It’s time to announce the annual Apatchy challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make an item that is inspired by the theme. All the entries will be displayed at the annual Christmas gathering – to be held this year on Saturday 5th December. This means that your entry must be in by the 4th December. And the theme…..well just hold on for a moment while we review things……

It has been QUITE a while since we last spoke and so now there is much to share including projects from the Apatcheez:-

Suzanne utilised some Apatchy fabric in a very creative way. 100% cotton is great for sewing clothes – here’s proof

Debbie’s ‘if it isn’t in here I don’t need it’ hold ALL bag

Joan’s remarkable 3D cushion using yoyo’s and bias stems

Next there was a trip to the quilt show at Brookfield. These girls always have interesting challenges and this year was no exception. The challenge was over a period of around 18 months and involved adding borders or other embellishments to a centre on point. Here are two examples –

And here are two more –

Then they had some other amazing quilts to see like these two –

Anyone who is anyone was at the show and it was quite a sport spotting the rich and famous

A short trip to Sydney was a welcome break from the end of year BAS calculations and the like. It was a beautiful weekend and everyone, including the birds enjoyed the sunshine –

To add to the enjoyment the wattle was out

Back at the ranch we all enjoyed the finished Apatcheez projects last week

We’ve enjoyed watching Bev hand quilt this beauty for a while now and it was great to see it finished. An awesome example of reverse appliqué

Pat nailed her version of the kid’s quilt kit

And Pat also whipped up this bespoke eye spy quilt in a very short time

And on the weekend it was time for the Sherwood quilters show. They too had some excellent entries –

The Sherwood group also had a very interesting challenge which involved each person drawing a number which corresponded to a page in a magazine. Whatever was on the page was the inspiration for the challenge. The Apatchy challenge is a bit broader than that ( or narrower depending on your perception) as it involves a word for the inspiration. And this year’s word is….’Home’.

So get your creative juices flowing  – maybe you’re thinking literally of your home, or a bird’s nest or a rabbit’s burrow. Maybe it’s a song like ‘Green Green Grass of Home’. The teenager-in-residence, who enjoyed a birthday last week came up with a Motley Crue song with home in the title. How you’d quilt that I can’t imagine, but I can imagine some other ideas coming to life on the fabric. Hope you can too.

I’m sure we’ll talk more about this and I’ll give you more information about the venue and so on as we get closer to the time of the unveiling. Until then, happy quilting

Kaye