Craft Cruise

I wrote about this event when it first came up, but now it is only 5 months away

 In April next year I am teaching on this Patchwork Cruise.  We are leaving Sydney 3rd April, and cruising to New Zealand with 5 stops around the islands. Returning to Sydney April 13th.

 The ship is the Celebrity Solstice, which looks absolutely magnificent!  There are a number of workshops to choose from and you can see them all HERE.

These are the workshops that I am doing.  You will be familiar with this baskets and roses quilt "My Rose Garden".  This is a 2 day workshop, doing 2 hand pieced baskets and 2 applique blocks.

Then there is the Prairie Star quilt, which I totally love, even after all this time.  This one is a one day workshop, machine pieced.

And, the Bling Bling Baltimore.  This one is a two day workshop, and we will do one block only - the one on the top left hand side.

With all the workshops you will be supplied with a kit to complete the workshop, and pattern and instructions to finish it when you get home.

If it is a machine workshop, the machines will be supplied for you.  There are lots of different workshops to choose from with 18 different tutors, each offering 2 x 2 day workshops, and 1 x 1 days.  They are all listed HERE

You can contact the organisers on Tel: 1300 385 080 / Outside Australia +61 3 9021 8192
or email enquiries@needleworktours.com.au

I hope to see some of you join us. 

Long time - No see!

Did you look at the date of the last post? 1st August!  I can not believe that I have been absent for 2 months.  Mind you, it has been a hectic 2 months in one way or another.  There is a lot of catch up to do

In July, my friend Penny, opened her new shop at Victor Harbor, PennyLane Patchwork.  The opening was on the windiest coldest day this winter.  We all snuggled inside, and greeted the customers.  The photo above is the new Block of the Month I have started to make for the shop.  It is in Jen Kingwell "Lollies"fabric, and will be ready next year.  All the blocks are circles of one kind or another.  Some simple, some more complicated.

 Then in August, I went across to Melbourne, and stayed with my friend Janet O, and was the guest speaker at the Victorian Quilters Annual General meeting.  That was a bit of a treat for me, and I hope they enjoyed the quilt show and tell I had for them.  While in Melbourne, I visited the National Gallery of Victoria, to see the Making the Australian Quilt Exhibition.  A few of the quilts are shown above, but I think there are restrictions on showing them, so I had better be good :-) You can read about it on the link.  It is a must see exhibition if you are in Melbourne until 6th November.

 So, we get to September, and we have SPRING!!  Yay!!  we had the wettest spring on record, with gale force winds, and floods across the state.  It is still raining now, but we have been promised sunshine by the end of the week.

In preparation for Spring, I started to make these sunshiny blocks.  They are made from a Layer Cake, but I added a few other fabrics that I had picked up along the way.  The blocks are "Dresden Squared".  I am making about 20 of these, or more, as I think they would make a great workshop idea.  Simple cutting and sewing.  The trickiest part is appliqueing the centre circles.  This I am doing on the machine as well.

I got the Noughts and Crosses quilt finished.  I posted about the start of it back here .  It is all done, and hanging on the clothes line (along with the washing!) so I can take a photo.  I had it machine quilted with an all over Clamshell design, by Helen Campbell at the Quilting Room.

Also, forgot to mention, that during all this time, I had taken on a part time job!  It is finished now.....what was I thinking of???

Another one on the clothes line.  This one is our Spring into Summer workshop for 11th November.  It is a Jelly Roll quilt, or in my case, 2 1/2"strips from my stash.  I used only brown and brown prints, plus the solid blue, and I just love it!  It makes the brown look like gold.  It has gone off to be quilted as well.  There are spaces on the workshop if you are interested.  Email me for details.

 Last weekend we had the South Australian Quilters annual Festival of Quilts. I had a shop stand there, and can you believe, I did not take one single quilt photo!!  I was far too busy serving customers.  thanks to everyone who called by to buy some of my goodies, or just have a chat.  We will be back next year.

You know what happens at a quilt show, you get inspired to do new things.  Like I have not got enough UFO's to keep me busy for a while.......but I have had an Arabic Lattice quilt idea in my brain for a while.  This is a simple and tricky block, and it has danced with me for about 15 years.  Now it is about to get done.  I drew it up on EQ and this is the result.

 It starts with a 4 patch centre, and then you wrap triangles around that.  You can only partially sew the first triangle in place as show about.

 Then you can add the second triangle

 add the third triangle

 you are left with the first triangle, still flapping about

and finally you can sew that in place.  

I have made 3 of these this morning, and cut out a further 3.  The placement of the colours, will give you a number of different designs.  Wait a while and I will show you what they all look like sewn together.  I have made them 9" so I am thinking 20 blocks, plus a border, will give me a good size quilt.

Thanks for taking the time to read all my catch up news.  Sorry to have neglected all this time.

Better late than never - My Red and White Quilt

Last year I attended the Sydney Quilt show and was totally enthralled by the Red and White exhibition.  I had actually started a quilt to enter into the exhibition, but did not get very far with it.  Since then I have started 2 and finished one of them.  The finished one is here for you to see.

Under usual circumstances I would have hand quilted this little quilt, but I just did not have the time as I needed it as a class sample.  Also, I did not want to spoil the whole thing by trying out my machine quilting!

I asked my friend Chris if she would be at all interested in quilting it for me.  This was not a random request of a friend who is a "good machine quilter".  Chris is a spectacular Prize Winning quilter, who has only become a machine quilter in recent years.  She has always been an exquisite hand quilter, but decided to expand her skills  -  with breathtaking results.  I made the request on a business basis, and it appears I am her first customer...lucky me!  You can see the results here.  Beyond the call of duty I would say, don't you think?

Should you be able to attend the Australian Machine Quilting Festival, later this year, you will find Chris O'Brien as one of the Tutors, and there may be a vacancy in one of her classes.  I signed up, as I want to get a bit more confidence and learn a few of the expert tips.

This festival is not just for professional machine quilters - it is for everyone, and there are great lectures, and market stalls, for those who love to shop.  I have no connection to the Festival, other than a participant.

On the workshop associated with the little red and white quilt, I will be teaching for Victorian Quilters on 14th August.  I am travelling to Melbourne on 13th August for the Annual General Meeting, and teaching the workshop the next day.  I will also be teaching the Rose Garden quilt.

which is hand pieced and hand appliqued blocks.  If you are interested in attending, please get in touch with the Victorian Quilters about vacancies.  Hope to see you then.

A little Red and White

Last year I went to the Sydney Quilt show and they had a really spectacular Red and White exhibition.  I had planned on an entry, but never quite got it all together.  However, the idea never left me.

I am always looking for ideas for workshops/classes, but I only want to make things to teach that I really like.  It was September last year when I showed the first couple of blocks HERE.  The designs are based on the German paper cutting craft Scherenschnitte.  You really have to work on your applique skills with this one.  You get to do inner and outer curves, inner and outer points, and cut outs.

So it all came to a head this last week when I had to get some project ideas ready for the Victorian Quilters Guild.  I have been invited to go to Melbourne in August to speak at their AGM, and do a workshop the next day.  Ok, time to get cracking on this one!  The border??  I woke up around 5am one day thinking I would do a machine piece zig zag border.  Got the books out for ideas, but changed my mind.  No it had to be appliqued.......and following in the paper cutting idea.

I cut a strip of paper as long as the borders, and folded in in half, and quarters and kept folding until it looked ok.  Then I marked points and made the cuts.  Folding it out, I had the right look.

I had added 4"white borders, and used the paper to draw lines on the back of them.

I put the red strips onto the right side of the borders, and from the back, I stitch on the machine, on the lines.  Here you can see the lines on the right side.  This is exactly the same as doing the "back basting"preparation by hand, but takes a fraction of the time.  Set your stitch length about 4 to make it easier.

I did two opposites at a time, then joined them in the corners with a neat stitch overlapping.

When you start with the applique, it is exactly the same technique used if you had tacked by hand.  You clip the machined stitches, then turn them under, and hand stitch in place.  However, there is a huge bonus in using the machine to tack (apart from the time saved)

Can you see the lines left when you take out the stitches?  They are really easy to see, and work as your guide to turn under.  You can use the machine to tack on any of the applique projects, but it works best of all of course, on the straight lines rather than the curves.  If you are more skilled than I am at manipulating the sewing machine, then you could use it on the curved applique as well.

Add the final 2 opposite sides and your done.  I had this done in two days and ready to photograph and send off to the Vic Quilters for the workshop.  I have to get it quilted now, but I can work on that later.

If you are a member of the Vic Quilters Guild I will be there in August and hope to meet some of you.