3D Bow Tie Block

Can you still remember how to do this one or are you like me that need reminders constantly?  Leeann from the blog Quilt Whangarei in New Zealand, was so kind to put this tutorial together.

To see how this block is made, visit her blog by clicking HERE

A new guild blog!!

The Tollgate Quilters from Durban has started their own blog now too.  Welcome to blog world you guys and we look forward to reading all your news.

Now unlike us, we only have me as the ‘blog babbler’, they have different authors to their posts, each with her own interests and things that make her get excited and she wants to share with us.  So different authors, different opinions and tastes – don’t you just love this?

So if the Tollgate quilters don’t mind me ‘copying’ their idea, I would like to throw this out to our guild members….. help me write the blog.  Most of us spend x amount of time on the internet at some stage and find something we like.  Write about it, keep the link, copy the picture and help me keep our blog fresh and interesting.

I must admit I often feel for those quilters who do not like me or my writing style but still prefer to be kept updated by the blog, they simply HAVE to deal with me.  Let’s make our blog a communal one and all participate. 

Want to see what the Tollgate Quilters’ blog look like, click HERE and read it all.

Coming soon….. Our very first blog give-away

Now don’t say I didn’t warn you okay?  I received a lovely gift as a blog give-away for any person BELONGING TO OUR GUILD who leaves a comment on the particular give-away post.

So guild members start practicing this NOW. 

If I can make a suggestion to make it easier on you:

Step 1 would be to get a Gmail account.  This is a FREE e-mail address from Google, for anyone with access to the internet.

Simply type Gmail on Google and have a couple of possibilities for your new free e-mail account ready i.e.

Your full name and surname OR your initials and surname….. You would be surprised how many other people have exactly your name and surname.

Even if you already have an e-mail account from your service provider, having a Gmail account makes leaving a comment much easier as blogger, Google and Gmail are all linked.

Once you are on the Gmail site, just follow the instructions and remember your password and obviously e-mail address.

If you have this, try leaving a comment on any of our current blog posts.  Don’t worry, I have to moderate all comments before it is being published, so if you only type something like ‘test’ or ‘I’m trying to do this’, I won’t publish this and will be informed by e-mail of your comment and I will let you know if it worked.  So this meaning, you won’t immediately see your own comment as it has to be moderated first.

So group leaders, who read this, let your group members know about this give-away and let’s see if we can have lots of members leaving comments and start feeling comfortable doing this.

Quilt news from the Jacaranda Quilters

If you are like me and read our guild newsletter from beginning to end the very day you received it, you might like to read a little more.  Now is it not much nicer to read from people we might actually meet.  So today I would like to share with you the Jacaranda Quilt Guild’s newsletter.

I found a couple of very interesting articles and references in there and thought our guild members would also like to see what our quilters are up to in other parts of our country.  So to read this lovely newsletter, click HERE

Double disappearing nine patch block

Another tutorial from the blog by Christina – this lady seems to be as clever as she like to be and I have to agree I too like a block that looks more complicated than it really is.

To find this frame-by-frame picture tutorial, click HERE

The Rolling Stone block

Have you seen any of the Quilty videos by Mary Fons?  The videos takes a while to load, so before starting make yourself a cup of coffee, sit back and give yourself a break.  The video I recently watched was Episode 9 focussing on the Rolling Stone block.

I was unable to ‘pause’ the video and copy a picture of the block, so I had to draw one on EQ to show you what it looks like.

The block gives you the illusion that it has a circle in the centre but has no curved seems.

I then combined the blocks to see what it would look like in a quilt and this was the result using only 2 colors.

Now this gave me the impression of the naughts and crosses game we all know.

When I brought in one more color it changed the look totally as can be seen in the next picture.

Here the circles are prominent in 2 ways, in the yellow block your eye sees the bigger circle and in the orange block you see the smaller center circle and the crosses separating the circle blocks have now disappeared.

In the video Mary Fons shows you how to construct this quilt in a jiffy by using strip sets and a cheater square-in-a-square block and gives you all the measurements needed to construct a block.

To watch this video, click HERE

Experimenting with Cathedral Windows

Christina from A Few Scraps did some experimenting with the traditional Cathedral Windows block and even though I’ve read through the instructions of so many of these blocks, I’ve never made a quilt using these.

I liked Christina’s approach even though she here still was in the experimental phase and can see myself trying something like this if I ever find time.  Thought I’d share this with you and maybe someone in our guild can master this experiment and teach me later. 

Read all about this on Christina's own blog by clicking HERE

We had the one and only Marilyn Pretorius in Bloemfontein!!

I do hope a few of you at least missed my babblings on the blog – ha! What a pretty name for anyone in need of a blog……. ‘My babblings on the blog’.  Cute? Then take it and make it yours!

Honestly, I did not miss writing on the blog for the last 2 days as I had FUN,FUN,FUN!!!!!  National teacher, Marilyn Pretorius, graced dearest old Bloemfontein with her presence and I had the honor of being a student in her class.

The one and only Marilyn

Now for those of you who read my personal blog, will remember I had somewhat of a panic attack when I got my list of ‘ingredients’ to have for the class.  I did not have a cooking clue to what some of the fabrics (only found out later that the foreign words were different types of fabrics) were and once I begged, stole and borrowed most of these, I knew I could not afford to get hooked as I simply don’t have any space to store all these.

From L to R:  Annette, Amanda, Réne, Marilyn

So looking like a ‘Voortrekker’ with all my baggage I arrived in class on Monday and got to meet the famous, Marilyn.  What a world of knowledge this soft spoken lady has.  She kept feeding our brains with different techniques, ways of doing things, things we should start collecting in future, things we should not be throwing away, tips and tricks on making THAT winning quilt to such an extent that Marilyn herself, by the afternoon, said it seems as if my lights were dimming. 

From L to R:  Janine, Karin & Nelia in front

I simply could take in just a certain amount and then my brain started swimming in my head and yes, needless to say, sitting outside has now turned into searching for shimmering sweet papers someone else might have dropped, a burning cigarette now scorches silk fabrics beautifully and drinking is no longer a sin as we need the wine corks and the Richelieu brandy nets.

From L to R: Nelia, Delmarie, Marianne, Blossom

Marilyn also brought along the most beautiful hand painted fabric and kits and for short periods during the class we pretended to be in a shopping mall and went bonkers shopping.  Kits for this lovely scatter cushion were also on sale – mine will be turned into a bag.

We also got to meet another charming lady whom started out to be Marilyn’s body guard, got demoted to tea girl soon afterwards and then turned saleslady galore.  It was just as nice to have you here Blossom (Marilyn’s sister) and thanks so much for my ‘Marilyn purple’ “blommetjie” (crochet flower).

From L to R:  Karin, Delmarie & bodyguard Blossom

So to everyone, who missed out on these 2 wonderful days, keep watching for the completed projects at the guild meetings.  Nelia, Marianne, Iessie, tannie Magriet , Amanda, Delmarie, Réne, Janine, Annette and Karin all promised to have theirs at the November meeting.

I could however not make that promise for you all know very well, writing the blog takes up a lot of my time and reorganizing my sewing room to make space to accommodate my latest ‘Marilyn addiction’ is not making life any easier – ugh!!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us Marilyn, we had a ball – fused bulbs or not!  And don’t you forget the promised blog you are going to start for us to follow!

Reversible Sling Bag Tutorial

I found this tutorial by Cindy Louch on her blog Skip To My Lou

This looks like a fun and very easy bag to make and with no zippers in sight one can actually make a couple to fit different outfits.

To get this tutorial, click HERE

Festival committee meeting and visitors from afar

And there you were thinking that we weren’t doing anything about our planned National Quilt Festival in 2013.  How wrong you are!  Not with a leader such as Iessie Steenberg, not a moment’s rest for the tired.

The committee met again and apart from the budget everyone was on track with their portfolios and everyone seems to know exactly what they should do.

Speaking of budget………….. we need money and plenty of it, so if you’re out there, wanting to sponsor, heck yes, we’d appreciate it!

And to our guild members wondering if all our their hard work would be for nothing, I'd like to share an e-mail from Celia Gibson all the way from Melbourne, Australia who is already playing with the idea of attending our festival:

That's very possible that I might attend your festival as I tend go visit my brother once every two years in Johannesburg. He lives in Dainfern (near Sandton, on the way to Pretoria). I used to live in SA long time ago (24 years ago) for 15 years but now live in Melbourne, Australia for the past 23 years. I love visiting SA and still have some family there, I love shopping there, eat out and enjoy the african culture and beautiful surroundings.

 I have met Pat Parker (the quilter who does African designs, she lived in the same estate as my brother).
We quilters are everywhere and I love looking at the various styles people work in... No matter the age, the culture, the place we live in, quilting binds us all !!!
Here in Melbourne, Australia there are a lot of quilters and many quilt shows and quilt groups... we have fantastic designers and can get almost anything that the american quilters can. With the Australian dollar being so high at the moment, a lot of us are buying a lot of quilty stuff from the USA...
Hope we can keep in touch and send my regards to your group all the way from Australia....
ps - if things go as planned I should be adding to my blog (http://quiltingbycelia.blogspot.com) fotos of a quilt show I'm going on the weekend so you can see what kind of work we do here....

Cheers
Celia


Now isn't it nice to know we have readers/followers from so far away?

Quilt & Craft Fair presented by Needles & Pins

Date:  Saturday, 1 October 2011

Time:  09:00 – 15:00

Where:  Fashion and Clothing department, CUT, Bloemfontein

SHOP for the latest quilt and hobby accessories, products and kits

Watch DEMONSTRATIONS of all your favourite hobbies

DISPLAYS of quilts and other crafts

Participate in FREE WORKSHOPS – short and sweet

Entrance:  R40,00

Vendors:  R50,00

Tea garden: R30,00

Kits:  R30,00

Lunch:  R40,00

Look at what you'll be making!

Tickets for any and all of these available from your group leader.  Bookings for workshops or kits to be done by Nelia at 082 460 6326

We say goodbye.....

Our dear friend and fellow quilter, Anita Kleynhans, died quietly late on Sunday evening after being ill for some time.


Anita, we already miss you.  Our guild meetings without your classy posture, sparkling eyes, lovely smile and chirpy sayings will not be the same.


Our sympathy goes to her children who has lost a wonderful mom and grandma.  You are in our prayers.  I wish to thank Erna and Amanda (Anita's daughters) for always keeping us informed during her sickbed.


Rest in peace 'tannie-maatjie'.

PFAFF’S Block Lotto and funding for our 2013 festival

Did you watch the Springbucks departure to New Zealand on TV yesterday?  I did and was once again astonished about how sport can unite a country.  One player said, seeing the crowd, gave him goosebumps in his tummy..... I've never had this feeling but even I got butterflies in mine seeing the crowd out there to greet our boys.

Whether I'm impressed with our minister of sport's remark that the Bokke should go 'moer' and 'bliksem' them I honestly don't know.  I know we're all psyched but should words like these come from a member of cabinet or am I just putting up my Sunday face now? 

Anyway, good luck to each and every one of our rugby players and I'm rather convinced that the Webb Ellis trophy will return to us.

I have to start by reminding all readers that this is STRICTLY FOR OUR GUILD MEMBERS AND LOCAL PFAFF MACHINE OWNERS ONLY.

Here is this term’s block for PFAFF’s BLOCK LOTTO.  You have to make a block according to the rules, pay a small fee (towards the festival) and stand a chance to win all the blocks made – just like the national lottery, we just play it with blocks!!

Every term (in our newsletter and on our blog) PFAFF will give us the instructions to a new block. 

If you need a full size pattern, go down to PFAFF and buy a pattern for R5,00 – in some cases (such as this term’s block) however you will only need instructions and then you’ll pay for every completed block you enter.

If you only bought one pattern but made several blocks you’ll have to pay entry fee for every block you hand in.

You do need to use at least ONE PFAFF fabric in your block, so while there buy yourself a fat quarter if you cannot remember which of your stash was bought from PFAFF.

Complete your block/s and hand it back to PFAFF.  

The deadline for the term’s block is the DAY BEFORE (9 November 2011) our next quarterly meeting.  NO BLOCKS will be accepted at the meeting. Your name is then added to those who stand a chance to be the lucky winner.

The draw will be done during our next quarterly meeting.

This term you have to make a 10½" square Crazy Patch block in red and purple (remember your ONE PFAFF fabric)

Embroidery/decorations can be done by hand and or machine.  Now let's see how many of us can participate.  And just to let you know, I'm already done with one block - hand embroidery (with a stitch guide on my lap as I'm not too familiar with embroidery) and all!

Third quarterly meeting – and the winner is………….

Remember our quarterly block lotto organized by our local PFAFF dealer??  I suppose I moaned so much after the previous winner, Elsie van der Bijl, won the lucky draw that the universe kindly turned my way.  Yip I won this term’s blog lotto blocks but this didn't happen the first time round.

If Iessie Steenberg, the first name drawn, didn’t decide she had enough UFO’s on hand, and gave the prize back, I would not have made it.  So thank you Iessie and congratulations to me!!

Look at all these lovely blocks I got, just waiting to be sewn together in a quilt.