What a wonderful bright, sunny day we had at Carrum Downs for our first winter meeting of the year! We had a great morning tea – extending “Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea” by a month and there is also a raffle for Cancer research which will run for the next two meetings as well – with some great prizes – which I promise I will photograph NEXT month!!!!
Some beautiful Show and Tell too this month – as you will see, the highlight of this being Wyn who showed herself, surprising us all, after arriving back from Europe at 10pm last night – she did have some wonderful “tell” too, which I will mention later.
First up we have Narelle’s beautiful flower quilt in 30s fabrics which she is in the process of hand quilting – or was until we made her hold it up for all to see.
Robyn produced this wonderful star quilt in my favourite colours – magnificently done.
Here we are privileged to see these socks – knitted by Dianne for her daughter Donna - you may notice that they are not identical. They are intended to be like this as Donna belongs to a weird religion where she only ever wears odd socks – fair enough! By the way, the wool for these was bought in NZ in 2004.
Unfortunately I couldn’t photograph the pair of socks (identical this time) that my lovely angel Maxine Smith made for me – when I returned from Bathurst they were immediately purloined by my daughter and have yet to be returned to their rightful owner – I live in hope.
Bar made this great jewellery roll with individual pockets for all her diamonds and emeralds etc. looks like a terrific pattern, but where is the space for her tiara??
Here Fran has retrieved her flannie quilt from the auditorium at Bathurst and proudly told us that the front and back (below) were made from recycled shirts – very effective.
Jennifer, our QAYG Queen – shows us 1/3rd of her latest quilt – her own clever design as always, in her usual striking colours.
Also from Jennifer – her entry in the Waverley group’s miniature challenge ‘field of flowers” – exquisite.
We also congratulate Jennifer on her on-line win in the competition in which she entered her quilt “Flying free'”
Cynthia is making the stitchery quilt “beyond the Garden Gate’ – here is a beautiful block from this quilt – one of 9 (blocks not quilts!)
Also from Cynthia is this gorgeous gift from her friend in Adelaide – a beautifully embroidered bag.
This was an op shop purchase by Ginny – she is attempting to finish off this wonderful embroidery which we felt was from the late 60’s/early 70’s. It came with all its threads as well. What a find!
Another flannie quilt retrieved from Bathurst – this one – very clever and very beautiful from Maggie.
Believe it or not – this is a “One Fabric” quilt from Pam – her newest addiction. She did explain how easily it was put together, but i lost the plot after “You buy this book called….”. A fascinating technique and just beautiful.
I have added this photo of my friend’s Wagga – which I sadly forgot to bring along today – used in the Bathurst swaggie challenge (victoriously, I might add, just in case you didn’t know).
Now we come to Wyn’s vivid description of her visit to ‘300 Years of British Quilts” at the V&A in London – just days ago. Wyn told us that the “Rajah” quilt was fully displayed and that there was great interest in it. There were quite a few of the traditional striped quilts, as well as embroidery perse and many of the quilts were displayed on beds – which gave a more realistic look to them. a memorable quilt made by the prisoners from Wandsworth prison, particularly caught Wyn’s eye, with many prisoners embroidering “I’m innocent” or words to that effect, and rather sobering “Serve your country in Iraq and end up in goal”. Also, an auditory recollection from a mining area, where the women were taught quilting skills in order to earn extra, much needed money for their families was very moving. It would have been extraordinary to see, but Wyn made us feel that we were almost there – and for those of us lucky enough to have the book of the exhibition, it will mean so much more to us now.
What a fun meeting it was! Don’t forget that we have our raffle going on – the prizes are great, so scrape out those piggy banks.
Until Wednesday 7th of July – oh and keep Wednesday 21st of July free as well for an extra special, extra meeting!!
Helen Evans
your roving reporter,
Devon Meadows, Vic.
