Playing shop and Quilts in the Woolshed

Saturday 19 August saw me head out to "Springhill Country Craft Retreat" in Amby for Quilts in the Woolshed and a day of working in the patchwork shop.

It was a glorious day.

The Woolshed was decked out in quilts and other crafts.

 

 Plenty of eye candy and inspiration

 Hand spun and coloured wools

 

 

 I was playing working in the fabric shop.  It is just so pretty in there.

 Cecily was my partner in crime for the day.

 More prettiness behind me

 And even more.

 This quilt was one of my favourites. The fabrics were beautiful.

 I love old farm building so I couldn't resist taking a few snaps of the woolshed.

 

 

It was another wonderful day and, yes I may have adopted a few fabrics....

A challenge & some scrap busting

At the end of August I attended "Injune's Creative Odyssey", a two day crafting feast hosted by Injune Arts in the little town of Injune, Qld.

Prior to the weekend we had been issued with some voluntary challenges.  A painting challenge and a Fat 1/4 challenge.  The Fat1/4 challenge was to make a cancer care bag using the challenge fabric.  My challenge fabric was the bright 'weave' print.

 

I was so inspired by how easy the bag was, I set to work making another from scraps from my Ribbon Boxes quilt.  These scraps were just sttitched together to form rectangles and then the bag completed as usual. The way these scraps came togethe still amazes me.  I know they 'went' together because i used them in a quilt, but to have the bag come out so bright and happy & unpredictable was what really surprised me.

 

My two bags have been sent off to the Cancer Care units in the Toowoomba hospitals along with the other 30 something bags from the weekend.

The second challenge was a mini canvas challenge.  Now I am NOT a painter but I was determined to give it a go.  This was "The effect of Odyssey"

 

however, I did not like it.  So it was painted over in the orange paint and left to think about its behaviour.  LOL

One week before the challenge was due, inspiration struck me and this was the finished & submitted mini canvas.

A much more appropriate sentiment I think. :)

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August AHQ #2

Aussie Hero Quilt #2 for August was fun to make.

I used donated blocks to make the giant stars on the top & bottom.  I love the red, white & blue star in the top section, unfortunately the bottom star is not quite as obvious, but it is still there.

This quilt used my favourite AHQ border material, Australian Flags.  it is quite a happy fabric.

 This recipient requested the rising sun and once again the AHQ embroidery fairies stepped in to provide me with one. That rising sun is very complex.

 I was also to send a laundry bag to this fellow, so I dug into my 'quirky' fabric collection to see what I had.  These black & white signs were perfect and the bag will be very distinctive.

Safe travels to the recipient.  Come home safely to your family.

Catch you soon.

Debra

August AHQ #1

August saw two Aussie Hero Quilts completed and sent.  This scrappy green quilt went to Afghanistan.

He requested the Australian Flag, Afghanistan Flag & Op Resolute badge.

(My favourite part of this quilt is the stripey binding)

 Thankfully the AHQ embroidery fairies were able to stitch the words & the Afghanistan flag for me.

 

And a close up of the binding just because I can.

 

I hope it brings joy and encouragement to its recipient.

See you soon. 

Debra

Two secret projects revealed

In July I posted that I had been doing secret sewing for Aussie Hero Quilts.

These two laundry bags were presented to the crew of HMAS Darwin during the last week to commemorate their final deployment before the ship is decommissioned.

The fronts are plain colours with the ships crest so the crew can collect signatures or other commemorative momentos of their final trip. The backs are 'nautical' or Australian themed.

To see the reactions of the crew of HMAS Darwin pop over here to read the blog post.

Glad to be a part of this project.

See you soon.

Debra