G'day!

Welcome Trish!!

I see you've made the natural transition to quilting from cross stitch much as I have. Still hope to see you on the 123 board though!

Claudia

Hi Trish and welcome to the group! Barbara in SC

Welcome Trish. What an exciting 'journey' you have been on! There isn't an actual site for the group's photos, but there is a site where the individual sites - Flickr, Webshots and the like - are listed. Only thing is: I can't remember it. Sorry. But someone will know what it is.

I have only got a few minutes at the moment; but I'll come back later and tell you about the things I am doing at the moment.

Help anyone? . In message , Trish Brown writes

Welcome Trish! I was just about to ask if you had photos up anywhere when YOU asked where to put them! Most of us use Webshots or Flicker or some other free photo site. Or even Facebook, although I don't belong so can't tell you about it. Anyhow, we'd all love to see what you're doing. Somewhere (can't find the link! Help!) is a website kindly organized by one of us with links to everybody's photos.

I do feel your pain about cutting into a piece of something expensive and gorgeous. It helps me a lot to just throw ALL new fabric into the wash. Pressing and sorting the clean pieces helps us get acquainted. Then it's somehow less traumatic to cut off a bit.

Oh boy, polyester in a cotton quilt! Of course, there are no quilt police and you may certainly do whatever you like. You just need to be aware that poly and cotton do not wear at the same rate and will develop a very divergent "patina". IOW, it will eventually be VERY obvious, unless you never wash the piece or expose it to light.

Love your idea of a decorated b>Hello everyone! I posted here a few times about five years ago, just as

Welcome Trish from Bronwyn (Bronnie) Burleigh Heads! You'll find this group full of love and support for all things quilty and otherwise. Ask lots of questions and continue with your informative posts and you will have fun with everyone.

Cheers Bronnie

As promised, I'm back! It was most interesting to hear of all you have been doing. How great that you have become captured by this wonderful craft. Just a quick outline of my current work:

I have been working on a Dear Jane for years! It's my when I get a week or so clear, I'll do a bit quilt. I am not doing it like the original Jane Stickle quilt, mine is a sort of Trip Around the World design. I am on the last but one 'round'. I have been making the drawings from Brenda Papadakis' book and making notes of instructions to myself how to make the blocks. It will now be put away again, until I get the next batch of time to start the sewing. I have also been working on drawings for an altar frontal I have promised to make for my church. I will have some hand-sewing help during the autumn and winter, so I want to have it all prepared - lots of appliqué, so lots of drawing. Ready to do some enlarging at the printers now. Then, before I start anything else - and before anything else is even completed - I am going to do the drawings for my most ambitious series of quilts yet - a Cathedral cosmati floor (Bristol). I have had the photographs taken for years: now to the next stage - the detailed drawings. I will be occupied all summer and will enjoy every second!! I have just finished my involvement in our group quilt - Just the binding to do when it has been quilted is my last job on it.

I wish dust didn't happen, and weeds didn't grow in warmth and rain ...... .

In message , Trish Brown writes

Yay for you!!

Karen, Queen of Squishies

Hi Trish,

Good to see you again and to read about your quilting progress. Was it you that used to post stories about your "ugly sister" ?

As to photos, I like to put mine up on flickr

and I know others use webshots and also picasa . Wherever you put them we want to see what you have been making. Happy quilting

Lizzy

Hi Trish. We 'met on the net' through cross stitching many years ago.

I have also been quilting for a while now. In fact, tonight I picked up a cross stitch project for the first time in many years. It felt rather strange. :-)

Can't help with the scrap quilt ideas, but just wanted to say hello from a fellow Aussie and welcome you to the world of quilting.

Leigh Harris Perth, Western Australia

Hello everyone! I posted here a few times about five years ago, just as I was beginning my first quilt. I was slow to get started, I think because I was scared to cut into expensive fabric without really knowing what I was doing. I'm sure you remember how it is? ;-D

Anyway, long story short, but I've made a few quilts now and have lately been gathering speed and motivation. I have to digress here and say what a huge help YouTube has been to me! Watching all those brilliant people doing all those brilliant things with fabric and thread has just made my fingers itch to try too! So, I've recently gathered all the scraps together from my first two quilts and pieced them into a pretty Log Cabin baby quilt.

Blue is a popular colour in our house, so most of my scraps were shades of midnight (DD's favourites) and lighter blues (DS' favourites). I put the traditional red square in the centres of all my blocks and managed to make 56 of them. Because it was all scraps, I kept running out of this or that print and so the blocks aren't all identical, but the 'vibe' is there, y'know? The quilt will be a gift for one of DD's friends who is going to be a very young (16) Mum and in need of lots of support.

Well, having finished the baby quilt and found it to be pure bliss (since it was scraps, I didn't have to suffer Miscutter's Guilt), I needed something else to be going on with. I've got about four major quilts planned, but they're all in the future, since I'm still collecting prints for them. (A chintzy floral for my DMIL; a Celtic animals appliqué for my DS; a spectacularly RED quilt for my DD and a horse-flavoured quilt for my DSister - oh, and an owl-flavoured one for myself). I've got long-standing collections for all these, but I landed on a neat little project just for skill-building.

I've found one of my ancient binders from 'way back and have decided to make a pretty quilted cover for it. When it's done, it will be my Quilting Information Journal where I'll keep all my useful info and records of fabrics, blocks etc. I don't know the name of the block I'm making, but it's sort of squares in squares with two flying geese sticking out at each corner. The prints are all strawberry-themed, so colours of red, green, cream and a little bit of blue. They're left over from the humungo-gigantic 3yd x 3yd quilt top I made a couple of years ago. Sadly, it's so big, I've been far too reluctant to quilt it. But soon... very soon! I have to say, my patchworking skills are heaps better than my quilting so far. More practice is needed!

Anyway, that's where I'm up to in my quilting journey. I'd love to hear the stories of other people's quilts and would especially like to know if the group has a photos page so I can look and learn?

I have two questions to be going on with:

1. Got any good designs for using up Fat Quarters???

1. If I were to make a scrappy quilt with ¼" black bias tape 'sashing' (sort of like stained glass, only a bit different), would the world end if I used polycotton for the bias tape? I've got a whole bolt of the stuff and would much rather use it than have to purchase 100% cotton for $$$$. (Please give me permission! Please do! But only if Evil and Destruction won't result from the usage of polycotton...)

Sorry for the huge first post, but I'm really keen and so pleased to have found some other folk to talk quilts with. My best friend (who

*would* be my quilting buddy, only he lives miles away) used to post here and suggested I introduce myself. I'm looking forward to 'meeting' you all and hearing about your current projects!

Cheers! ;-D

Thanks Sandy. How kind of you to remember. I changed my attitude on things at my recent birthday; and am now going to change priorities on three or four days a week!! .

In message , Sandy writes

Good to hear everything you are doing and want to achieve Pat! I'm in a 'go-slow' mode this year. The project I am working on is a commission for a child's quilt x 2. Easy everyone says! But I'm not keen on applique work, so that has made the design more difficult as I have to work around quilt fabrics with the animals already on it! A bit of fussy-cutting etc. Still travelling, just back from a bushwalking trip with DH to the outback in South Australia - a wonderful unique landscape of geotectonic activity (long past but a few grumbles now and then) gorges and ridges, - and lots of kangaroos and emus! Lovely to see them in their natural habitat. Best get a move on here, the lady who commissioned me, is coming by here in the weekend and I need to have something to show her (not finished).

Hugs Bronnie

is the link to the pages where some of us choose to shre their work Dee in Oz ( who actually pulled her finger out and started quilting a lap sized quilt today, which was quite an effort as my sewing room is the coldest room in the house especially with the terrible weather we are having)

Me too Dee, I have all the makings for a child's bed quilt sorted - procrastinating a bit though because of the cold.

Gee, thanks, everybody, for the warm welcome! It's great to see a few Ozzies in the mix as well and especially nice to see some familiar names from my cross-stitching past (waves). Looking forward to lots of quilty chatter! ;-D

G'day Lizzy!

Yep! I'm the one with the Ugly Sister. I used to have a webshots account

- must see if I can resurrect it.

Happy quilting to you too! ;-D

Wow! Pat, you sound so organised! I'm afraid I'm a lot more haphazard than you - I just sort of wait for the inspiration to hit me upside of the head and then puddle along from there.

I have questions: what's a 'Dear Jane' please? Also, what's a 'Cathedral floor' quilt? (I know about the windows one) Have you got time to tell about fabrics and colours in these designs?

I'm interested to hear that you draw your own designs. Do you use software for that? I've been using Adobe Illustrator to trace and build my celtic animals designs - it's *great* fun! I like CorelDraw, as well, but am waiting to get hold of a more recent version (the one I have is a bit elderly). It's so helpful to have automatic dimensions provided for you, especially when you want to try a different block size or sashing size.

I too wish dust didn't happen and have given up with the weeds.

Had to smile (if you could see my sewing room!!).

However, yes, I do plan a lot - in every sphere. I enjoy planning. I get more inspiration than I remotely have time to carry out the ideas. That's why I love the drawing - I feel I am on the way. No I don't use any computer aid for drawing: just a few pencils, fine drafting pens and geometrical instruments - and paper of course, tracing and cartridge.

A 'Dear Jane' is the sort of shorthand name for versions of a quilt made in 1863 by an American lady called Jane Stickle. It has 169, 4.5" blocks - all different; plus a border of alternating pieced and unpieced triangles. I am only doing a 100 blocks, as I don't really have room to hang a full-sized one, and my triangles are all going to be unpieced, alternating dark and light, like the body of the quilt, rather than pieced.

Cathedral floor quilt is a representation in fabric of a type of tiled floor. The style is originally Italian, and is extremely beautiful. It can be simple or intricate. My series will include both types. I have made one and the other three are in my head, but not yet drawn - hence the urgency I feel to get out the photographs once again and get the drawings done. The tiling patterns have many designs in common with quilt patterns. Try looking in Google Images for 'Cosmati tiling'. You will understand straight away, I'm sure, why I get so absorbed by these designs. I will be making them as true to life as possible, except that I choose the fabric to suite me (I rarely use prints anymore for detailed quilts).

Hope that helps. . In message , Trish Brown writes

Hey Trish -- Tia Mary from RCTN, here :-). So glad to see you posting here and quilting up a storm :-). There IS a place for quilt photos but I don't have the link. I'm sure someone here will post it for you. Keep us posted on the notebook cover progress. CiaoMeow