Mereth and I have had a very busy fortnight, and I've only just caught up with all my work. And of course blogging was pushed to the very bottom of the list; I wish I could rattle off a blog post every day, but I never seem to get round to it. Sigh...

Last week Mereth and I hosted a fun day at our hall, with 17 ladies from the Burra quilting group attending. No photos, because it never occurred to us till it was too late. Our hall seemed rather small that day, but we managed to fit in. We had coffee and chocolate biscuits and Mereth and I showed a selection of our scrap quilts and the bushfire quilts. My goodness we all made some noise, but we enjoyed ourselves too.

On the weekend we travelled down to Clare, an hour away, so I could teach a QAYG worksop to 11 ladies. We covered 7 techniques for blocks, and three border methods, and it was a lot to fit into one day but they did wonderfully well. They have a lovely workshop space in the Bowling club, and we had a great time with them. The people are the best thing about teaching, I always enjoy meeting such lovely ladies.

We spent Sunday working on the friendship quilt for one of our Patchwork Group members, who has been struggling with health issues for a while. She should have received it by now, and I hope it makes her feel better. There are messages to read, and some beautiful workmanship to admire, and it will remind her that we are thinking of her.
Of course Meredith's doesn't count, as she only drew it with a Zig pen. She should really have stitched over it, shouldn't she? It's not fair that she got all the drawing talent. And I am NOT pouting. I've so got over that. I hand quilted around the edge, so it has some stitching after all.

Read more...

My first post has taken nearly a week, as we were busy with the Trade show for the first two days, then recovering and getting ready for the Statler get together on Saturday. The internet at Camden has been down, which is very inconvenient. I haven't read my blog list for a week, it will take me forever to catch up.

The Finishing Touch booth looked very nice, and we caught up with lots of fellow machine quilters, and shop owners; I did a bit of buying for our little shop, and found some threads for Mereth to play with on Millhouse, so I had some fun besides doing the workshops.

I met up with the lovely Nic Bridges, who was teaching workshops also. She always looks fabulous, what a wonderful smile. I hope to catch up with her and Lisa Walton at the Sydney show on Wednesday. Kaye doesn't have a booth there this year, so we will just spend one day there and see the quilts and catch up with as many friends as possible.

The Statler get-together was fun and we learned a lot about the new software releases, and compared notes on how we do things. There were 9 laptops set up, with people concentrating very hard and trying to absorb all the new knowledge.It was a great day, and there were 15 of us at dinner that night. Kaye is such a superb hostess, I'm sure I couldn't seat that many people and feed them and keep them happy. Thanks Kaye!
Dawn and Cheryl (that's them in front of the laptop in the picture) and I have been staying since Tuesday, and to help earn our keep we offered to tidy up Kaye's fabric bins. At the same time we were looking through her books, and there was a gorgeous 9-patch that we all loved. None of us remember who suggested it, but somehow we came up with the idea of making it for Kaye; she agreed, but said only if we made blocks for ourselves as well. And so we've been sewing up a storm in every spare moment, working on our sets of blocks. We worked out a system and everyone had a job to do, and we've made great progress since this photo was taken. Kaye will have a new quilt without much effort on her part, and we've cleaned out a lot of scraps in her fabric bins. I'm channeling Mereth, and using up all the tiny offcut scraps to make totally scrappy blocks.

I've been sewing on Kaye's new baby, and it's a steep learning curve. It's such a lot of machine, and has so many functions that it takes me a while to get going, but it sews beautifully. I'd better enjoy this machine here, because I won't be getting one of my own for quite a while!

And lastly, a photo of Kaye's crazy quilt that she bought on Ebay. It's all silk and wool, dated 1886, and it's very beautiful, and very fragile. It's such a treat to be able to examine an antique quilt close up, and see the individual stitches and touch the fabric. I hope this beauty lasts another 100 years.

Internet willing, I'll be back tomorrow with another update.

Read more...

I'm in transit right now, staying with my nephew in Adelaide and getting on the plane to Sydney tomorrow. I'm teaching a slew of workshops at the Craft Expo, and I've been finalising notes and class samples and arranging things to run smoothly while I'm gone. I just hope I've thought of everything, and if I haven't, well tough.Yesterday I finished quilting these little wholecloth samples, and that was a lot of fun. I love patchwork, but there's something very satisfying about quilting plain fabric where the designs show up so well. I just love making these patterns and working out easy ways to stitch them. Even on Millhouse they can't be quilted all in one pass, the quilt has to be rolled on and the next bit done, and it's an art to make it all match up perfectly. Or as near as you can get.

Who could ever get tired of feathers? I just love how classical they look, and they suit so many types of quilt. They are such fun to work with.
On Saturday it was a glorious day, so we went off to Bowman's Park for an afternoon walk. It was the end of autumn, so we thought we had better get in some quality outings while the weather was good. We walked up by the quarry, and along the top pf the ridge to the lookout. I love these trees and spinifex grass, and the clear blue autumn sky. So Australian.The view from the lookout was wonderful, and towards the eastern ranges it looked like a watercolour landscape, all soft and delicate. It's well worth the climb up.
I tried to get photos of Dolly, but I only have about 20 blurred images as she galloped here and there at great speed. With no other puppies she had the full brunt of Bonnie's and Macca's attention, and it was a bit overwhelming; she spent a lot of time racing around with them bowling her over and both trying to play with her. Parents can be a bit like that.

She's growing up so quickly, I just hope in two weeks time she'll still remember me. It's a long time in puppy time. I know she's Mereth puppy, but it's the closest I'll get to owning a dog for quite a while. She's has my highest praise; she's as good as a cat.

Read more...