March 2025 Show & Tell

 First up this month is a travel bag by Maria from a By Annie pattern.

Next is “Hearts” made by Kim T from a pattern by Faeries in my Garden. Kim says her children gifted her a trip to the Brisbane Craft Fair and she went with a shopping list for a kit and a girly, pastel-coloured quilt and found it!

The next quilt is also by Kim and is the “Polkadot Girls” pattern by Red Brolly. The unfinished quilt top was gifted to Kim by a friend. Kim has now finished the quilt and will gift it back to her friend. Nice!

Veronica has finished her “Flying Geese” quilt from a workshop at Foxes Cottage, done with a very nice peeper border.

Veronica and Lesley showed their notebooks that were made for each member of a recent private retreat. 

Next up is the results of the “Box of Birds” 2 day stitch course run by Griet Lombard at Foxes Cottage. Donna’s is on the right and Veronica’s is on the left.

Each box contains a fabric scroll of stitchery delights. It was a super fun class and Donna reports that Griet is an awesome tutor (as those of us who have taken a course with Griet can attest to.)

The next quilt is by Maureen L and is called “Life is a Gift”. This was a Sue Spargo designed  sitichalong to celebrate 20 years of Sue’s design business journey.

Also by Maureen L is “Memories”, a quilt celebrating happy times with her Wellington quilting friends.

This is the back

Susan, our youngest member Susan,  created this sewing machine cover for her new sewing machine. She used leftovers to create something extra, a mug mat.

Donna has completed the construction her “Sunshine and Lollipops” kit from Foxes Cottage and today basted it ready for quilting.

This next complete quilt top is “Geese over New York” by Carol B. She started this last year in a Symposium class with Donna Ward.

Carol has also finished piecing her “Murder in Greece - Under the Sunny Skies” quilt which is a 12 month online mystery quilt along that has chapters of a murder mystery novel given out with each part. The mystery quilt and murder mystery novel are designed and written by Debra Moebes.

The next 3 quilts are made by Mary S. The first is Stomping Dinosaurs” made for her grandson Joe.

Next is “Mollie’s I Spy” made for granddaughter Mollie.

This is the back.

The third quilt is “Lord of the Rings”, made with a panel from Philip-Wright and bordered with steampunk fabrics from Naki Threads.

Mary used a fabulous piece of graduated batik for the backing.it really showcases her lovely quilting.

This “Hexagons” quilt was made by Marj D, who is one of our oldest members. She started it in Auckland as part of a group of quilter friends. Marj says it has taken her 5 years to make. I think I heard her say she is the first of the group to finish. Well done, Marj!

Next up is “Felix’s Reach for the Stars” made by Madeline M. As her great nieces and nephews turn 10, Madeline is making each one a quilt. A wonderful way to connect to the younger generations.

Madeline also made this shoulder bag for her daughter, who requested ‘black for work’.

Beverly made this Kiwiana tote bag for her daughter Tanya, who lives in Costa Rica. Beverly used the last of her scraps of Kiwiana fabric.

Beverly also made 3 “Hemmingway” pouches for her daughter. Tanya chose the fabric when she was last in New Zealand.

These two bags wear made by Maria and Glenys for storing thread.

The next four quilts are for the Te Awhina Quilt Project. That brings the total to 8 quilts so far this year.

The next 5 quilts made by Trish S are for the community quilt project “Little blankets of Love for the Babies”. These quilts are gifted to Whanganui hospital and Taranaki hospital

Finally, these two little bags were made by Trish to be gifted to a friend.

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.