Sewing Triangles

Today someone was asking about an easy way to make triangles.
Jane suggested this product called Thangles. This looks so easy to use - no tricky maths involved and plenty of ideas as well. They have online shopping as well

Recipe

GINGER CRUNCH
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125g butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups SR Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger

GINGER ICING:
75g butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
3 teaspoons ground ginger

* Cream butter & sugar till light & fluffy
* Sift flour, baking powder & ginger
* Mix into creamed mixture
* Turn dough onto lightly floured board. Knead well
* Press into 20x30cm tin
* Bake at 190c 20-25 mins until light brown
* Pour hot ginger icing over base while hot

ICING: Melt ingredients & stir together

Makes 24

Day at Kathy's & Christmas Tree of Circles

Thanks Kathy for hosting us today. Lots of stitching went on this week - Kathy was busy with her log-cabin block which turned into a pincushion - beautiful colours, some very recognisable fabrics from a recent challenge????

As discussed, here is the link to amitié in Bentleigh, Victoria, another lovely patchwork store which the Melbourne girls are lucky to have. Go down to the heading of circles, dots & living creatively. There is another challenge in conjunction with the Living Creatively website. One of the staff members has made a Christmas Tree quilt entirely of circles and spotty fabric. It's simple and really effective.

Living Creatively is a mecca dedicated to all kinds of crafts. It was started by Kerri-Anne Kennerley, probably the Antipodean equivalent of Martha or Oprah. Kerri-Anne had a vision to provide a showcase for people's artistic talents and there's lots of eye-candy on this website. The site focusses on small and home-based businesses, designers, places to visit when travelling and in the future a place to sell your work. You can sign up for regular newsletters.

I have published the recipe for Kathy's Kiwi Ginger Crunch slice which we all enjoyed today. Yum!

Quilters Guild NSW Challenge

Here is the link to the NSW Guild's 2008 challenge, Coast and Country.
There is a slideshow of all the quilts.

Quilters Show & Tell Blog

Here is a link to a great Blog called Quilters Show & Tell
There is a new quilt posted to the site every day and it looks like a great place for some inspiration. Anyone can add their own quilts to this site as well.

Log Cabin Challenge

Next year's challenge for Singapore quilters is to use the log-cabin block in a project.
This Blog by Melly & Me (sisters and designers) as well as being a visual feast for fabric lovers, has a Scrappy Cabin Challenge Tutorial.
The instructions are clear and the finished quilt is stunning.

I've whipped up my first block, just to see how easy it really is!

Block of the Month - Red Delicious

Here is a link to the Blog of Esther Aliu, an award-winning quilt designer and teacher from Melbourne. She specialises in stencilling techniques and also teachs quilting on domestic sewing machines. Esther has kindly offered a mystery BOM called Red Delicious for free. She has designed the quilt to use up her stash of red fabrics although any colour would be good and it is suitable for needle-turn applique, fusible applique and redwork. The Blocks will be available on her Blog from the 15th of each month, for one month only, and thereafter can be purchased from her Etsy shop.

You can also visit her website to see some of the lovely work she has produced.

Although I don't really need any more UFOs, I was quite taken with the first block and thought it might be a good challenge for the ANZA Quilters!

The Raffle Quilt Winner!

The raffle quilt winner was drawn at the Quilting Challenge lunch and was won by a very excited Jane. A number of ANZA Quilters members competed enthusiastically for as many tickets as possible to try and win this amazing quilt. As we found out this week that Jane is leaving Singapore for a new posting to South America, it will be a lovely memento of her time here. We are all glad the quilt will go to someone appreciative as well as raising S$3,500 for our chosen charity.

November Show & Tell

Carmen's "Blue Collection" quilt is a pattern by Maggie Walker which she purchased in Singapore. It took Carmen quite a while to collect all the different colours and get the reds and oranges 'just right' but again it shows persistence pays off with this stunning example.

Dal's wallhanging design of "Not Quite Cathedral Windows". Dal held a workshop for us to make these origami type blocks. They are stunning on the black background fabric.

Dal's red and yellow quilt was made using a wavy ruler, then the strips appliqued onto the background.

Sue's gorgeous Christmas wallhangings from a set of panels which came from the US.

This is Dal's Baby Bees quilt in green & yellow which has been machine quilted and tied.

Melinda made this quilt which I think was a block swap? It has been beautifully machine quilted by Desley from Addicted to Quilts in Melbourne. Melinda has kindly donated this quilt to Dal's African charity project.

Sue's lovely blue and red quilt has some of her own free motion quilting designs on it. Well done Sue!

This quilt of Sue's is her Tampa Quilt made while living there and took her 18 months to do. It is machine quilted.

SINGAPORE QUILTERS CHALLENGE

The Challenge was open to all quilters in Singapore. Using a minimum of a Fat Quarter of fabric from Robert Kaufman's Every Iota range, with one of two colourways (brown or red, which not many people found inspiring at all) you had to make a quilt or other article not exceeding 60x60 inches. Once again the ANZA girls did well, taking home 1st and 3rd prizes as well as a highly commended award. Congratulations to all the winners.


Carmen's gorgeous "Proud Feathers" won 1st prize in the Challenge. She saw feathers in the fabric and designed a peacock utilising the paisley/Indian theme. Carmen's quilt was changed many times along the way trying out different colours and borders. We all agreed the finished quilt was stunning and was a well deserved winner. Congratulations Carmen!

Janice's Challenge quilt is called "First Day of Christmas" and she has also seen feathers in the paisley fabric. The pears and leaves are 3D and really jump out. The text was beaded which provides an added sparkle. This quilt won 3rd prize - well done to Janice!

Maggie's quilt is called "Fireworks" which used the red challenge fabric. She has hand quilted it using some of the lovely bright colours. Maggie also used the remaining red fabric on the reverse to "get rid of it all". The quilt won a Highly Commended award - well done Maggie. This is Kathy's "Outside the Square". She used the brown colourway and used Angelina fibres to creat some 'fantasy fabric'. It was machine quilted.

Maurine has also chosen the brown colourway and appliqued a green silk or satin over some of the paisley design. Maurine's bag is called ""The Chosen Ones". Her career as a reproductive surgeon inspired her design when she saw stars in the fertility symbols. Her "Sac a Porter" creation shows the myriad of paisleys all competing for entry into the top. Maurine's mission in quilting is Recreating Life in Old Fabric. The inside of the Sac used recycled pockets from an old designer jacket. Well done Maurine!

Alison used the brown colourway for Pop Goes the Paisley, adding plenty of brights and using the disappearing nine-patch or twisted nine-patch design.