Piecing for Charity

My local ASG Sewing Group, the Georges Hall Sew'n'Sews, is sewing for charity. Every meeting, one of our members brings along her huge bag of fabric scraps and  we try to put together fabrics to turn into quilts. Some of the hard work has already been done, where embroidererd squares and possible fabrics to go with them have been bagged together. I brought two of these bags home with me last month to see what I could create from them.

In the first bag were some lovely digitized machine embroidered squares, with some very girly handbags and shoes. All stitched onto pink polycotton fabric.

In the bag with the embroidered squares were pieces of other fabrcs, some large, some small, some prints, some plain. All were off cuts, some with odd shaped pieces already cut from them.

So, what to do with it all? How to put it all together?

I started with borders around the embroidered squares, then added some sashings, a fine floral border to tie them all together, then a wide pieced border of plain pink with a pink and white check. Overall effect, not bad. The quilt still needs to be layered with batting & backing, then quilted & bound, but that will happen sometime in the future. I am sure some little girl somewhere will be happy to cuddle up to this once it is finished. Now on to working out what to do with the second package I have.

Quilting For Charity

My new sewing group is on the road again, sewing quilts for charity. This one was embroidered and  pieced by one lady from donated and cut squares , and I offered to quilt and bind it. It is now finished & ready to be donated to a deserving cause.

Sharing the work load of a project like this is interesting. Some of the squares were cut on bias and  some of the strips were not cut straight. Therefore the quilt top is pulling in all kinds of directions because the different grains are fighting against each other. We knew this from the beginning, but we figured it was going to be loved & dragged around for comfort by some grateful child so we continued. The quilting was fun because of all the grain changes, but I still managed, and the bind may not be quite straight, but we figure it will be loved anyway. I have two more to do, both need to be pieced, so they are next on my agenda.

I might add here that our new sewing group is going great guns. We have 16 members on our books, ranging from beginner sewers to experienced dressmakers, and we have plenty of room for more. So if anyone would like to come and join us, all info is on the Australian Sewing Guild website. Just look under the "groups" tab, then click the drop-down arrow in the "select a group" section. Scroll down and select the Georges Hall Sew'n'Sews, then click the "select a group" button. This will give you meeting times, dates, a contact, and also a map of how to find us. We'd love for some new members to join us.

Georges Hall Sew'n'Sews - Our First Day

What a great morning I  had yesterday. It was the first meeting of our new Australian Sewing Guild group, the Georges Hall Sew'n'Sews. We were all a little anxious, being a new group, a new venue, wondering how it would all go and what we were going to do. In hindsight we shouldn't have worried at all, it was just a fabulous meeting. We had thirteen in attendace, 1 appology, and one person walk in off the street to see what we were doing. By my maths, that makes 15 people, and they are all talking about comming back. Yippee!

The first adventure was unlocking the door and getting it to stay that way. In the end we just clipped the door back with the hook provided. It was only a door into an entry, and as there was another door into our hall space, the cool weather oustide wasn't a problem, especially when we found the airconditioner button. Once that was pushed it wasn't long before we were all warm and cosy.

The second adventure was the lights. So many light switches! They were all labelled, it was just a case of finding the ones that we required. Easy to find for the next time.

Then came the tables and chairs, and I am pleased to note that everybody helped. At first we only got out three tables, thinking it would be plenty for the people we knew that were comming, but it wasn't long before we were putting up more to accomodate all the newbies.

Now that was just the setting up, the real guts of the meeting was yet to come. We talked about what people wanted to do, what they wanted to get out of the group, and came to decisions as to how the next few meetings would go down. There was show and tell aplenty, including the quilt blocks at the top by Margaret. So bright and fabulous, all made from scraps.

This quilt was also by Margaret, full of beautiful applique.

Jenny J was off to a special function and had made this stunning outfit to wear, including the matching bag. Somthing that would cost $$$$$ in any little boutique.

There were also these fun tissue box covers by Jenny J that will be for sale, great for that special place or person.

 Then there were the conversations, so manyof them I couldn't keep up with them all. There were conversations about quilts, quilt blocks, quilting and how to get quilting designs onto fabric. Paper pieceing, mitered corners in binds, making personalised dress forms, how to choose  threads, pants fittings, taking patterns from a garment, how to read commercial pattern instructions, sewing machines, sewing machine mechanics, scissor sharpening............and that's just what I was a part of. There were conversations happening all morning, everyone was chatting and it was all about sewing. All the new people were made welcome and were included in on conversations. Just fabulous! In the end we were havng to push people out the doors because our time was up. Now that's what I call a sewing meeting. May there be many more to come.

Acknowledgements:-
Photography - Helen N

Quilt Donations

Well, we finally made the paper, the local paper that is. The  local Sewing Guild Group have been stiching up quilts to donate to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and  the story has finally been published 5 weeks after the quilts were presented. The article can be read here, where the qualitly of the print is much better than this copy cut from Wednesday's Torch. Scroll down to page 29 (Page 29?) yep, that's where they decided to put us, & click the page 29 link underneath.

What the article didn't mention was that the quilt project was instigated by Margaret W, who also produced over half of the quilts that were presented. Another lady, Jenny J, also produced quite a large number of quilts all on her own. I did some of the work,  some piecing, some applique, some quilting & a few binds, but not near as much as these two ladies.

Something else that the article didn't mention was the fact that the group has now split, with the two ladies mentioned above, myself, and a few others forming a new group at Georges Hall. What caused the split? Well everyone was starting to complain about lack of parking due to the new units being built next to the Guide Hall. A suggestion was made that we move, some research was made & then the opposing arguments began, & it all got a little political. A number of differnt halls were found & we settled on Georges Hall Community Center. It is a lovely hall, fairly new, large, bright, sunny, well lit, huge big windows with vertical blinds that can be opened to let in the light, air conditioning, parking ouside the door with flat entry to the hall, multiple toilets that are well lit & have locks that work, a big kitchen that we have access to including continuous boiling water for tea & coffee. All these assets are a far cry from the Guide Hall, & the best part is the  rent is cheaper!

Anyone interested in joining this new goup can contact  our group co-ordinator via this page. What would be the advantages of joining a group like this? Well lots of course, including the company of us lovely ladies who have sewing knowledge galore, & just want to share. We are going  to  encourage young sewers to perfect their skills and pass them on to future generations to come. Why not come join us?