October meeting and other matters

 Firstly, it's great to have you come to read our occasional blog and see what we are doing. A little earlier, we had our Annual General Meeting and changed up the Committee a little.

President:  Bryony De La Motte

Vice President: Liz Hendrickson

Treasurer:  Marianne Haslam

Secretary:  Chris Gillespie

Ordinary Committee Members: Monika McKinlay, Cassandra Philpot, Amanda Pratt, Narell Smit

The club is in good shape and there are many ideas for activities into the future. The membership is very involved in the running of the club, from the way meetings are run to the way the Exhibition happens. Fortunately that is only every two years so there is plenty of recovery time.

Meanwhile, at the October meeting there was a special guest who brought a sampling of her beautiful batik fabrics. Elaine White from Treasured Textiles is always getting in new stock to augment her attractive collection so it was great to see her.

Narell has been demonstrating a simple and effective quilt method and several have now been made by the group. Here are some of the quilts shown at the meeting.

And lastly, some of the blocks from the very last Block of the Month in Red, White and Black that has been running since August 2021. Members could choose to keep their blocks to make their own quilt or donate them to the club. Once they are all done, t
hey will be used to make gift quilts for our vigorous Gift Quilt Program.

May meeting and other quilts

Hello there! The months rush by, so much to do and so little time to make quilts we all say. On the fourth Friday of every month we manage to get together and share a little of our creations to our very supportive group. May's meeting was well attended and we had special visitors.

 Our President Bryony De La Motte was very pleased to make a presentation of several quilts to representatives from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Michael and Kathy. These quilts will go to Ukrainians who have been displaced by the ongoing war in their homeland. Like many in Australia, they both have relatives still living in Ukraine. Michael gave much credit to Poland for the support being shown to displaced persons especially taking them into their own homes. Although there are only a few here in Canberra region now, more are expected to arrive.

Wilma Cawley represented the Makerie shop and gave a talk about Jacquie and her journey in quilting and how she came to decide to open her shop in Gungahlin recently. It is now full of about 5,000 bolts of fabric along with knitting supplies, counted cross stitch, threads and books, as well as a large friendly workshop room. https://www.makeriebyhand.com/

Then on to members showing off their wonderful works. Here is a small selection.

Pam made these two quilts above. The diagonal stripe in bright colours and the chandelier quilt that she started at our recent retreat.

Narell made her second diagonal quilt featuring elephant fabrics this time.

The giraffe and other animals quilt was made by Narell, lovely soft animal baby quilt.

These two black white and lime quilts from were from some years past. Blocks were made by various members of the club, put together by Narell and beautifully quilted by Kay's Quilts.

Hanna shows two baby quilts she made.

Jacqui shows off two lovely baby quilts

Liz showing an old lace lingerie bag she had made.

March Technique night at the club

 Hello to everyone who makes their way to our occasional blog page. We are all very busy these days with preparation for our quilt exhibition. We still manage to get together for our stitching mornings and evenings and on the second Friday of the month we do try to run a Technique Night.

This month's volunteer was Monika McKinlay, who demonstrated very ably the making of a 2 or 3 in one cutting/block holding/pressing caddy. Certain requirements such as cutting mat of required size, thin plywood to give the construction strength, fabric, batting and a hot glue gun with lots of glue sticks!

We thank Monika for a very impressive demonstration. She made it look very easy to make an extremely useful caddy.

Lions Club Quilt Presentation

Today club member Monika of Make IT Quilted had the pleasure of meeting Karen Abbott from the Lions Club of Queanbeyan. There were several quilts vying for Karen's attention and this was the one that she chose. It is a bright and light bed quilt, about 2m square which will brighten up anyone's bedroom. Be sure to buy tickets in the Lions Club raffle to win it!

 

New display in the Riverside shop window

Today we filled part of the shop window of Riverside Plaza with colourful, comfy quilts. Do stop by and have a closer look at them while you are in Queanbeyan next. This is a small collection of our community gift quilts that we donate to various organisations from time to time. Members of the club are all working very hard at the moment to start, continue or finish off their quilts ready for our exhibition in April. We will have lots of quilts to show you on the weekend of 9-10 April, displayed in the Bicentennial Hall.

Racing through those jelly rolls!

Tonight we held our January Technique Night and people came equipped with sewing machines and their strips of fabric in harmonising colours. The race was on! Some of us did some pre sewing and some just got started on the night. It was fun and plenty of tips were shared. We are looking forward to seeing a few finished quilts in the coming months.

As always, many thanks to Kay Koeper Sorensen for her excellent tutorial on making Potato Chip Quilts: so called because you cannot stop at one!