The Dozen

As I have now learnt how to post things on the blog I thought I would add in the quilt from the first round as well.

This quilt is called The Dozen and is machine appliquied, pieced and embroided.

My Dad was always one for sayings and 'Cheaper by the Dozen' was a saying that was often mentioned in our house when we were growing up so this triggered an idea of a bygone age.

Ngaire.

From my Book Shelf.

My Collection, what do I have a collection of?

Well I have a large collection of Blue fabric which is a colour I can never resist, some Teddies that when I go shopping always say please take me home, and lots of books.

After much thought the books became the winner, especially the children's ones. Over the years I have collected books to read to my 4 sons and books to share with the young children I have taught. My sister came home from England with the first couple of Mr Men books and that started the collection of the complete set of them.

So here is my quilt celebrating my collection of books, especially the Mr Men ones.

Ngaire

Jane s Quilt

Hi all just to let you know Jane is in the UK so will get sorted with her quilt on her return in the next couple of weeks.
I really am most impressed with all the lovely quilts aren't we all a lot of gatherers ?
Happy holidays to you all ,I will be doing just a bit of stitching for myself I think in between making samples.
Kerry

Is it Black or is it White?

I have a huge collection of black and white fabrics so there is a little 1" square of most of them in this quilt. Interesting that some fabrics are black/white and some white/black. Others of course are straight half and half so it was an interesting exercise in value.Hope you enjoy the quilt Helen as much as I have making it.

Anna

Kutting-edge Kaleidoscope

I'm not a serious collector but it seems over the years I have accumulated a number of pairs of scissors, rotary cutters etc. You might say tools required for quilting.

Kutting-edge Kaleidoscope is a computer generated quilt which resulted from a scan of some of this accumulation. The scan was then manipulated in Photoshop to produce first the kaleidoscope and then the border fabric, printed with an inkjet printer on to cotton and finally quilted and bound.

I have attached the original scan as I thought it may of interest to see how it looked in the beginning. The portion used to create the kaleidoscope was taken from lower right corner.

Thank you Helen for setting such an interesting challenge. It has been fun and I am really enjoying seeing the other quilts as they are posted, all are inspiring.

Cheers Judy

Lorraine's Collection

What collection? Fabrics of course! Here are 99 samples from my fabric collection - and they didn't even scratch the surface. I enjoyed this challenge thanks Helen.

Love Deb's buttons as well. Did you use wool fabrics to stitch them onto?

Looking forward to 'Through the window"

cheers Lorraine

Helen's Red Collection

I considered my Carltonware and my grandmother's teapots before deciding on a more personal focus for my collection.
The book on the quilt (which on reflection could have been larger to better suit the dimensions) opens to reveal details of the red collection that, in part, includes red t-shirts, red shoes, red shorts, red gloves, red vests, red shirts, red scarves, red watch, red jumpers, red eye shades, red coats, red wallet, red hats, red earrings, red bracelets, red handbags, red socks, red skivvies etc. and silver car!

'bits and bobs' - Deb

I have collections of all sorts of things, so it was hard to choose! This one is probably a bit obvious - a collection of buttons! It's also a collection of my shot cottons (35 in all). I wanted the finished quilt to look like a piece of modern art! Some of the buttons have been passed down from my grandmother and my mother. The edging was something new - a binding method from andsewitgoes blog. It was also an interesting exercise getting the quilt to the correct size. I measured accurately but must have stitched with a slightly smaller than 1/4 inch seam allowance - therefore the quilt is a bit bigger than 12 x 9!! And I've learnt how to crop the photo!

Too Many Recipes, too Little Time

When Helen chose "My Collections", my first thought was, I don't collect anything.  Then I thought there is lots of fabric, but by definition, to be in this group we would all have lots of fabric.  I looked at my bookshelf and saw all the cook books, thenI went to get something from a kitchen drawer and saw my "recipe file".  My recipe file is a large plastic bag containing scraps of paper - hand written, cut from magazines and newspapers, or promotional brochures put out by various companies.  It is not organised in any way, but when I need a recipe I always know what colour paper I am searching for!  There are so many that if I started today and made something different every day it would take years to get through everything - but I still cut out new things when I see them.
My little quilt shows my bag bursting with recipes.  The small squares around the border represent my fabric collection.

Kay

"my collection: favourite fabrics" by margie may

For Helen I made a shadow box in which to display fabrics from my collection.  Some of my favourites fabrics and designers are Itaya Naomi from Japan, Kaffe Fassett, Souleiado from France, Liberty of London, Alexander Henry; and I love stripes and spots.

Apart from fabric I’m not a serious collector of anything in particular – a bit of a bower bird. I have drawers of buttons and ribbons and lace and pieces of needlework that I might do something with one day – haven’t we all! I recently discovered a shop in Castlemaine called “habadash” [‘vintage, antique buttons, bits and bobs’] – a seriously dangerous shop to enter! - but if you happen to be passing by highly recommended. http://www.habadash.com.au/

Happy collecting, Margie

'2 from 11 = 9'

Hello everyone,
'2 from 11 = 2'. That just about says it all! I'm a collector! Can't help myself.
So when it was time to make this little quilt I was in a real bind......... what collection should I do?
Well the old lace and buttons won. It is a bit hard to see the lace in a photo though.
Have been enjoying everyone's comments and photos.
This is a great way to keep in touch but I am still learning all of the 'ins and outs' of the process.
The photo is meant to be the other way around but I can't do that yet.   Baby steps!
Cheers,
Ruth

September Challenge - 12 Lorraine Cocker

This is my September 2010 challenge - better late than never!!! Twelve daisies with 12 petals in each, organza surrounds and heavily quilted. cheers Lorraine

Memory Collector

Here is my Collection of Memories on my Memory Tree.

I am not a collector of things so thought my memories were important to me.

And I am still collecting memories of family, friendships, special moments, holidays, teaching, quilting and good wines to name a few!

Congratulations Helen on your wins at SA quilt Show.

Hope you enjoy my 12x9.

Happy Quilting to all,

Pam

Ring A Ring A Rosy - Kerry Glen

What a busy couple  of months it has been for me. I have been to Adelaide for the Craft and Quilt Show, Brisbane for the Craft and Quilt and finally Melbourne last weekend for the Quilting Trade show so I spent plenty of thought processes on what my collection could comprise of and came up with the obvious, my fabrics of course.
This selection of my collection just jumped off the shelves as they are just new in and I think the colours are very much Rose colours . My garden gets so little attention but the roses just keep on coming. And when in Adelaide was impressed how well they were growing in the beautiful gardens we passed to and from the showgrounds.
So Helen from my garden to  yours.My congrats also Helen on your beautiful quilts. And I would like to thank the girls in Adelaide who as usual made me very welcome and supported my stand to the extreme.

Congratulations

Good morning everyone!  I have been away for a couple of weeks.  Had a lovely time - family wedding, exploring the south coast of NSW, the High Plains country of Kosiusko Nat. Park, then on to Rutherglen to replenish the port supplies.  I finished my "Collections" quilt before I went but I will save that for a later post.

I would like to say "congratulations" to Helen for winning two prizes at the Quilters' Guild of SA's recent Festival of Quilts. I am sure all the South Aussies in our group went to the show - it was while I was away.  You can see Helen's quilt by going to the Guild's web site and following the links.

Well done, Helen.  The quilt looks beautiful and I hope I can see it in real life soon.

Kay

Hello everyone,
Pleased to say that I have my "Collections" quilt finished. I will post a photo at the end of the month.
We are finally getting spring weather in New Zealand  after rain and very strong cold winds.
The theme for the next challenge is "Through the Window".
The quilts are looking lovely and I will look forward to maybe seeing them all in real life and in an exhibition somewhere!!!!
Cheers
Anna

Theme order!

Good idea Deb. I like the idea of you putting the theme beside the name.
Would everyone be happy if we followed the order of names on the Blog to show the next to choose a theme. Example: that means Anna would be next. It would be so much easy for us all to follow, I think.
I haven't started my theme quilt yet either. Have had this idea going around in my head, so better put it to fabric. Have found this theme quite hard as I am not a collecter of anything really. So who knows what I will end up doing. Love these challenges!!!!
Happy stitching to you all.
Pam

Progress report from Deb

'My Collection' - well I'm sure we've all got a few collections (and more!), and don't even mention the fabric collection!!!   I haven't started my quilt yet but I think I've finally got an idea, so that's a start. Loved all the quilts from 'Twelve' so really looking forward to seeing the results from this theme. 
I have put the title of Pam and Helen's themes next to their names in the right hand column of the blog, and will continue as we all choose our theme. Hope that's OK? 

Yummo!

Thank you to everyone.
Your yummy quilts have all arrived safely and have each received a hug.
They all look so different. Can see we all have put in a lot of mind searching to come up with our ideas. What fun!
People often ask me what am I going to do with the quilts. I tell them I will get them out and look at them; hug and cuddly them, and show them off to the many people I teach in my local area.
Also hope around the Sydney Quilt Show in 2012 that I may be able to show the collections to you all. They looked great in the photos, but you should see them in real life!!!
I look forward to "my collections" theme and think I have a small idea as to what I might do. Thanks Helen.
Have fun everyone and happy quilting,
Pam

Ants' Nest by Ruth

Hi everyone,

Here we are on the last day of the month so I am sending a photo of my little quilt to everyone.

Hopefully Pam will get it in the post today.

I've been away for six weeks and only got back on Saturday so I hope to keep in touch a bit more now that I am getting back to normal----whatever that is!!!!

Twelve comes into this little quilt because I have put 12 ants on the ants nest.

Keep stitching,

Cheers'

Ruth

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Dominos by Judith

Evening All Time is running out and I've not yet had a chance to master blogger so please forgive me this time for sending my Twelve challenge via email. Attached a photo "Domino" my quilt for the Twelve Challenge.  It was machine pieced and machine quilted before appliqueing and machine stitching the details of a double six domino. Dominos was never one of my favourite games but since making this quilt I have learnt that the game of Dominos has many variations - I am in the process of finding out more and who knows may even get to enjoy it - I hope so as it would be a great way to entertain our two youngest grandsons. It's been fun taking part in this first challenge and I look forward to seeing all the finished quilts and learning about our next challenge. Happy stitching Judy

"12 ties" By Jane

I really enjoyed making this for Pam....I have decided that Sashiko will be my constant for everyone. I thought for a while about other methods but this seemed the natural option for me...so I am looking forward to the next one!

Cheers,

Jane

ONE DOZEN FREE MOTION EGGS by Helen

A few weeks ago I was glancing through my mother's shopping list before going to the supermarket and I asked a very mundane question, "would you like half a dozen or a dozen eggs?"  Her reply was "a dozen." 
There's no need to continue with this story, other than to say that the cutting and placement of the applique pieces proved to be much more of a challenge than I'd ever anticipated.

I spent some time looking into the number 12.  I found out lots of mathematical properties of 12, but nothing that pointed to a quilt.  I thought of a dozen, but I couldn’t draw a chook!  I thought of a dodecagon or a dodecahedron – both too hard to draw on paper, let alone reproduce in fabric.  So I decided to think laterally.  With what other items in my life was the number 12 associated?

When the original topic had been "9",  I was going to do something about the worst Beatles song ever recorded, “Revolution 9” from the “White Album”.  Thinking about this took me to the garage where all my old records are gathering dust on a shelf, looking rather sad.  There was my quilt – the sad demise of the 12 inch long playing record, superseded by CD’s, DVD’s, iPods etc.  So my quilt is a warped and melting LP, surrounded by the names of some of my favourite old recording artists from the LP era.

It is always nice to learn something when making a new quilt.  This time I learned more than I needed to know about the number 12 as well as the fact that I am not very good at writing with my machine!  More practice needed in this department!

Kay

Never Enough Time By Kerry

12 Went around and around in my head as I know it did with all of you. Because I can not seem to make a quilt lately without a circle in it . I started to think about maybe a clock and then it just occurred we never have emough time to quilt. Hence the name Never Enough Time. The base of the clock is a time line just like we did in history lessons. I did use my Cut Around tool to cut and then pieced the circle. Of course all the fabrics used are my batiks again I wanted to use something with circles on it. Hope you all like it and I look forward to the next challenge.

Twelve Talented Butterflies

Hope you all don't mind but have been on the computer for a few hours learning this new skill and would forget if I waited till another day.
My quilt is showing twelve very clever images crossing the ditch.
How good it is to know you all and share in this first theme.
So grateful that I am the one to receive the first twelve quilts.
Helen is our next theme picker and quilt receiver.
Cheers and happy quilting,
Pam

12 in the ditch - swim! by Margie

Back to basics! This simple block known as "Bright Hopes" was the first I ever made when I firs went to patchwork and quilting classes in 1989.  In my quilt for Pam there are 12 blocks each with a bright centre, one for each of us; and I've used twelve different blue fabrics for the sea. So here we are in the ditch - I hope you can swim!
It's a little early because next week I'll be at Fibre Arts @ Geelong with Deb. I'm doing Mary Crehan's class Footsteps and Journeys - tell you all about it later.
Does any one know how to crop the photo.s?

Twelve! by Deb

I went round and round with the theme "Twelve" and kept coming back to a 'dozen'.  Hence the eggs!  After many years of appliqueing chooks on teatowels (to sell) I had plenty of pictures to choose from. I thought this poor chook looked suitably horrified at the thought of twelve babies!  As I said in a previous post I quilted the background before I did the applique - much easier!  I enjoyed doing this and am really looking forward to the next theme. (Click on image to enlarge.) 
I keep forgetting to put my name on the post.  Perhaps we should all make a habit of putting it in the title?

LEARNING NEW SKILLS

No, this isn't my "12" quilt - it is last year's Quilt Encounter Challenge when the theme was "Emus".  since I have  never blogged before I thought I would have a play and figure out how to do it and how to get my pictures on it.  with a little trial and error it seems to have worked!

My "12" quilt is finished, but I will save revealing it, as well as writing about the experience,  until the end of the month.

Many thanks to Jane for setting this up and to Pam for inspiring us.

Kay

Cheers from Pam

Had a great afternoon yesterday working on my 12x9. Once I had made up my mind as to what I was going to do it was a lot of fun. Still have more work to do to finish it, but it is nearly there!!
Happy quilting,
Pam

Hello from Anna

Hope you all got the photo of my finished quilt. The font for the letters of the twelve is called "Oz handicraft" which I thought was very appropriate!! The other two NZ ladies Judy and Ngaire are going to write about themselves for you so you get an idea about the two of them. Anna

rolling along

I've decided to stay in my comfort zone - machine pieced, traditional, scrap, hand quilted - I've finished my quilt and the fabrics I've used are shown here. I'm also thinking I'll make two blocks for each theme, one to keep [top only] and one [quilted and bound] to send on and then at the end I can piece my second set together to make one large quilt. Thanks Jane for the set up and thanks Deb for getting the ball rolling; and also Pam without whom....

Margie

Get the ball rolling!

Well, I thought I might get the ball rolling, see if I can post a photo and say hello to everyone!
So after three attempts a photo has appeared!!! 
This is the start of my little quilt.  I thought I would try something different and quilt before doing some applique. Much easier than trying to quilt round an image. I've really enjoyed thinking about 'twelve'.  It has been a challenge!
(I have actually finished my quilt now but thought I'd wait till the end of September and post a photo along with everyone else. Are we thinking the last week of September?)
Cheers,   Deb