U3A end of term show and tell

Lots of people had completed tops to show and I am always tickled by how many quilters "wear" their quilts or blocks, that is their clothes are similar colours to what they are holding up.

Norma's

Barbara's - can just glimpse her pink sweater

Gina returned to an earlier project

Mary's

Angela's

Lesley's

Linda's

Jane's

Gabrielle's

And more Sewcial Quilts

Tracy's Apple Core

My  batik jelly roll quilt.

My hand sewn and quilted baby spools quilt, a favourite

Janet won these fabrics - how lucky!

More quilts from the Sewcial

Jacquie's quilt

Detail - a chance to use feature/nvelty/ fussy cut fabrics.

Judi's Hever Stars

Coincidentally a couple of the quilts will  be workshop topics: Judi Kirk's Hever Stars and Jacquie's Beth Studley quilt.  Judi's workshop will be in June and Beth, a pattern and fabric designer who has just joined Oast, will be teaching her quilt pattern in January 2020.

Sewcial

We had cake!!

The  The Crafty Mastermind had a great selection of fabrics.

Oast Quilters held a Sewcial day on Sunday in anticipation of International Quilt Day. We had over 20 turn up and several visitors, one of whom joined. We hung quilts around the room and a trader spent part  of the day with us. Unusually I worked on a large project, quilting the border of a U3A group quilt made for donation.

Maggie's srippy trippy

And she made another one!

Janet had a won a set of very interesting lovely fabrics.

Pippa had made an elephant.

Siblings Together: Mrs October top

Blocks

Sewn together

I am in Siblings Together Sewing Bee 3 and in October members sent blocks to me. Tutorial here. I didn't want impractical white  and wanted something suitable for a boy. The blocks looked too disparate on my floor but thanks to the magic of patchwork looked much better once sewn together and then I added a soft brushed cotton border to bring it up to size. I had to quickly made two extra corner blocks too. 

Now with border

Half the blocks turn one way and the other half I put on the sides and at the bottom making for something quite complex once you start to look. Now for walking foot quilting.

Zipper Pouches

I've volunteered to teach zipper pouches in my home to up to 4 U3A signups in April never having done one myself so time for a delve into YouTube and videos by Jenny Doan here (raw seams inside) and Mister Domestic ((separately sewn lining) here. I found the subtitle function helpful and it was fun to sew along to instructions. Both are quite giggly and don't take themselves too seriously which I am sure has contributed to their success. 
I am going to make them to put square and smaller rulers in grouped together instead of groping through a drawer of all of them.

From Jenny Doan: I tried unsuccessfully to box seams so bottom 
one only half as big but just the right size for my pills!!

From Mister Domestic.

Fabric Fusion

I made the top based on  Judy Johnson's Fabric Fusion class at Sisters some time ago but as it is a "keeper" hesitated as to how to quilt it. In the end I hand quilted it using curves derived from a CD and a card circle drafted to fit the unit size. Most of the feature squares are four patches of identical rotated squares, stack and whackery I call it. The Tuscany wool wadding was easy to quilt through and makes for a very puffy and bouncy effect. I'm about halfway round the binding which uses more of the Little Black Dress feature fabric.

Quilty times

Tea time

I joined long time quilting friends to enjoy a 60th birthday for one of our number. Mary laid on a beautiful tea for us and we had a lovely time.

Saturday, today, was UFO day at Oast. There was good attendance and some impressive projects. Judi was making dogs for a friend's grandchild, Heather Farmer's Wife blocks (note: must do something with mine) and Tansy exquisite applique. Marcia's pattern was super impressive. 

Tansy's applique

Judi's dogs

Marcia's cpmplex pieces

Heather's blocks

I made two lattice blocks for the BOM.

And to end on another foodie note, Sylvie had made us a cheesecake.

On the bed

A suitably dark quilt for February. I'm pleased with how I drafted the foundation pieced corner. Blue windmill  Schweschwe fabric and the navy is Oakshott.

Twisted Sisters pattern by Ami Simms which required her special ruler.
I used up every scrap of the remaining pieces and schweschwe fabric in a leftover quilt which my daughter took home. See this here.

First Finish

Westminster Chimes is my first finish of 2019. It's been a long planned project since I saw a similar one from Kaffe's then current book on the Cotton Patch stand at FOQ some years ago. I upsized the blocks and the square in a square sashing pieces. There were still an awful lot of these to sew and I joined blocks and sashings quilt as you go with extra backing fabric turned under. I'm off QAYG for a bit. It did make cross hatching the blocks easier though and I got to look close up at those gorgeous Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs fabrics made for Westminster fabrics. Hence the name. Now I can use remaining  Westminster scraps to finish off workshop projects from Houston and to contribute to a Jan Hassard Workshop at Oast in September.

78.5" square

And this 2018 finish is having its first outing - it fits quite well on the spare single bed.

Westminster Chimes

Quilted round all the sashing seams and now ready to bind.

Named for the Westminster fabrics: others are  shot cottons, Kaffe's and Oakshott

Single fold binding made with a Clover binding tool ready to go.

Siblings together February blocks

Gillian chose a disappearing Broken Dishes block which was fun to make so I did two. Here is a Quick tutorial to watch.

Gillian asked for bright colours and not too patterned.

Sunday

No. 3

We enjoyed a walk in the woods followed by roast pork for Sunday lunch and I made this month's Today's Quilter Carolyn Forster BOM. I did it by machine not hand as stipulated which necessitated drafting and probably more trouble though I am pleased with it. Nice and Bright.

LUNCH

Quay Show and Tell

I'm not sure who made this lovely apple core quilt

Margaret made this for a first grandchild.

U3A doings

We saw a cushion made from Margaret's  folded log cabin technique and examples of the quilt we are making this term. It was a mystery quilt in the first instance.

Folded Log Cabin

F

Mystery Quilt example

And  another one of Margaret's.

And on the back . .

First Timer

Stepping stones on my bed for the first time: it sparkles!

And the Millennium quilt is put away for another year.