On the road 2

From a class at Jukejema Quilting Barn in Nowra

More Lots of dots from Berrima - only one more class to go

Hobbysew in Canberra - such enthusiastic students!

Pippa's hexagons! She obviously has way too much spare time!

Sue from Canberra's Featherweight machine. It sewed like a dream all day and is so beautiful.

Something I've been working on lately. A real scrap-buster.

Have you seen the latest issue of Aust Patchwork and Quilting? My son's quilt is a project in it.
He's still complaining about not having it to sleep under! Won't be long now Stu.

I been days sorting "stuff" for my stall at the Springwood Quilt Show. Fabric, patterns, bric-a-brac and all things quilty. Please call by and say hello next Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

On the road 1

Emperors wheel from Warriewood

I've been travelling a lot lately even after coming back from Toowoomba so these pics are quite varied.

Summer baskets from Warriewood
A gorgeous version of Summer Baskets using a heap of lovely doilies, ric rac and yummy fabrics

Friendship Ring - this has had three different backgrounds so far!

Kris' beautiful Hexagon Magic. After major quilting dramas it looks so beautiful. Her sister will love it.

Now this is Sue's Friendship Ring, a project started at last year's teaching camp.

The fabrics go together so well and the quilting done by Carol Ikin from Lawson is fantastic.

Here is a close-up and one of the back. Great choice of fabrics and great quilting to match.

You can see this in the flesh at the Springwood Quilt Show coming up the weekend after Easter.

Talking of quilting I received my dahlia quilt back from Belinda Betts in Orange today.

What a fantastic job she has done to highlight the design. No pics yet until I do the binding but it will also be on display at the quilt show. She's does really top-class quilting and is off the the US early May for a "study tour" of machine quilting to further her knowledge.

More pics from my travels soon.

Lots to tell

I've just come back from a flying visit to the beautiful shop Precious Time in Toowoomba. We did a two day class on Lots of Dots and boy was it flat out for the girls. This is the shop in a lovely old house in a suburban street of this spread out city at the top of "the range" as the locals call it.

There is still evidence all around of the disastrous floods earlier this year and the effects of it all will be felt in the community for years.

Here's a sample of the work the class produced over two really full-on days of sewing. We had newcomers to foundation piecing and some old hands, young sewers and the lovely Janette who is 83 and still powering on. Apart from the moment when I cut her block in half!!!!! all went well and I can only hope they continue with the project at home.

Fellow quilter Sue Ross and I were guests of Bev and her mum Pat who made us feel right at home and fed and watered us as only country people do. Bev is a machine quilting teacher in her other life and we were treated to a show and tell of her magnificent prize-winning work. It made me want to get to the machine there and then. Thanks girls and hope to see you all again in September.

These pics are from Bathurst recently and show Val's free-motion quilting skills to perfection.

It is a real sampler of techniques and was very inspiring.

An altered version of my Easy Medallion - love the diamond border!

Roxanne's cushion cover - don't you just want one?

Time is ticking away for the Springwood Quilt Show in less than three weeks time. We have over 150 quilts this year and the room will be chock full of wonderful work from local quilters.

The hard part starts in 16 days time when we begin building the stands and hanging the quilts.

Have a look at the blog for the show - Vicki has written a great post on what actually goes into this great community event.

One more thing - have a look at my quilt in the EQ Gallery here and scroll down to number 198. You send in your project file then a pic of the completed quilt - how exciting to have it displayed in their gallery!

Round and round

Some blocks from Saturday's class - Lots of dots and Alice's Dahlia centre

These Beauties are Sue's from my Hobbysew class.

She's quilted it herself but my photos don't do it justice.

Lots of custom designs in each block - fantastic job.

There's lots of talk in blogland at the moment about the exhibition in NY of

650 red and white quilts at the Museum of Folk Art.

Wouldn't you love to be there! Here's a link to Martha Stewart's blog with lots of pics instead.

I'm off to Toowoomba on Sunday for two days of classes at Precious Time

teaching Lots of Dots. Rumour has it that one of my students will be Sue Ross!!

My-oh-my the pressure will be on now.

An interesting link I just found on buying vintage sewing machines is here.

Eye candy

Have you seen this book? It's by the great Japanese quilter Chuck Nohara and it is full of her reconfigured drawings of well-known quilt blocks. What a wonderful book! I purchased it thru Quiltmania magazine.

This is the sort of image you get on every one of the 230-plus pages. I'm excited!

And this is the image you get in the latest issue of Quilters Companion - my Deauville quilt.

It's a great issue with a write up about our Springwood High School quilt show as well.

On that subject only 38 days til the show opens. Are we nervous yet?

These dahlias continue to grow and it's really interesting how different placement of fabrics

gives a different look. Compare these two.

Leah's NYB quilt is amazing isn't it. Great contrast in fabrics really makes each block sing and the dark border is a perfect frame.

Lots of dots happening at Berrima yesterday. Don't those flying geese look like a caterpillar?

And this is a little hand job I've been working on lately. Very satisfying work in front of the telly and it uses up quite a lot of scraps into the bargain.

Various

A few recent class pics  - Kris' Easy Medallion

Sue's dahlia is growing!

Lots of different things happening at Warriewood

Two more from Warriewood

A new take on Mariners Madness - love it!

The next four are from Glenys in NZ who has made two versions of Fancy Dancing.

Has she any scraps left! The quilting is beautiful.

New shop on the block

Mine that is! I have opened a new shop on Etsy to sell my patterns. It's called PatchworkFUN so go on over and check it out - they take Paypal and cards for purchases. I hope you like the selection. There is a button on my sidebar as well.
Now for the funnest bit. Have you seen pics of this quilt from the V&A exhibiton last year?

Isn't it amazing! Well Marta from http://cartulinas.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/el-rey-jorge-pasando-revista-a-las-tropas has begun a Sew Along to make the 16 different blocks surrounding the centre panel of King George III reviewing the troops.

She has drafted the blocks from the original which was made in 1803. The rosettes are @ 6" in diameter but you could make them any size you like. She will be releasing one block each month starting January so there are three already. Her blog is in Spanish and sometimes the Google translation can be quite amusing. However her PDF patterns are in English

Sue Prichard the curator of the exhibition has a few interesting things to say about the quilt here and Janet Bottomley has posted some more pics on her blog here.

There is even a Flickr group here.