February 2016

February 20th saw our second meeting of the year. One member could not attend due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope to see HT soon, but she is currently experiencing an annus horribiblis. HT we wish you and your family well and are thinking of you all in these trying times.

CB was working on a present for her parents 40th wedding anniversary. There was a deadline to meet so some comments escaped when things went a little awry. This is a very nice quilt made from some of the wedding dress fabric, which frayed more than the normal cotton fabrics you would use for patchwork. However, the resulting appliqué does not appear to have suffered, no fluffy edges to be seen.

Bed runner for 40th Wedding Anniversary present

Detail showing wedding dress fabric

HW and CD were both working on North Country Quilting projects started at a Lilian Hedley workshop in 2014. Both projects are progressing well. HW is making a bed runner in green and cream, while CD is making a lap quilt in blue. This type of quilting may seem time consuming, but it does grow quite quickly once you get going. As they are strippy quilts and small projects they are portable, as you do each strip separately and join them up once quilted.

Bed runner by HW

CD lap quilt

CD also brought along a finished Ferret workshop project. It has turned out as envisaged, despite some difficulties with the border assembly. Most of the fabric was hand dyed by CD.

Ferret workshop - large quilts on small machines

AB has finally finished her crochet blanket and is planning to get back to sewing projects.

AB cot blanket

Lunch was minted peat soup with home-made bread, and for dessert we had a Venetta. That brought back lots of memories and a mention of Artic roll. We do like to push the boat out.

Lunch

After lunch we had a chat with EL in Florida. She has been making up a quilt for a neighbour who gave her some appliqué blocks, this was very well received. you can check it out here (at the end of the post called 'Cold Stunned Turtles and the Great Blue'). She also showed us some fabric with turtles, this is for making fundraising items for the Turtle charity she is involved with.

The really exciting bit was AB opening her birthday presents from the other Quirkies. There was a hexagon flower brooch, some purple fabric, beads and felt shapes from HW, a crochet blanket from CB, some retro style fabric from EL (some with purple) and crochet bag from CD.

AB's birthday pressies

Crochet blanket, lovely design with a pretty lacy border.

All that remained after that was tea and birthday cake. Unfortunately, my photo's of this were too blurred to use.