SSS abuzz with the busy hum of sewing machines

We had a great roll up on Saturday with an amazing range of projects. Our resident expert in all things textile also has a knack with smartphones, so with much thanks to her, our record of this SSS will be largely photographic!

One of our participants has been trying to polish up her sewing skills and a winter skirt has become a somewhat more long term project than originally anticipated. However with much adjustment of the pattern she now has a wonderful skirt for all seasons and while she is still not satisfied with her machining techniques, she has utilised her abundant resources to produce a fantastic unique skirt which is beautifully modelled..

Another SSSer is working on a cosy, colourful crochet quilt. The hot pink joins really make the other colours pop!

One of our very productive sewers came very well prepared with all the pieces for her skirt pre-cut. It was just a matter then of happily joining the pieces together without the interruption from  little people. Once the skirt was complete, it was onto sewing the pieces for a winter nightie together. One skirt and an almost-nightie certainly indicates a productive SSS!

Some lucky grandchildren are going to have their own hand-made Christmas stockings to hang out for Santa this year. This SSS grandmother had her sewing machine racing at a great rate of knots as seam after seam was sewn! Once the stockings were done, it was on to some more therapeutic crochet and a tad of socialising, of course!

This amazing king-size quilt of over a hundred diamonds has been a labour of love over a considerable period of time. Hours and hours of stitching, pulling out and re-stitching have resulted in this glorious collection of blue and lavender with pops of green. In the background, one can see the matching pillowcases also carefully constructed. The diamonds are stitched together; the project has been quilted in a variegated thread of blue and lavender; so now it is time to attach the binding, sewn on by machine, turned back and then painstakingly stitched with tiny invisible hand-stitching. It's times like this, that one wishes one slept in a tiny cot!

Our resident expert in all things textiles has to pull out stitches occasionally. This photo does not capture the fantastic combination of browns, greens and creams which will soon be a tablecloth for a table on the veranda. The unpicking came about when two different sewing machines were used and their tensions did not agree with each other. Once this task was done it was on to the fun part of cutting out squares for a fruity sudoku quilt. This clever SSS had bought a collection of nine different fabrics each colourfully depicting a piece of fruit. We look forward to watching this project progress.

This lucky SSSer had acquired this exquisite red embossed fabric, which with the assistance of a very chic looking Vogue pattern will be transformed into a stunning dress. Unfortunately the photo does not do this elegant fabric the justice it deserves.  Another project to keep a close eye on.

Some fabulous William Morris inspired fabric from the stash is now being converted into a wonderful small bag. This clever sewer used some green gingham cut on the bias and some narrow sewing cord to create piping which she then inserted into the seams giving the project a very professional finish. The green gingham bias also enhanced the small inside pockets. This sewer really pays a lot of attention to tiny details making her projects creative works of art.

One of the advantages of the GWL Community Meeting Room is the large tables which makes those large cumbersome projects easier to handle, usually.........However when there's two folk to a table and one needs access to those rare, oddly placed general power outlets, one is a tad bit more cramped than expected. This clever SSSer was replacing the elastic on one of her mattress protectors while wearing a beautifully-fitting skirt which she had begun at an earlier SSS.

One of our regular SSSers is making a series of floral-inspired panels as a means of learning to applique. The flowers and leaves are stitched using a machine blanket stitch while the stems are attached using a tiny hand stitch. Botanists would certainly have difficulty with some of the leaf, stem, flower combinations but for patchworkers it's merely an expression of creative licence and a means to link blocks in a work..

Looking forward to our next creative get-together. For those who are travelling, keep safe and we'll catch up with you on your return.

We'll catch up with everyone and their projects at the Community Meeting Room at the Gordon White Library at 1.00pm on Saturday 18 June, which is a week earlier than usual, due to the Show Public Holiday and the start of the school holidays!

Happy sewing!!!

Projects, projects everywhere!

It's amazing how a tiny drop in the temperature encourages the flow of the creative juices! We had nine people happily engaged in a whole range of  creative pursuits.

One of our quilters is currently patiently searching for the right shade for the backing for her current quilting project so being stalled on that project, she is looking forward and planning the next. She had the pattern in hand but interpreting that pattern is a skill in itself. There was a bit of squinting and head scratching as well as serious discussion with other social sewers as to which would be the best way forward. Quilting which uses imperial measurements certainly gives our brains an arithmetic work-out! We look forward to seeing how both of these quilting projects progress.

Another of our quilters has wisely chosen an owl pot-holder project. She had a finished one to show us how all the different pieces were going to go together. She was working on the assembly of quite a number of these cute owls, so was cutting out quite a number of pieces in a variety of shades. She has included as part of the wadding a heat-proof product which increases the safety aspect of the potholders. Their eyes certainly added to their cuteness. Her lucky friends and relatives are in for a delightful treat.

One of our very productive social sewers wore one of her previous SSS projects; a cheerful red summery dress which fitted perfectly and looked absolutely fabulous! This week she was sewing a winter nightie for one of her daughter's friends who has a birthday fast approaching. Apparently this lucky young lass's favourite colour is pink so in her birthday bundle is going to be a cosy pink nightie.

A friend had asked one of our crafters to produce a crochet quilt from granny squares and offered some yellow, green and off-white wool. Having a good eye for colour, our crocheter knew that this was not going to give a pleasing result so she has added two shades of pink, one pale and one medium and now the granny squares are pink flowers (deep pink towards the centre and paler pink on the outer 'petals') with yellow centres, that are wreathed by green leaves. To add further zing to the creation, she is crocheting the squares together with bright hot pink which really stands out against the off-white background. This judicious use of colour has transformed the project from ho-hum to eye-catching! 

Our teapot cosy queen continues to produce an amazing array of jaunty teapot cosies decorated with flowers or gum nuts in a variety of colours to contrast against the main colour of the teapot cosy. She has even transformed a Beanie kit into a delightful teapot cosy, utilising the accompanying pom-pom as a rather cheeky embellishment. A boutique tea shop is so impressed with her work they have offered to purchase some of her fun creations. When the urge to create cosies wanes, she turns her hand to creating colourful yo-yo flowers, also know as Suffolk Puff flowers, which are contributing to another project in progress.

A Great Barrier Reef long-stitch project is certainly a long-term project but its variety of bright colours and shapes helps keep the work interesting. It's also a project where one is able to stitch and socialise so our long-stitcher enjoys both the social  and sewing aspects of our SSSs. Using the portable tapestry frame to keep the work taut also means that as one progresses along the project, the scenery changes adding to its appeal and dispersing any tendency to sameness.

Another of our sewers has a daughter who appears to be doing very well for herself as she is having a  form-fitting sleeveless dress currently being constructed from a wonderful red retro tartan fabric. This fabric appeared to have a wonderful weight to it. Her SSS mother is a very experienced sewer who is willing to take on a challenge. Like many of us she has always attached the iron-on interfacing to the facing but on reading yet another sewing book recently she came across the idea of ironing the interfacing directly on the actual garment. We look forward to seeing how this experiment has affected the way the finished garment hangs.

Trying to use tiny blind hemming to stitch down the binding of a lap quilt certainly kept one of our SSSers occupied. Our resident expert in all things textile commented that she appeared to be making hard work of it so everyone popped over to check out her technique. While the technique was a little awkward (done upside down to what one would normally do) and certainly time-consuming, the end result was a very tiny, close-to- invisible stitch which in the end is what counts, giving the quilt a very neat binding.

Our resident expert in all things textile, often does a lot of her cutting-out at SSS and as the projects are often gifts we rarely get to see the final result. This delightful quilt is one of her recent achievements.

The colours are just fantastic and every time you look at it, a different pattern leaps out.  Patchwork is so much about illusion. What you see is not necessarily an indication of how it was constructed.  Being a novice patchworker, my mind boggles as to how this masterpiece was actually constructed. It's refreshing to see the development of such real productive technical skill in a world where there seems to be such an emphasis on cyber skills.

If you are interested in Social Sewing Saturday, just pack up whatever project you are working on together with whatever you need to progress it and come along. While the lighting could be brighter we have wonderful roomy tables which are particularly good for cutting out projects or for just  spreading one's accoutrements out a bit.

Looking forward to seeing how all these projects have progressed when we next meet on Saturday 28 May at 1.00pm at the Community Meeting Room at the Gordon White Library.  Meanwhile, stay stitching and socialising!