Wow where does the time go. I have been busy though so haven't had time to post here, anyway I belong to the BWO, so it doesn't matter. I am off on a weekend retreat, nothing but sewing all weekend and no cooking, housework etc. Can't wait. I might just get my second 'Seattle Streets' quilt finished and be able to post a photo. Its been a really fun quilt, that's why I have made two.

Here are a few photos of quilts sent to Melinda.

I have just had word from Melinda that she is thrilled with the quilts we sent for the bushfire victims. I thought she would be as there was some lovely quilts.

Back to my own quilting now. I am currently doing 'Laurie Beithan's "Seattle Streets" design' which can be found via the Stashbusters website. It is great fun and even better I am getting to use up all my hand dyed fabrics. At present I am just doing the strips. When I have put together some blocks I'll put them up.

Its been a while since I have posted. All the bushfire quilts have gone off to Melinda and Pam in Alexandra, I'm sure they will be happy with them. I'm not sure of the exact number, I think about 18 plus 4 or 5 tops. For a small group I think we did pretty well.
I can now get down to catching up with my blocks for my friendship groups pattern and fabric swaps. I made a mistake in my calculations and haven't got quite enough fabric for the design I have decided on for the fabric swap. Have been able to get some more but is a much lighter dye lot. Presently I am trying to darken it with coffee dye which isn't too bad. I know I could change the whole design but truthfully I don't want to so will use a bit of creative license and use the coffee dyed fabric even though it is not strictly the same.
Our pattern this month is one called 'Little boys britches' and is it a difficult pattern to do my machine. I'm sure it was designed to do by hand. Not one I will be doing again.

And another, our group is made up of a wonderful bunch of ladies

And another.

Another lovely quilt made by one of the group members.

And some more wonderful ladies working hard

Here we all are last month with machines and fabric everywhere making quilts to send to Alexandra for distribution to bushfire victims.

Another great day with my friendship group yesterday. We had another group visit, which is always fun. Show and tell was inspiring. Most had their 'bushfire quilts' with them some finished some still being worked on but they looked great, I'm sure the people who receive them will be delighted. I didn't get photos yesterday but next month they will all be brought along finished so they can be bundled up to go to Alexandra at Easter so I will take photos then and post here. I also received another bag of FQs and some batting pieces yesterday so I had best get started on another.

Here is my latest offering to the bushfire relief. It is an I Spy type and probably geared more for a boy with dinasaurs etc. Tomorrow is my friendship group's normal monthly meeting and I am hopeful that members will have quite a few finished items which were started last month at our 'working bee' for bushfire quilts for want of a better term. We will be visited by another group from 'over the water' tomorrow and they always have a lot of show and tell so hopefully my ladies will keep up with them this time. They are a wonderful bunch of ladies and we enjoy visits to and from yearly. I am hopeful Melinda from Alexandra will be the recipient of quite a few really nice quilts and tops for her groups effort of delivering quilts to a few of the smaller towns effected by the bushfires.

I have been working diligently on another quilt for the bushfire relief. This time an I Spy type probably suitable for a young boy. I decided to use Keryn's method of Quilt As You Go which is shown as a tutorial on her blog www. quiltingtwin.blogspot.com. Her instructions are excellent and I find the method, although a bit more sewing than Jan Macs way, very neat. The only thing I did different was omit the part where she joins the two blocks together with a zig zag stitch. I found my machine tended to distort the blocks and really they all went together very well without doing this. All up to the individual, like most things with patchwork. With a bit of luck I will get it finished today and be able to put a picture up during the week.

What with the fires and also extreme flooding up north, and another cyclone approaching, I think we will need to keep at the machines. So many in need at the moment in this vast land of ours, and from one extreme to the other.

Here is the pastel colored version.

This is the latest of my monthly blocks ' Perpetual Motion' contributed by one of the members of the group.

This is my first finished quilt to go to an unfortunate person who lost their belongings in the recent fires here in Victoria. I have another on the go and hope to finish it soon. I know of lots of people who are making these Quilt As You Go type quilts but I'm sure it will be a long time before we have made enough. As well Northern Australia has been experiencing devestating floods and at the moment they tend to have been forgotten because of the fires but they are also in need of our help. Back to the machine

Friday is forecast to be another very bad fire day. I am hoping it is no where near as bad as 'Black Saturday' as it is now being called. I learned today that a quilter friend's brother was killed in the fires. It really makes you feel helpless as there is absolutely nothing you can do or say except let them know that you care. I guess the message is we never know whats around the corner so let everyone you care about know it now!!!

Today is a national day of mourning here in Australia. I know it was televised Australia wide but not sure about elsewhere. It was a very moving ceremony. Tears were never far away throughout the ceremony. It just really hit home just how devestating the tragic fires of two weeks ago were. In know we are all trying to do our little bit eg. making quilts, getting together small stashes and kits for those who have lost theirs, but it seemed just so incidental today, the magnitude of the loss of unbelievable. But in true Aussie spirit many are already beginning to get on with their lives and rebuilt bits and pieces of their communities, sports club etc. I wish them well. I spent today once again working on what we now term bush fire quilts, I wish I had another term as this seems so inadequate, and I don't want to call them victims as most them were 'fighters' not victims and survivers portrays a meaning which I don't want to face just yet. My prayers are with them all.

Wednesday and today were once again spent sewing for the bushfire quilts. A few are just about finished now and they are looking really nice. The quilt as you go method is definitely the way to go when wanting to do quilts in a hurry, in fact one of the group says she only intends to use this method from now on as it is the quilting which gets to her (me to). Hand sewing is now finished except for the binding so back onto the machine tomorrow to put the finishing touches then the binding, my least preferred part of quilting.

These are the latest additions to my second sampler quilt using the small 6 inch blocks. I have just got a new pattern but haven't got around to doing it yet, concentrating on blocks for the bushfire quiltt at the moment

I have completed 18 blocks of the 30 needed for a QAYG string quilt for the bushfire victims. I have never done this method before but am finding it very easy. Not only that but I am using up mega scrap from my strip boxes. I actually have 2 empty large shoes boxes now and I haven't seen an empty one of these for years. Its incredible to think you make a lovely quilt completely out of scraps, so I am certainly 'stashbusting' here. A few of my friendship group are going to get together on Wednesday and again on Friday in the hopes of getting another few finished. Another mad firebug has been at work in the Otway Region which is closer to where I am but still a fair way away, but considering how quickly the fires spread last week one can never be sure. Precautions, precautions, I think are the order of the day at the moment.

Wow what a week! It was suggested by one of the members of my local group that we use our regular monthly meeting (yesterday) to make quilts for the bushfire victims (now up to about 1800 homes gone, so that means goodness knows how many homeless). I made a few phone calls and untold emails asking for people to come with their machines, fabric from their stashes, bits and pieces of batting etc. I was completely overwhelmed by everyone generosity. We had a great day. About 20 ladies spent the day, cutting, sewing and hand stitching. Most of us decided to use Jan Mac's method http://sewmanyquiltstoolittletime.blogspot.com quilt as you go as we want to get these quilts sewn and off as soon as possible. Many thanks to Jan for her tutorial, she is a fellow Southern Cross Quilter, and she does magnificent work for charity!
All in all I think we would end up with about 10 or so quilts (when they are all finished) and the members would like to either adopt a family or town. As yet I don't know how to go about this but with all the messages tooing and froing on the Southern Cross Quilters List I'm sure it will be possible in the near future. I hope so anyway. If not we will leave it to others to distribute.

What a very sad weekend. So much devestation, loss of life, property and wildlife here in Victoria from horrific bushfires. I spent much of the weekend listening to the radio to keep updated on the fire situation around the State. Saturday was far too hot to sew, about 44C here, so instead spent much of the day checking out a lot of great blogs via the blog rings I am a member of. Yesterday was much cooler down into the low 20s much better for sewing. I was able to get two heart blocks done for Southern Cross Quilters who are having a tough time at the moment either through sickness or loss of a family member.

I had hoped to post photos of two more 6 inch blocks but my camera decided it had had enough (probably heat stress!!) so this will have to wait until it has had a visit to the repair shop or been replaced with a new one. As I am now to the end of my download month this will probably be my last post for a while.

I have decided to make some smaller blocks e.g. 6 inch in softer colours as well as the 9 inch previously posted (two different quilts). All the blocks in the friendship swap will be included but I will make a lot of others as well of my own choosing. I am coming to the end of my download month and will be downsizing my allowance as the school holidays are over and the grandchildren are no longer here a few days a week logging up lots of time on the net. Consequently I will probably onlybe uploading photos once a month from the 10th as I find it really eats up my limit. I have been playing around with this blog adding bits and pieces to it and spending lots of time looking at some other really great blogs.

Yesterday I went to Sorrento to the Point Nepean Group's Exhibition. As usual after viewing lots of lovely quilts I came home all inspired and so will endeavour to spend more time at my machine over the next couple of months. I have also been looking favourably on the Bridal Sampler of Elm Creek fame. Will I or won't I is the question? As I am doing blocks with my friendship group which are 9 inch I will probably leave the Bridal Sampler for now although I do covet it.

This is the 2nd block in friendship group pattern swap.

This is the first block in my friendship groups pattern swap. We hope to make some very exciting and different 'sampler quilts' It will be interesting to see how they all end up as we are using our own fabrics.

A new year of my friendship group begins. Once again we are swapping a 10 inch square of fabric each month and I have decided to make mine into Ohio Stars which I will alternate with nine patches for the quilt. All very scrappy. Hopefully I will use up some of the many 5 and 6 inch charm squares I have as well as left overs from other quilts.

As well members are taking turns in supplying a pattern each month. Our challenge is to make something interesting other than the ordinary sampler quilt which many of us made as our first quilt. Our first blocks are a Jacobs Ladder and a Pinwheel Star. I have many metres of plain white very fine homespun which was purchased for a Baltimore Quilt. I have made a few blocks but I just know I am not going to do as many as I originally planned so am using it for the block challenge along with red and blue. I will try and put some of the blocks up as I do them.

A small quilt in my favorite colours. It was made in a class with Angie Solomon when she was promoting her book 'Angies Angles'. Somehow I have changed this post to double spacing, I will have to find out how I accidently did this and undo it for future posts. It seems that I haven't learnt very much over the past year of blogging, I'm still floundering around and spending far more time than I had anticipated just uploading one small photograph and putting some text with it. Hopefully during this year I will finally get my act together and learn a bit more.... I am looking forward to another year at my friendship group. We have decided to once again swap the 10 inch squares of fabric the same as 2008 but as well we are going to swap patterns each month. This enables us to use our own fabric and make using the size of our own choosing. The challenge will be to put them all together at the end, not just in the old sampler format.