Applique Weekend - Long Point Nude Sewing Club

Background - Eve, Kathy and I were up at Rick and Eve's cottage for a "Girls Weekend" (in the days when there were children at home) and we used the Sea-Doos, bombing around the lake, having lots of fun. It was hot and we joked that we could have gone topless as we were wearing life jackets. Of course we told our husbands that we did and got t-shirts with MLNSDC on them for Morrison Lake Nude Sea Dooing Club. Well this weekend, "Applique weekend", was also warm and with the prevailing hot flashes as well, we went from sewing in pants and sweaters to shorts and t-shirts. Not nude though.

Brit came to teach Eve, Nicola and I, hand and machine applique. They arrived on Friday evening which was spent sitting on the deck with wine, catching up and having pasta dinner. Nicola has a difficult time finding quilting courses on the weekend and Eve is just starting quilting so having Brit (a master quilter and teacher) as a friend is a real bonus.

Brit came with tons of samples/examples, gadgets and threads and boundless tips and creativity.

Eve is planning a dog quilt

but for this weekend was planning to make a pillow of her pet Havanese, Bentley.

Bentley on the beach.

I had grabbed an old burlap pattern and was going to draw something on the back just so I could practice some of the techniques. Brit suggested I work with the pattern already on it; Glass Peaches.

Nicola planned to work on a pattern I had given to her for Christmas of 3 Muskoka chairs sitting on the sand. The morning started slowly with mistakes being made and a lot of reverse sewing (ripping out) but there was still lots of opportunity for learning and sharing of tips and equipment. I started with attaching a stone to one of the peaches using a blanket stitch.

By Saturday afternoon Nicola had  the background sewn and one of the chairs machine appliqued (blanket stitch).

I had a couple of stones attached, leather appliqued and hooked, wool appliqued with 2 different stitches and a couple of other embroidery stitches on the wool. It was exciting to be taking sewing techniques and applying them to rug hooking.

Eve had purchased a basic, used machine to see if she liked quilting and tried out Nicola's machine in the evening. She loooved it and it is now nicknamed the Orgasmatron.

Salmon dinner and then out on the deck in the evening where we were treated to a beautiful sunset ( photo by Brit)

Sunday morning Eve had finished Bentley's portrait and was ready to make it into a cushion so she worked some more on Nicola's machine.

Nicola moved onto hand applique, learned a few techniques and completed this PERFECT circle with invisible stitching.

Brit attached three beach stones to the bottom of her hooked piece.

They are much neater than mine.

The weekend was a great success; learning, laughing, eating, drinking, walking on the beach, sitting on the deck and way to many ways that quilting terminology became sexual innuendoes. It could become a regular event.