June meeting

After the excellent speakers we have had recently, it was lovely to have a more social evening, so people could catch up and have a good chat! The meeting was used to discuss the forthcoming exhibition, explain the format and have a selection of bag patterns available for people to take.

The exhibition will be on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th October from 10-4 each day. Volunteers will be needed to help set up on the Friday evening, and to man the exhibition on both days. There will be plenty of different jobs to do, from taking money on the door (£1.50 per person) to serving refreshments - and of course making the cakes which will make up the main part of the refreshments! - serving on the sales table and bag raffle, to generally being welcoming to people, and answering questions. Even if you can only spare an hour, your help will be much appreciated. If you haven't already signed up, you can let Di know or leave a comment on the blog and we'll get back to you. A new idea this year will be a bag and cushion raffle. We are asking members to make either a bag or cushion (or hopefully both!) for the raffle. Each item will be displayed, and people will be able to buy a ticket for the bag or cushion of their choice. Each set of tickets will be placed in a separate container for the cushions and in the bag itself for the bags. At the end of the day, a ticket will be drawn from each container, thus ensuring that every winner will be thrilled to get the item they most wanted! What a clever idea! This means that you won't see the item you've made donated to another raffle next week!

There was much excitement when Ruth unveiled the finished group quilt. Everyone was amazed at how good it looked, as several people secretly confided to me that they had been a bit skeptical when the background and balloon blocks had been first displayed! Apart from the fact the 27 people had taken part, the assembling had been done by Ruth, Lynda, Di and Paula. Many thanks to them for all their hard work. (And also thanks to my talented daughter, who gave us design inspiration when we were all stuck!)

On 26th September, Jenny Almond will be running one of her very popular workshops. She brought along various ideas for us to choose from, all with a Christmas theme. The two most popular ones were two lovely wall-hangings, one with houses and reindeer (above) and the other with four different sections (below).

Jenny will teach both items at the workshop, but needs to know how many people want to do

each one so she can prepare the patterns. If you weren't at the meeting, but would like to do the workshop, please decide which is your favourite and let Ruth know. (I like the reindeer one personally!)

Then it was time for show and tell. Brenda Lincoln (a founder member of Piecemakers) has become involved with 'Quilts For Heroes', an organisation which makes quilts for soldiers who have been wounded on active service. She and a group of friends have made quilts and sent them to a military hospital in Suffolk. Apparently when the first quilts arrived, the sergeant took them into the ward, put them in a corner and just made a general announcement that they were there for anyone to take. Since they were all tough soldiers, he wasn't sure how much takeup there would be. When he next went into the ward, the pile of quilts was gone, and there was a quilt on every bed or chair! No one is too tough not to appreciate a quilt!

Brenda is hoping for donations of fabric in red, white, blue or masculine colours and old shirts.

Chris brought several quilts for us to see.I had looked through the donated Linus fabric, and found a lot of dark plaids, which have been put together beautifully in this quilt. Keep up the good work, ladies!

Stephanie had made some cushion covers which were all made from strips of fabric sewn into squares, then chopped and mixed up. This ensured that they all match, as they are all made from the parts. Stephanie and Sharon had finished their hand quilting which they had started on the Sandie Lush workshop. Beautiful work.

Di had made three different bags for the raffle. One was a tote, one a shopping bag and the other a little purse. I'm sure people will be buying lots of tickets to win those.Last year, Flutterwheels's theme was stars. These were choppy stars, which Chris won. She fell in love with the fresh colours and quirky look of these blocks and has made them into a quilt for herself. Perfect colours for a dreary day, I would say. Nearly every meeting sees Paula presenting me with a quilt for Project Linus! This one is dancing gingerbread men (or star jumping gingerbread men as I prefer to call it!) Many thanks Paula. You're a star!

And finally, here is my Mystery Quilt which I made at Rocheberie Quilters in March. It's totally scrappy, as you can see, and quilted with feathers in all the cream spaces. I love it!