All work is done!

I have finished all of the client quilts which I had to complete before Christmas. This frees me to do a few of my own things in a rush before Monday!

I decided that my feathers were client ready and completed a beautiful, enormous quilt with free-form feathers and McTavishing. I was really delighted by her reaction when she saw the completed quilt.

I bought these two reference book recently to assist me.

I have to confess, however, that I haven’t read them. All that I have done is look at the pictures. I am beginning to be concerned that my brain is becoming cottage cheese. I have always been a visual learner. I get a better understanding by looking at a picture, diagram or an actual finished object. This year I have done nothing but quilt all year. I think that I may have surrendered completely to my right brain and given up reading instructions altogether. It should be interesting when I return to the classroom next year for two days a week!

Sharing

My daughter’s quilt is moving along nicely. She has been working hard to finish the piecing.

Won’t it be a delight to have another quilter in the house. We can share quilting conversation, design ideas, fabrics and materials, books and magazines (once I’m finished reading them).

BUT>>>






Do I have to share my scissors??

Three times I have wondered how I could have been so neglectful as to misplace my thread snipping scissors only to discover that they weren’t lost but stolen!

Growing up and Moving on

Last night was my son’s graduation from primary school. This ritual is a fairly new phenomenon in Australia, there was a time when you just went to the covered area for assembly and were wished well five minutes before you left for the summer holidays. This was an elaborate production where every child was presented with a graduation certificate and photos of all of their class members, bands played, choirs sang, invited guests were admired. Awards were presented in various categories. My son was nominated for four awards in academic categories. He won none. His teacher said to me that he deserved one, but just doesn’t work hard enough. Sounds like every report card that I ever got, and that his father ever got. It wasn’t very responsible of us to breed! Any way, lucky my son is charming and pretty…he’ll get by in this life without working himself into a stupor!

Yesterday I finished a little quilt as a gift for his teacher (see I work hard enough now, finsihed with three days to spare). I started it earlier this year in a workshop with Marlene King. The leaf spikes of the grass tree have been stitched with upholstery thread. It was done in a bobbin work style.

Caitlin has a photo of a real grass tree on her blog today if you want to have a look.

I Need a Design Wall!

Look what was on my kitchen table when I woke up this morning.

My daughter has decided to make a quilt. This is the amazing result of her efforts so far. Nine-patches and a feature square of Hello Kitty fabric.

All of this has been done without any input from me. In fact just the opposite – she is a contrary little thing. If I were to be too enthusiastic about her work she would stop. She’s a bit like a wild creature in that way – don’t let her smell your fear! Any way the last time I saw this quilt she was only using four fabrics in the nine-patches and they were arranged in a typical dark and light arrangement with five patches of one colour and four of the other. Since then she has raided my stash cupboard and rearranged her design into a wonderful scrappy quilt! We have had no discussion about colour, values or design; this has been a purely intuitve process for her….I love that! We can all do that when we don’t over think our designs.

I’m not sure where I am going to sew today now. I don’t want to move her quilt. Maybe I could squeeze in at the other end of the table???

On another note, yesterday I met with Kirsty. It was supposed to be brunch, but it became lunch as well. It was nice to meet as strangers, enjoy conversation which was alternatley very intellectual and terribly low-brow, and walk away feeling that I had met with a very similar spirit to mine.

The world is a wonderful place!

Kim’s Quilt

Last week I was shocked to learn that a friend had been diagnosed with cancer. She is just one year older than I am and her children are a similar age to our children. So, naturally, when faced with a sad situation, I made a quilt for her. It had to be bold and bright and give off lots of positive energy. It had to be a size that she could take to hospital with her if she feels the need. It had to show that we care.

Here is the result…

Inititally I stitched the horizontal bands of colour together. The colour combination was inspired by the bold Amy Butler fabric. My colour selection drew a few odd looks. The horizontal bands did not look particularly good by themselves! It drew comments of ‘that’s…..nice’. The whole composition did not come together until I slashed the stripes and added the vertical green strips and appliqued fern fronds.

I quilted it with feathers and swirly shapes. I take any opportunity to practice freehand feathers. They seem to be coming along well. I must be feeling more confident than I realised beacause the thread that I chose contrasted with the fabrics and is quite visible. This fact only dawned on me five minutes into quilting, but by then I was committed to my choice.

I hope that this gift will provide the love and warmth that my friend need to heal. I hope that the colours and design brighten her days. I hope that her spirit and the wonders of medical science work together to restore her health. And I hope that Australia’s recent decision to allow stem cell research to continue will contribute to a world free of disease!

Oh Christmas Tree…

Look at my Christmas tree!

It has been beautifully decorated by the very clever Kirsty. Not only is Kirsty obviously talented, but she is very efficient! This arrived in my mail today…I only gave her my address yesterday!

Thanks for your kindness Kirsty. My daughter and I made a dash to the scrapbooking shop this afternoon, so something beautiful will be in your hands soon.

Today my daughter did her first quilting. She is making a cushion and wanted to applique a flower onto it. She did her first ever sewing with feed dogs down to raw edge applique. I love that she went straight into that and did a very good job too! Sometimes when I am tutoring people in free motion work they are terrified and nervous. But no one had ever told her that this was difficult, so she had no fear. It’s amazing what a difference your mindset will make!

Phew…

I have finally just finished quilting the quilt that would never end. No photos to post because my husband took my camera to work today.

Tomorrow is the day that registrations open for Be creative by the Sea. I went this year and really enjoyed working with Wendy Scott and Caroline Sharkey. I also enjoyed the evening show and tell sessions. I was hoping to go again in 2007, but a couple of things have made me change my mind.
A press release was made last week by Reed Events that they would be bringing a new craft show to Townsville in April. The same weekend as Be creative. I am quite excited that a new craft show is coming, given the sad and sorry one that we had this year. I will need to work at the show, maybe take some workshops. But also I don’t want to miss it. If it is not well supported it may not continue.

The second thing that happened is that Gloria Loughman has been booked to come to Townsville to take a workshop at the shop where I am a tutor. I was particularly hoping to work with her at Be creative. I would prefer to work with her here in Townsville and support our local shop.

SO…now I am hoping to go to Quilt Indulgence in Mittagong in September instead!

I’ll leave you with a photo of the back of the quilt which is currently in the Quilters Companion magazine. I quite like it from the back. The quilting left its own design. it almost looks like a whole cloth from the back!

Quilting

I am quilting a very contemporary quilt for a client at the moment. As with all the quilts I seem to be doing at the moment, it is enormous! She has done a fabulous job on the quilt top. This lady has very definite ideas about what she likes in quilting and a very identifiable style. All of this is amazing considering she made her very first quilt just six months ago. I am really enjoying playing on this quilt.

Pineapple Progress

My pineapple quilt is in progress and moving along quite nicely. The small pointy blocks have been improvised cut and pieced – no templates or measuring. I have another pineapple square and eight more small blocks to add to the bottom, but I stopped here to unpick. I must have turned a block when piecing and I don’t like that the two blue points are touching each other in the middle. Never mind!

No More Bragging

Sorry about the last two big headed posts. A bit more humble today!

I felt a little like I had neglected my homework so I have been working on my pointy pineapple blocks. It was quite difficult to bring myself to cut out beautiful hand dyed pieces. I had been admiring them as whole works of art and was concerned that cutting them would reduce their impact. But I think they look pretty good cut too!

I used freezer paper with these blocks. I ironed it onto the fabric then stitched around it rather than marking a template onto fabric. I find this to be quick and easy, but if you know an easier way please tell me. First I pieced the two arcs – lots of pins here.

Then I used the freezer paper as a foundation to paper piece both pointy sections. The freezer paper sticks one piece down, so it won’t move when you add the next piece.

Here is the completed block once all three sections are stitched together.

The freezer paper gives a nice accurate result. I will add a few other blocks and some applique. More photos to come.