December 21st, 2010.

Already we are at the last meeting for the year!

Val, Esther, Evi, Carole, Emma, Kate and Jennifer were present and apologies came from Shelly and Di.

Carole entertained us with her hassles updating her kitchen! She found an oven with the same external dimensions as the old one, which was quite a win, but new ovens come with far less accessories (e.g. oven racks) and much to her surprise the old racks did not fit the new oven.

A bigger problem was the hotplates. The new ones are 1 cm smaller all around and the cabinetmaker claimed it would be necessary to make a whole new bench top at vast expense. The alternative a ceramic top was also expensive.


Our next non sewing topic was possums and roses. Carole protects the roses by dousing them in Vaporub every day. As an added insurance she gives the possum an apple a day!

My Problem is I am not good at multi-tasking and if I take photos I forget to record any text, so we will now move onto the pictorial record.

Val, Esther, Evi and Carole concentrate as Emma reads out her Twelve Days of Christmas menu. Twelve courses and 16 guests so it will be quite a party!

Evi, Carole and Emma

Jennifer

Emma's interpretation of Esther's 12 Days of Christmas. Rather than baubles hanging on a quilt tree, they will be set on point in green fabric to make placemats for the feast mentioned above.

Carole is always innovative and showed us these examples of 3D Textile Art. The price differential for the raw materials between New York and Australia was more than 300%!

Val's 5 year old grand daughter is very lucky. These are 2 of the 4 skirts Val has made for her.

Val's I spy. Bought on a trading table, it had a piece missing and was very crooked and uneven. After unpicking and resewing it looks great. I love the panda fabric.

No, it's not Peter Pan. It is the angel appearing to the Shepherds with their flocks. It is Part of Emma's Silhouette Nativity. Emma's inspiration came from the book 'The First Christmas' illustrated by Jan Pienkowski.

Manger scene from the Silhouette Nativity.

Jennifer's Tumbling Teddies for Miss Harmony

Detail of a Juggling Teddy from the Tumbling Teddies Quilt.

Esther has designed a rabbit for next year - the year of the Rabbit on the Chinese Zodiac.

Well, Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year and good health and an industrious and productive sewing time.

November 16th, 2010

Another little gathering for the Tarts in November; Carole, Jennifer, Barb, Esther and Emma enjoyed the evening together. Thanks to Emma for forwarding the text and to Esther for the photos

While doing a little web surfing Esther discovered a Portuguese video of a lady (with yapping dogs in background) demonstrating how to turn a hexagon into a cute little fabric star of diamonds.  
The very clever Esther, with no Portuguese language, managed to follow the visual instructions and then demonstrated to the Tarts present. We all managed a star of sorts and were very impressed with the results. Much like a funky Suffolk puff (good thing all Emma's siblings are married!). There was general agreement that these were the best use for hexagons, though Esther won a prize bag of rubber stamped hexagons and the stamp and is proceeding to create lovely flowers potentially for a Grandmother's Flower Garden.

Esther and Barb - the crotchety quilters? - no the crocheting quilters have been keeping their hooks busy.  Abe says Esther needs about another metre for him to fit comfortably under her chevron crochet!  Esther's crochet afghan motifs are finished but she has run out of wool before stitching them together!

Emma had the colourque blocks to show. They have all been touched up to match each other's intensity and have had the textile medium applied. There will be a pink & white checkerboard border between the blocks and a graduated checkerboard border around the outside.

Jennifer and Carole were industriously working on projects, but sorry I don't quite know what they were (I would not get a job in telepathy!) Emma was putting final touches on her Christmas anagram wall hanging and auditioning her Christmas silhouette fabrics - Jennifer and Esther have dibs on any ombre leftovers!  Emma's having such fun having drawn up the three huge blocks with the aid of an overhead projector and has already traced the stable scene onto
vliesofix.  She is not sure there will be leftovers, although there might be smaller versions of the same quilt for "Show and Tell" next month at the rate she is going!

Portuguese Fabric Stars

Learning to make the hexagon stars

Completed Scquilty Tart Hexagon Star

Usual industrious group

Zooming in on Carole, Jennifer and Barb

Jennifer

Barb

Emma

Barb and Esther display their Afghans

That's all for November, but don't forget to come in December.

October 19th, 2010

No photographers tonight and so a welcome change not to have to hunt for a car space!
A select seven this month. Emma, Shelly, Evi, Esther, Jennifer, Kate and Carolynn a first time visitor. It was so good to have Evi back and she kept us well entertained.

I don't know if anyone else looks after their DD as well as Esther. Esther ordered a Sacher Torte from Vienna for her DD's birthday and was amazed when it was delivered in 3 days! Full marks to the German Courier Service.

Esther is working on her crocheted throw - up to the 46th colour of the rows of chevrons. It is growing like Topsy!

Emma had organised a colouring evening at her house on Thursday. The project is to make a quilt to raffle using Helen Stubbings Faux Applique technique. So it was shades of kindergarten as everyone arrived with their box of coloured pencils.

And now for the photographic record

Carolynn shows us the tea side of her tea and coffee bag.

The ladybird cup on Emma's sixty teacup quilt (for more details see March post)

 

Shelly working on a Faux Applique block

 

Shelly, Emma and Carolynn

 

 Jennifer, Esther and Evi

Jennifer's prizewinning quilts. First prize - Floral Flourish and Second prize - Oriental 1

A better photo of Oriental 1 is in the March post. Floral Flourish appears in the December post. 

 

Jennifer's First prize Rosette from the Stringybark Festival

 

 Kate's No Name quilt made with the Snowball blocks in Oriental fabrics  won at the Ballarat Quilting Weekend. Emma sold me the perfect setting fabric. It was in stock at Chandler's Cottage.

 If you like the idea of going back to kindergarten and getting out your coloured pencils, then this is the book you need.

Carolynn and Esther hard at work colouring

Result of one evenings work. It really helps if there is a big gang and there is raspberry chocolate cheesecake and pavlova waiting at the end! Thanks for organising everything, Emma.

September 21st, 2010

Carole, Esther, Val and Kate met for a relaxed evening. We had no formal Show and Tell although Carole had completed her Leesa Chandler bags for her American relatives. Made with Leesa's Australian flora fabric they looked great.

A very short post for this month, but there is always next time!

August 17th, 2010

Seven Tarts gathered to celebrate Emma's birthday, Esther's three rosettes from Showcase at Jeff's Shed and to welcome back Shelly. Also Kate has resurfaced, hence another post of the Blog. When we arrived the Car Park was almost full, and poor Jennifer had a long way to hobble on her twisted ankle.

As usual some sewing, plenty of chatter and a delicious supper thanks to Emma and Jennifer.

This is Emma's recipe from the July evening which I missed, but I heard they are scrummy!

Marble Choc cheesecake Brownies

175g unsalted butter
3 tblsp cocoa
200g golden caster sugar (I used regular caster)
2 eggs, beaten
125g plain flour

250g ricotta cheese
40g golden caster sugar (regular)
1 egg beaten

Preheat oven to 180C.  Grease 11" x 7" rectangular baking tin.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, remove from the heat and stir in the
cocoa and sugar.  Beat in the eggs, then add the flour and stir to mix
evenly.  Pour into the prepared tin.

For the cheesecake mix, beat together the ricotta, sugar and egg, then drop
teaspoonfuls of the mixture over the chocolate mixture.  Use a palette knife
to swirl the two mixtures together lightly (bugger lightly, you really need
to kind of dig the chocolate up from the bottom a bit).

Bake in the oven for 40-45 mins (mine was a little overdone but would
definitely say it needed 45 mins), until just firm to the touch.  Cool in
the tin, then cut into bars or squares.

And now for the pictorial record. Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Esther and Carole display Esther's "In the Pink"

Detail of In the Pink

Detail of the superb quilting "In the Pink"

Another detail of the quilting. I am not sure why the colour is so different from the previous shot

Carole shows us her pink Pt Lonsdale lighthouse - fabulous!

Carole is making bags from Leesa Chandler's new Australian fabric

Back and front of one bag above, and a second bag below

And here we all are, Carole, Emma, Jennifer, Shelly, Esther and Barbara and my empty chair behind Carole. The gluten free orange chocolate muffins are very good.

A block from Emma's chocolate and raspberry "Matilda's Waltz", the story of a girl's search for love and home.  Emma has personalised it e.g. the cricket bat and Twofold Bay sign.

Jennifer's "Oriental One". I look forward to seeing the next in the series.

Jennifer's "Field of Flowers"

Shelly with her "J" - just imagine the "oy"

Esther and her colourful crochet

Emma demonstrates the only way to eat Cheesels!

 

 Shelly about to attack the Cheesels

 Bubbly goes well with Cheesels and what's more driving home afterwards is no problem!