January's meetings & the big reveal

We kicked off 2016 meeting twice per month, having added the first Wednesday to the third Wednesday. 

The first Wednesday was, and will continue to be, a sewing evening, free format, whatever project you like. What we saw was embroidery, knitting, gold work, needle felting and plenty of patchwork all UFOs or, if you prefer, PHDs.

As for the big reveal - 17 of us, that was pretty much all of us at the time the project started, have been working on the mystery block challenge for two years, making one block every other month for another person taking part in the challenge. Well, all 12 blocks are now made and can be revealed in all their glory. Our October meeting is the next big deadline in the challenge as the quilts need to be complete.

Everyone was delighted with their blocks, and it was lovely to see the the ideas and creativity, and growth in confidence as the project progressed. There were a few unusual sized blocks but nothing that can't be sorted out with a squaring ruler or a block border!!!

Want to see the blocks? Here goes........

January's Workshop - Project Linus Quilts

Well, we had a productive day today! Seven quilts made between us, all now having their binding hand-finished. Not bad for 7 hours work by 13 people - a great team effort and some very generous donations of  fabric and 'orphan' blocks. Oddly enough, despite 7 new quilts, the bag of fabrics going home was larger than it was at the start of the day; we'll just have to do it all again to use some of this 'magic' fabric!!

These quilts will be added to the two made last year, one donated last year and three donated today - a haul of 13 quilts to handover in the coming weeks. Ladies, you should be very proud of yourselves.

These are the quilts from last year and the three donated today, all very different.

And these are the ones made today that have been taken home to finish the binding and sew in the labels. Better photos to come when they're finished.

Christmas Meeting

We held our Christmas meeting this week and, as we'd all been good, Secret Santa called in. Everyone was delighted with their gift - a scissor keeper, a needle case, a thread catcher or a mug carrier - all useful sewing accessories. It was lovely to see so many variations.

Before Santa arrived, we held a show-and-tell, always a popular activity. Here are some of the lovely makes, not all patchwork and/or quilting though, and some ideas for future workshops. 

Denise's Christmas wallhanging.












Followed by three framed pieces by Wendy.

 

These are t-shirt blocks that Heather's preparing for a memory quilt.

 

And these are Pam's work, a cushion and a brushed cotton quilt.

 
Michele's Christmas decorations.

 




Vera's been busy too.

 

As have Gillian and Lesley.

 



Wendy brought with her fabrics etc that a good friend of hers wanted to find a new home and for which a fabulous £87 was raised for charity.


And, finally, we demolished this lovely spread which everyone contributed to.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas.

More Wreaths

And here are a few more, all looking fabulous and all so very different.

    

Sewing Therapy Workshop

Free format,  no templates, no patterns etc.... just bring your scraps, go with the flow and see what happens.

Keeping the projects small, this is what happened today.

Card toppers:

A piece for a cover for a journal: 

The beginnings of a table centre:

A piece for a table mat:

And a Mondrian-inspired, fused appliqué piece destined to be mounted on an artist's canvas:

Fabulous!

And another couple

And here are:

Tina's wreath blinged with red and gold berries:

and Maria's making another. This one's  a work-in-progress decorated with poinsettia decorations so far:

An evening's work, the wreaths take a couple of hours to make once you have assembled all the bits and cut the fabrics into squares. A little addictive and great fun to make.

Some more wreaths

Here are a few more finished Christmas wreaths.

Miriam's in red and green,

Gemma's with added bling (glitter) 

and one made by Maria's daughter (not a group member) who liked her mum's wreath so much she wanted to make one as well but in 'icy' colours. This one is also blinged with wired silver beads and a string of 'glass' beads.