Happy Mothers Day

Lots happening in different classes at the moment. Ros has started this Pine Burr quilt to try and use up some of the stash. The centre striped fabric is quite striking but not a current one. What a shame.

Judy is on a NYB journey with fantastic results so far. Great use of batiks and hand-dyes. It turns out she's a friend of a friend twice removed. Life's amazing sometimes.

Margaret is one of my older students and has been sewing up a storm. The blocks were made and sewn up in four weeks and they are all 6" blocks. What a woman.

This is part of my new project - or one of them. It all started with the fabric below which is on the border of this version of the good old dresden plate. It includes some foundation piecing in the triangle border and lots of applique. I loved doing this top and am a bit sorry it's finished.

Just need to quilt it now.

On Friday I had the pleasure of being the guest quilter for show and tell at The Cottage Quiltworks in Warriewood. What a lovely shop - beautiful premises and great fabric. If you haven't been there yet put it on the list. Really nice girls and did I tell you their fabric was great! I have been invited to teach at their Quilt Retreat in July - five days of classes with 10 different tutors - and I will start regular classes there on the 2nd Saturday of the month from July onwards. Give them a ring if you're interested in joining me on a Mariners journey.

Had a really nice Mothers Day today - went to Ikea with my daughter and even had meatballs. It was a lovely day and had some retail therapy too. Hope yours was just as good.

Show and tell

A few class pics today and lots more to come. Heather's compass centre surrounded by Deb's NYB blocks. They could be from the same project!
Jenny's stunning Pickled Lillies top. This is such a graphic design and she has used so many different browns it's fantastic, not to mention it even sits flat. Jenny is on fire at the moment - I want what she's having.

Beautiful applique on Sharon's Mariners quilt.

Black is a perfect foil for most colours. Anne-Marie has done a wonderful job here. All blocks completed and basted ready for quilting in three lessons.

Good news re the proceeds from our quilt show - over $10,000 was raised for sewing machines for the textile students and a significant donation to CanTeen. How good is that!

A little break and it's on with the next one. Rachel has some great pics of the show - hop on over and have a look. She also talks about the new EQ7 program. It's a hot topic at the moment with everyone wanting to be the 1st to have it. You can pre-order now thru the EQ website. I've just conquered EQ6 but it sounds like the upgrade will be great.

Only two weeks to go til quilt camp - a whole weekend of sewing with no interuptions. I can hardly wait!

What a show!

Well we survived the weekend and three days of quilt show. Really five days when you think it took two days to build the stands and hang the quilts. All the committee put in a fantastic effort and I'm sure they were all as weary as me by the end on Sunday night.
Don't have any stats regarding heads through the door and takings but there sure were a lot of people there. On Saturday the cafe even ran out of sandwiches and bottled water! We had so many entries we had to cull @ 50 quilts as there were more quilts than hanging space.
I took lots of pics of the setting up and the display in general but my camera was not behaving so I have managed to salvage just a few from the show. Sorry guys.

Our "Unique Treasures" stall (above) had a fantastic result selling all sorts of things in the bric-a-brac and fabric related lines. It's such fun to "play shop). I sold quilts and quilt tops, patterns and fabrics and met so many friends and students who'd all come to check out the great work of our local mountain quilters.
Viewers" choice quilt was a beautiful Australian Wildflowers applique quilt (sorry no pic) and the raffle quilt was won by a local lady - so glad it didn't go to someone out of the area. I am keeping the raffle quilt til the Darling Harbour show where it's entered in the group category again.
This is the centre of Kris' beautiful applique quilt - the 3D flowers were lovely.

Denise's version of my Pickled Lillies was very dramatic - love the red accent.

This is Rachel's gorgeous "Amy-style" quilt. Maybe her 1st quilt? and hand quilted in number 8 thread. Just beautiful. Lots of fussy cutting and ric rac.

My friend Erica is having a give-away to celebrate a her 113th post. Have a look and you might win 113 beautiful charm squares!

Happy Easter

Life's been pretty hectic lately - 7 days straight teaching in 7 different venues! Not the usual timetable but with Easter some were brought forward etc. I'm so glad to have 4 days at home then it's off to Blueberries at Wyong for 2 x 2 day workshops.
How's this lovely 4-patch made by Brenda from Ribbons and Rainbows. Great horizontals happening there. I think they are going to kit it up for sale thru the shop.

Sally in my Blackheath class has done a fine job on this String Pieced star with foundation pieced border. She will tell you there are 240 spikes in that border! Looks great tho and worth all the effort.

Heather from the class at Quiltsmith has pieced this beautiful centre for her Oriental Mariners . She's been very controlled in her fabric placement and it's paid off. Lots of homework now to finish the next ring.

Here's the lovely Rachel hard at work on her Mariners centre. It's so nice to have "young" students coming to classes and Rachel is really enthusiastic about fabric and patchwork in general.

I've shown you the centre of this before but now it has half-dresden borders and I think I'll leave it at that. This was a trial of two different rulers and both performed well. Maybe some classes in the future?

There's a new button on my sidebar with a link to KimoYes in Canberra. Gorgeous vintage kimono and other oriental fabric. You can buy on-line and have a look at Jill's blog to find out what markets they'll be at in the future - they make all sorts of things from their beautiful fabric and if you can get to see them it's well worth it. I've made a couple of quilts incorporating kimono fabric from Jill and I'll have a pic next post.

Surprise

Helen has been quietly working on this octagon beauty by hand for not that long really. The blocks are @ 10" and go together quickly she assures us. A great pattern to highlight large scale prints

Look what arrived today - my spring swap gift from Erica in the US! How sweet is this - a pretty cushion from dresden petals (here they are again) and some fat quarters to go with it. PLUS Erica made the card as well - what a clever girl she is and a lovely swap partner too.

I have never done an internet swap before and this one was a lot of fun - keeping things secret til the end. Other gifts are on Flickr - check them out. Just beautiful.

Want the world to see your quilt? The V and A have a virtual quilt show going in conjunction with their quilt exhibition and you can put yours in it here. I did and there are lots of others - really interesting quilts from all over the world. Thanks to an Aussie Erica for the info.

Entries have closed for our quilt show - over two hundred items! Can you believe it and to think we were worried we wouldn't have enough. Lots of people have volunteered to help over the five days - thanks in advance to you all. Let the fun begin!!

Kiama

Not too many pics from classes this time but you'll have a laugh from this one. We had a night in Kiama after my Berrima class on Sunday and on Monday morning there was a quilt sale at the Community Arts Centre. They must have known I was in town! Minutes after this pic was taken Daisy was wheeled up the main street to the council depot to have a new paint job - what a funny sight.
Nowra Quilters had a display in the old fire station but I forgot to ask how often - maybe once a month? Some lovely things and all for sale at very reasonable prices.
The Noodle Box belongs to Jennifer from Berrima who's made it to give away to her sister - lucky girl. Lots of magazine publicity around at the moment for our Springwood High School quilt show with good friend Marilyn's smiling face in most of the write-ups.
Make sure it's on your calendar to visit over the Anzac weekend.
Finally received my copy of the latest Kaffe Fassett book - what a feast for the eyes.

Classes

I've just received today issue 130/September 2009 of Quilts Japan. Tho the whole mag is in Japanese the pics are fantastic and the projects could be accomplished with a bit of concentration. Anyway this issue has an English flavour with pics from several museums in the UK - Norwich in particular. Why wasn't it around before I was over there last year. This pic is of the Brereton Bed Hangings and more can be seen here. Real eye candy!

These two pics are from my workshop at Quiltsmith on the weekend. They include two projects from a past class and the start of the weekend's Oriental Mariners quilt. We had a great day playing with the same design in different fabrics and tho the quilt wasn't finished over the two days I'm sure the girls are well on their way. Can't wait to see them finished.

Now this one is a version of my Doily quilt below. Gabrielle from my Blackheath class has used up a lot of embroideries, hankies, lace and doilies in this beautiful, soft-toned example of how to get things out of the linen-press and into the daylight. She has @ 5 weeks to quilt it for our Springwood quilt show - no golf for a while girl!

This quilt apparently has caused lots of discussion in the shop - Ribbons and Rainbows - when people comment on their own stash of stitcheries and doilies languishing in the cupboard. Cut them up!! and get them out there I say.

Hubby's finally got the all-clear on his ribs nearly 10 weeks after the event so he's pretty much back to normal now. What a saga!