Joyce’s Quilting Quandary

Arnie and I joined Probus this year. We were fortunate that a new club, Ballarat South, started up. We were able to join as foundation members. It is good to be part of a new club because every one is making new connections. Probus is a pleasant social thing to do, a place to have fun, conversations. It is good for Arnie and I to do together. There are off shoot activities, we go to morning coffee, Arnie goes bike riding  and I go to quilting. I decided that retired people are joining Probus rather than being politically active! We meet at Central Bowling Club in Gregory Street which is very nice and very new. I have used the Probus badge for this week’s block. I copied the badge off a web-site ,  then traced the design onto a black with a fine white spot called Garden Path. I did the badge design with machine embroidery in a gold embroidery thread.  I then did my red corner with machine stitching following the circular design of the badge.

Spring has sprung in Ballarat. The highlight of Spring in the bush are the wattles. All shapes and sizes, many shades of gold, many variations of foliage, some soft and gentle, some harsh and very pickly! The Golden Wattle -Acaia pycnantha – is Austalia’s floral emblem. It is indigenous to South Eastern Australia which means that it grows around this area. It is not harsh and prickly, but somewhat leathery leaves with large, round, yellow fluffy balls which are the flowers. The  wattle is our national floral emblem. It appears on many of our national symbols including the coat of arms and the Order of Australia medals and insignia. The statue of Queen Victoria in Sturt Street features wattle on the dress underneath the coronation robes. The green and gold of the wattle are the colours always worn by our sports men and women. Week 40 is based on the Golden Wattle.  I had a look on the internet and found information about Euroupean discovery, history, naming, location , coloured and line drawings! Wow!  I used a blow up of the line drawing by Marion Westmacott as my design. The use of black is always a challenge! There is a very fine balance between a design which leaps off the quilt and one which is almost invisible to the naked eye! I decided to use the subtle approach on this block and then found the leaves and stems almost disappeared. So I had another go and lightened the outlines. Happier now! The wattle flowers were machined embroidered and  then the quilting was done on clear acrylic thread.

This week we attended the wedding of Nick and Catherine at the Dadswell’s Bridge Hall and the reception at the Colonial Motor Inn at Hall’s Gap in the Grampians.  Nick is the son of Geoff and Pauline, friends who live in Port Fairy. Nick is a music teacher in Horsham where Catherine is an accountant. It was very evident the importance that music is to the both of them. There  were some interesting coincidences! Pauline and the bride’s father were in the same form at Horsham High School and I taught the bride’s mother at Stawell High School! The little country hall was a great venue, and the drive from there to Hall’s Gap was beautiful in the afternoon sunlight. We stayed in the motel after the wedding. It was great to just walk across the car park to our room. The block is based on the wedding. The Eiffel tower was included because Nick asked Catherine to marry him in Paris. The initials came from an “initial” fabric, Nouvelle Letters. The spotted ribbon came off the Order of Service for the wedding. The saying “If Music be the Food of Love, Play On” was on the wedding invitation and shows another link with Paris. The hearts were printed on organza and then overlayed and quilted with varigated thread.

This week I have been patching!  I love Kaffe Fassett designs and also the fabrics which he designs for Rowan. Last year,  when I was staying in Boston with Geraldine ( the other half of this quilt project ) we visited Portsmouth, Maine and I bought enough fabric to make Hot Diamonds. At the quilt shop in Geraldine’s local area, Arlington, I bought the backing fabric. This week I have been putting the top of the quilt together. I loved the fabrics when I bought  them and I still love them with the quilt  top completed! The richness of the reds and purples is wonderful! The Begonia Quilters challenge for the 2010 exhibition is ”A Touch of Purple” so I added some touches into  the quilt. The touches were going to be a full diamond but drastically shrank in size when construction was happening.  My block this week uses the 60 degree diamonds in the quilt with the two corner diamonds using the Kaffee Fassett fabrics.  The diamonds were machine pieced. I quilted in red thread and then added the 38 in striped fabric. I machined around the 38 with straight stitch and then cut back to the stitching line.