Sweat and a Giant Jelly-Roll Cushion

Summer continues here in Donald and it was still a baking 38 degrees when we made our way down to The Room last night.  Fortunately The Room has a way of refreshing flagging spirits and creativity can inject wilting bodies with a cool blast of fun....

Tennille (our Fundraising Minister Extraordinaire) has arranged with the Horsham Plaza for us to have some space before Easter to sell raffle tickets, so the main aim last night was to 'whip up' a first prize...
Can and Tennille had been shopping in Horsham that day to purchase our requirements ( and the Queen of Thrift also managed to pick up two bikes and an electric motorbike for her kids for $15!!!).

Sewing machines were threaded and ready; and armed with a jelly roll, subsequent cutting equipment and under Can's watchful eye that people (well, mainly Yours Truly) didn't just get excited and randomly sew colours together, we began....

The Jelly Roll was Moda's "Central Park" collection. A gorgeous collection of greens, pinks, blues and oranges....

The jelly roll strips are first cut in half....

Then joined together, pressed and trimmed....

Amidst the debris of Room nourishment, you can see the wedges of the cushion starting to come together....

After a blistering thirty eight degrees, it was in true sweatshop style that we sewed, pressed and trimmed... sewed, pressed and trimmed.... sewed, pressed and trimmed... but in no time at all....

 Da Dahhhh!!!!

Next week we just need to sew the piping on, back it and stuff it and we have a first prize for our Monster Easter Raffle to go with our beautiful travel bag from e-Essentials and (hopefully) some easter eggs.
Speaking of monsters, Andrew's felt monster is coming along nicely....

Andrew has also been very industrious through the week and after a discussion at The Room last week about embellishing clothing, he went to the Op Shop, bought himself a shirt and 'upcycled' it with a fabulous dragon applique of his own design...

and Dot continued to quilt her gorgeous Zig Zag quilt....

We had a couple of members missing this week as life continues its busy course. However our Fearless Leader did text us from Melbourne where she was having a pseudo-room and working on her rag-rug... can't wait to see her progress.
Until next week, have a good one.
xxxx

Thrift and Things

We like to consider ourselves a thrifty lot at The Room (by necessity rather than choice most of the time) but the title for the Queen of Thrift this week has gone to our gorgeous Tennille!

During the week Tennille picked up a working Janome MemoryCraft8000 at the St Arnaud Recycling Centre for $20. (For those of you who don't know, this machine is an older top-of-the-range machine that not only sews but also does embroidery. It has all the cool features like 'needle up', 'needle threader' 'tie off'.... I reckon it may even be able to do the dishes and cook dinner too if we found the right button...)

 Can had great fun exploring all the decorative stitches (Tennille, if your machine is missing check Can's place first...)

The Memory Craft in action as Tennille works on a library bag for one of her children.

Tennille is making the library bag out of the gorgeous butterfly material ...

The rest of us were also productive last night (once we stopped dribbling with envy) and Dot has finished her second quilt-top in record speed and set about basting it for quilting....

She is making it for her daughter, Jodie and the beautiful greys and blues look fantastic in the funky zig-zag pattern...

Dot is quilting it to further accentuate the zig-zags and no doubt our Queen of Speed will have this completed in no time at all...

Jen has begun the less speedy process of making a rag rug for her lounge room floor. She is plaiting coloured knits together and then sewing them in a spiral. It will be beautiful once it has finished...

We had a new face at The Room last night. Dorothy was involved in the Donald CWA which is currently in recess.  Dorothy brought along her knitting and a whole lifetime of knowledge and skills.

Dorothy saved Candece hours by showing her a neat trick to unpicking seams...
The recess of the local CWA is a sad thing for this community. The women of the CWA have such tremendous skills and knowledge, to say nothing of the huge amount of community work they do. You wonder how that gap will be filled... Still The Room was more than happy to fill the 'creative' space and we hope Dorothy enjoyed herself and will come along again.
When Can wasn't playing with Tennille's new machine, or revamping skirts, she was sorting fabric for her new project, a lunch tote....

This is her collection so far... (I think she only needs eight...)

Andrew was busy working on his felt monster. He is going to add a mouth, teeth, eyebrows and hair...

Yours Truly has finished quilting Ollie's Library Bag (and then found out they don't even need it until Term 2!) so it sits awaiting a couple of seams and a drawstring and I turned my attention to quilting the Playmat...

Having outlined the roads I am now stipple quilting the grass...

and will then work out how to quilt the paddocks.
Have a great week everyone and The Room once again extends a warm welcome to anyone in Donald who is at loose end on Friday nights and may want to enjoy some tea, laughter and the occasional project!

A New Committee and A New Year

Now that the lazy days of Summer Holidays are well and truly past, The Room has started back with a renewed enthusiasm and interest.  Last night was our AGM and after a delicious meal at the Jeffcott, old positions were abandoned and new Office Bearers were added. Our new Illustrious leader, Jen Birch rallied the troops into action and the girls completed a gorgeous quilt top as a group project.

2011 was a big year for The Room but we have been a bit lapse in updating our blog (Hopefully this will change as we now have a dedicated Blog girl) so for those of you who can't make it to The Room, here was 2011....

We moved....
We now have power and running water....
We displayed at the Ringwood Quilt Show....

We held a class in Foundation Piecing....

and Stained Glass Windows....

 Big Thankyou to Kerryn Stafford and Margaret Goddard for sharing their skills with us!
Many of our members made their first quilts....
Dot's first quilt for her daughter, Kay....

Can's first quilt for her daughter, Piper....

and Ros' magnificent Kaffe Fasset quilt (keep on quilting Ros!)...

 Yours Truly kept fiddling around with numerous projects....

and overall we enjoyed each other's company and kept developing our creative skills...
2012 promises to be another great year of projects, cups of tea and laughter!