Hi Ho everyone, sorry for the delay in sending this newsletter to you. Now that Christmas and New Year are over, it’s back to the busy life that I enjoy and this week has been a screamer! We had our first gathering of Sunshine Linus Inc on Monday. What a day! I always return home full of enthusiasm and inspiration and insomnia – never sleep well that night, because my head is going at a thousand miles an hour! Pop over to our blog and you can see what we got up to last Monday. On the right of the screen there is a link that says “what we do and where it goes”. Click on that and you’ll see what we donated on Monday.

Then it was the Sisters of Stitch meeting day yesterday afternoon. I started this group up in 2009 at my local library. The Brisbane City Council (to its credit) offers rooms for use free of charge to non profit organisations. I always knew there was a large population in my community of women who crafted at home, usually alone. So I got brave one day and asked if I could book the room for a group of crafters. Well, with a lot of support from the library we got the group up and running a few weeks later. We’re 3 ½ years old and we regularly have over 30 members each fortnight.

We all bring along our hand sewing or knitting or crochet or tatting or tapestry or patchwork or embroidery or anything that can be done by hand. We have a show and tell segment and the essential tea and coffee and of course scrumptious home bake which I adore.

I get great feedback from the members of this group. We don’t have a committee, we don’t charge to belong (only ask for a coin donation when we’re running low of coffee etc), we don’t exclude anyone and it’s a great, happy group. There are several members who are available to “run” the days if I’m unavailable and that’s the best thing about this group. It certainly can run on its own, it doesn’t have to be the Judie Bellingham show.

Anyway……… a great day yesterday with about 40 members in attendance and lots of buzz about. We had some new faces and some fabulous show and tell. I took my camera to take photos, but it’s given up the ghost (finally), and I will have to get another, so I can post photos on my blog for you.

If you don’t belong to a craft group of some sort, I can thoroughly recommend you find one to join, or if you can’t find one, start one up yourself. I’ll talk more about how to go about starting a group in a future article.

Speaking of articles, I posted an article featuring another block in the Basic Block Plus series. This block is called Crown Star and here’s the link to that tutorial: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art179316.asp
Over at the forum, we’ve had some great comments about our subject that I posted last week on making quilts for those who don’t fully appreciate them. I’ve had a lot of discussion with fellow quilters about this over the past week and it’s been very interesting. Pop over to the forum and add your comment: http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=43

Onto my gifts for you this week. I’ve been a little long winded this week (my apologies), but I’ve got some great stuff for you to have a look through. Oh, BTW, I received an email from a reader who pointed out that the pincushion I posted last week and been previously posted by me a few years ago. My apologies if I accidentally post an item that I’ve previously posted. It’s virtually impossible for me to keep track of all that I’ve posted here on the newsletter. Hope you understand. Enjoy!!

http://luannkessi.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/painting-fabric-tote-bagstutorial.html stencilling with paints

http://www.allfreesewing.com/Sew-for-your-Pet/15-Minute-Pet-Bed-Tutorial/ct/1# here’s a quick and easy pet bed to make for your four legged friend

http://www.filminthefridge.com/2011/10/12/scrappy-triangles-a-quilt-block-tutorial/ beautiful scrappy triangle quilt tutorial

http://ourimprovdiary.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/why-painters-tape-is-the-improv-sewists-friend/ a simple product you have around the house, but great applications!

http://www.quiltershomemag.com/articles/Zip_it_to_me_Pincushion an interesting zippy pincushion!

http://bustleandsew.com/freepatterns/Charlie_the_Patchwork_Elephant.pdf pattern for Charlie the Patchwork Elephant

http://www.chomec.com/old-piano-turned-into-outdoor-fountain/ not sure if my heart feels uplifted or heartbroken to see a piano used this way.

http://bloomandblossom.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/raw-edge-layer-cake-quilt-tutorial.html a raw edge layer cake quilt tutorial

https://sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/donna-babylon-quick-tip-care-and-feeding-bobbins another clever storage idea for your bobbins

I’ll say hooroo to you all now, and let you get back to your busy day. If you’d like to be in touch here’s my email: quilting@bellaonline.com
Take care everyone, and don’t forget to make some time to get a little stitching done! See you next week.
Cheerio for now

Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor
http://Quilting.bellaonline.com

One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com