February 2025 Show & Tell

  Welcome back everyone to another year of quilting. We had a very full and lively meeting today with a big thanks to Aroha Quilts for coming to us with their pop-up shop.

First up today is a gorgeous stuffed penguin called Rockhopper Penguin made by Diane Harries. It was inspired by seeing a larger doorstop penguin in a recent Inspirations magazine. 

Side view first (not such a good photo but it does give you the relative size)

The front view.

 

The next two photos show some coloured strips Diane has made for a friend to put on a panel quilt (4 made in total.) Diane came up with a unique technique to construct these strips using a technique she is calling Overlap Appliqué. It is a type of foundation piecing but very free form. The pieces are applied to overlap the previous piece, then machine stitched down. I have not seen it done this way before. You can see how the pieces are machine appliquéd in the second picture.

Here is a beautiful Sue Spargo wall hanging made by Glenys F. I love the charcoal backgrounds. It was machine quilted by Dot Galloway.

This lovely quilt was gifted to Jo C in celebration of reaching her retirement age. It has exquisite hand quilting.

Jo had this bag custom made for her by Sandra, using Jo’s fabrics. We all love how bright and cheery it is.

This bag was also custom made by Sandra for Diana J. I think is is a By Annie pattern.

While we are on the subject of bags, the next item is a Hemmingway pouch made by Beverly C. It is one of four she made for Christmas presents. The recipient loves elephants.

Next up is a very special quilt called “Love Cooper Quilt”. It was made for a very loved boy who recently tragically lost his dad. I am sure it will provide some comfort for him. The backing is a light polar fleece so it will be very cuddly. Made by Rosie N.

Bunny Tales was made by Morag O for her niece’s baby who was born on Christmas Day.

The next quilt was also made by Morag. It is called “A day in an Eight” and was made for a friend who tried rowing alongside Morag. Apparently on their first day of rowing they put in a very swirly unbalanced Eight!

Next up is a cross stitch piece by Carol B It’s a pattern called Cats Rule by Peter Underhill.

Carol is also making great progress on the quilt she started at the Cambridge Symposium in a Donna Ward class. I love how the centre circles have both spikes and flying geese. One border is still to be added.

Four of our ladies did the Christmas Mystery Quilt at Aimee’s Homestead Quilts towards the end of last year. Pauline, Veronica, Lesley and Diana had great fun in the class. I’m not totally sure I have got the quilts in the same order as the ladies names but I am sure they will let me know if I need to make a correction.

Six other club members are working on the recent Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt. We thought it would be fun to show each of our colour ways. From top to bottom is Marj, Mary, Frances, Jenny, Helen and Donna.  We think the mixture of colour ways could go into a quilt all of its own ;-)

Lastly, the first four quilts of the year for the Te Awhina Quilt Project.

This (at the time) uncompleted double wedding ring top was given to me (Helen) by a club member quite a few years ago. Diane Harries very kindly took all the pieces and completed the 24 rings. I added the border to make it the required size and quilted it. 

From memory, the centre of this and four flower appliqué strips were donated by Liz M (if my memory serves me well - not guaranteed these days! I put two of the flower appliqués on the top and bottom to make it rectangular then added the border and quilted it.

The next top started out as a long table runner made by Beverly C when she first started at the club but she couldn’t remember who she gave it to. The fabrics are from Costa Rica. After a period of time the (adjusted) top made its way to me via Mary who thought it had come from our late member Heather’s stash. I had it on my quilting frame when Beverly visited me and she was thrilled to see the top finished and being donated to The Te Awhina Quilt Project.

Lastly is a quilt made from leftovers of two king size quilt tops donated by Rosie N. I had to unpick some of the two tops to get them to a suitable size. This is the second quilt from this fabric and I have sufficient fabric remaining to make a third quilt.

Happy Quilting, everyone.

December 2024 Show & Tell

I would like to thank Judy P for her faithful service in posting Show & Tell for the last 11 years and Veronica D who looked after it for a spell. I have now taken the reigns up again of documenting our Show & Tell. I created this blog in 2007 so it it has been going for 17 years.

 It’s hard to believe another year has flown by so fast and it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Our 2024 Christmas Challenge is a mug rug with a Christmas theme. We had 22 entries this year. They were judged very competently by Diane H who chose 2 highly commended and 3rd, 2nd and 1st place. I’m sorry, I didn’t record who all those winners were, so you will have to wait for the February Newsletter. I didn’t think to take photos of them either, but our very competent new newsletter editor did so here they are:

Now, the general Show and Tell

Donna gave us a blast from the past with her Christmas wall hangings designed by Susan Claire:

The next 4 quilts are for the Te Awhina Quilt Project. All four quilts were quilted and finished by me (Helen.)

The first quilt is a top made by me to use a collection of random four-patches:

I decided to include some cushion panels in the backing:

The next was a collection of quarter log cabin blocks that were donated by Rosie N. I needed to make five more and add a border to make it the required size:

This top was also pieced by me (Helen). I did a variation of Bonnie Hunter’s Triple Star pattern and substituted half square triangles where there were four-patches:

The top of the following quilt was pieced and donated by Maureen L. It is a Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt from a few years called En Provence:

The following quilt, made by me (Helen) will be heading over to Ireland in a week’s time with my son. It is a gift for the family he will be staying with for the first couple of months. The pattern is Crimson Christmas by Krista Moser of The Quilted Life.

Diane H made this beautiful Komebukuro bag with embroidered hexagon patchwork:

This sweet Lynette Anderson Christmas wall hanging was made by Veronica:

Veronica also made this bag for a Christmas present. Purple is the recipient’s favourite colour so Veronica hopes she likes it!

The following quilt was made by Lesley M to use up her collection of leftover Tula Pink fabric from her Wensleydale quilt. The scraps collection was supplemented from her friends’ leftovers!

Next up is Primitive Christmas made by Jenny H from a pattern by Lynette Anderson:

Jenny H also stitched this gorgeous wall hanging called Chirp by Sue Spargo:

The next quilt is also by Jenny H and is her version of the Dear Jen quilt, pattern by Jen Kingwell. It was started at Cottage Flair in Rotorua about 5 years ago before Jenny joined us in Whanganui. She hand pieced it (wow!) and quilted it on her domestic machine:

The next cute contribution is Rosie N’s Christmas Lizzie’s. Some have already been gifted and the rest are being donated:

I didn’t get a great picture of them while they were being held up, so here is a better photo:

The next wall hanging is Tinsel, made by Judy P and quilted by Jacqui Karl. It was a Sue Spargo block of the month.

Morag O made these sweet Christmas stockings:

This quilt was also made by Morag. It is called Shelly’s quilt.

This stunning Sashiko sampler was stitched by Hester d O. Hester was planning to use it a a back panel for a jacket but it was too long and too nice to sit on. The threads used a a combination of Naki threads and Hester’s own hand spun and silk dyed threads:

Beverly  C started this Sun Bonnet Sue quilt 20 years ago when she was living in Costa Rica. It is hand and machine quilted. She says it is time to be completed for the next generation with only the binding to finish:

Last, but not least, is Which way to Christmas by Annette B:

That’s all for this month. See you back in February.