Saturday, June 28, 2014

Handmade



For me all our quilts are handmade, as the quilt creator’s hands, heart and ideas are visible.

Our local hospital, in a rural country town, has a Hospital Auxiliary Shop, where the majority of products for sale are handmade by a raft of volunteers. The kindness that goes into these hand knitted, hand crocheted, hand sewn, hand crafted items is amazing. I am a frequent purchaser of knitted toys, rugs, bags (which attach to walking frames) and children’s clothes mostly as gifts for others and myself.

Our indigenous people are frequent hospital visitors, the hospital shop keeps a range of handmade baby booties, beanies and rugs in the Aboriginal flag colours of black, red and yellow. 

My photos are examples of handmade items from the hospital shop.





And some of my purchases of handmade toys from hospital and school craft shops/ stalls over the years, on a handmade crocheted queen-sized blanket (featherwool and 8ply).
 I love handmade.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Tea Towel Update - I'm with you Sophie

Hi everyone,
I have not progressed as much as I would have liked with the Tea Towel Challenge.Lots of thinking but few decisions

I have made one of a possible 2 or 4 Meissen Circle Blocks, (over 90 pieces of fabric 1" wide in a single block). I am happy with the one made but have vacilated about how many and where to position them. Originally at the corners, then at the cardinal points and now only 2 in east/west positions.

I had hoped to included folded flowers, see example but they would need to be bigger and/or a brighter colour (light yellow one was based on an 8" square). Probably won't be included.

My major stumbling point is which green to use as the first border, a night time preference was the more colourful/brighter green with darker green circles (left border), however in daylight thought  it looked over the top.

I only found the Lucky Cat fabric this week and have  to included it

So Slow Progress. Thanks for extending the timeline for this challenge Sophie, there was no way I would be completing in March.

Margaret

Monday, January 13, 2014

Tea towel selection and fabrics



Hi everyone,
Here is my selected tea towel and fabrics for the 2014 Challenge. The tea towel came from a local shop. Some ideas for the challenge is to include folded flowers, Seminole work, and Asian spirals. I may need to get some paler yellow fabric.






About Myself: I have been following Block lotto for a lot longer (since log cabin roses) than I have been participating (mid 2012). I have been quilting for a long time but not very productively. However I currently have 5 quilts on the go,2 from Block lotto winnings ( both at flimsy stage+1 on design wall), and another 3 inspired by block lotto (2 awaiting quilting and 1 needing another row). These are the most UFO ever for me. Upto now I have done straight line quilting but am hoping to start on free-motion quilting soon. Any tips are appreciated.  PS I am over 60, work full time, live in Australia near Byron Bay, and am not the well published Australian quilter with the same name (sorry). MR.