the two husbands weren’t doing too bad, either. We decided to share one of those delicious pizzas that the cafe specialises in as we got to know each other a bit better.

Lis and Alan looking forward to a slice of pizza

   The two of us together

Mmm, I’ve just checked “my” blog numbers, and this will be number 328, so I’m a long way from Lis and her 500th.  I’ll just have to keep writing!  Do pop over and visit Lis’s blog.  She is looking forward to an upcoming textile trip to Japan, so that will certainly make interesting reading.  

On the cutting board

I’ve been busy at the cutting board today.  With several Christmas projects planned, I thought I should get on with it.  First I cut out this green fabric, and interfacing.  Any guess what this will be?

Green Christmas project

Next was some rich traditional Christmas red and green.  This is for a swap so it’s still a secret.

  Fabric for a Christmas Swap

I love Christmas craft magazines and have collected quite a good supply over the years.  My secret swap pattern is in this one, an Australian Handmade magazine, and so far I’ve traced off a couple of hearts.

Handmade Christmas magazine

I don’t know how other people cope, but I tend to get a bit stressed with Christmas approaching, with my long list of  Christmas projects.  Some I really must make, such as my swap.    Then there are a few items I would really like to make, if I can fit them in OK.  And did I ever mention the large Christmas quilt which is sitting there feeling sorry for itself as it is still only half machine quilted after all this time?  Guess my “time management” skills need a bit of a shake-up!

Just a few old quilt mags

Last weekend when we were away at a caravan rally, there was a table of extremely old craft magazines, that someone had obviously been clearing out from their home. “If nobody wants them, they are all going to the tip”, was the announcement. The majority were old cross stitch mags, so not really of much interest to me – my one and only cross stitch attempt was troubled, to say the least! But hidden away, I came across a few old quilting magazines, which I pounced on, and took back to the caravan to flick through at my leisure. The front covers were missing, and they were dated from 1992-1994. Included in my lucky dip were McCall's Quilting, Quilt World, and Quick and Easy Quilting. I had forgotten that the early magazines were not printed on glossy paper as they are now, and often had black and white pages interspersed with colour pages.

A treasure trove of old magazines

My taste in quilt magazines has changed over the years. When I started quilting umpteen years ago, I first magazine I subscribed to was the Quilters Newsletter Magazine. This was founded by Bonnie Leman in 1969, and she composed the first issue on a manual typewriter at her dining room table. Many contemporary quilt historians agree that Mrs. Leman almost single-handedly launched this revival by researching and publishing information about a domestic pastime that had fallen out of vogue since the end of the Great Depression and the onset of World War II. Mrs. Leman was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1982. Sadly Bonnie Leman passed away in September 2010. I also subscribed to Traditional Quiltworks and looked forward to these two American quilting magazines regularly popping into my letter box.

Several years later I switched continents and started purchasing the Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine, then after I discovered the joy of stitcheries, started to buy the Australian Patchwork and Stitching from time to time. These seemed to breed at an alarming rate and threatened to take over the house, so I stopped my subscriptions. Nowadays,the only magazine I do subscribe to is our very own home grown New Zealand Quilter. I am a proud foundation subscriber, have every single issue and have seen this magazine grow from strength to strength.

I wonder what magazines other quilters like to buy, and if, like me, your tastes have changed over the years? Do tell.