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.

It just gets better...

Check out the cover of the new Quilters Companion magazine.

That is my quilt!! I knew that it would be published in this issue, but I didn't know that it would be on the cover. What a thrill! I haven't actually seen the magazine yet, only on the website. I hope to have one soon. You can bet that my mother will be carrying it around in her handbag and showing it to complete strangers in the street.

I feel on top of the world right now. I took a big risk this year. I took a year away from a teaching position to 'have a go' at being a quilter. I was certain that I would bankrupt us, be responsible for all sorts of bad luck etc etc. But from this side of the year it life feels quite wonderful. Maybe fortune does favour the brave.

Makes me Proud

This year I had a quilt selected for inclusion in the Down Under Quilts 2007 Calendar. (I am Miss June).

The publishers of the magazine also organised for the quilts to be exhibited at International Quilt Week in Yokohama. Yesterday I received an e-mail from Erica Spinks, editor of the magazine asking permission to also exhibit the quilts at International Quilt Week Osaka March 15-17 2007.

How very exciting! It will be a well travelled quilt by the time I see it again!

Geometry

I have drawn up some pointy blocks onto freezer paper for my pineapple quilt. I used my husband's compass set that you can see. He has had it since he was doing graphics in year nine. He is an architect now, so it is very precious to him. Mind you, he hasn't used it for a VERY long time because everything is done with computers now.

I wish that I could tell you that I used a mathematical formula to work out this block. I did wonder how long the circle arcs were in order to segment the pointy shapes evenly. Something to do with pi multiplied by the radius???. But then my head hurt so I just used a guess and check method. I don't really care if it is mathematically correct, it looks how I wanted it to look. If I learn something out of this then the next one will look better.

I have traced four of these blocks onto freezer paper (using pencil, not nikko as in the picture). These will be for paper piecing. Hope to have them done soon.

Push Pineapple, Shake the Tree

This is a really quick sample piece that I put together to show our hand-dyed fabrics. It took all of ten minutes to conceive the idea, draw the picture, trace, cut and fuse...but I really like it. Maybe it's because it makes me think about my grandparents. They retired to Yeppoon in the late 70's. Yeppoon is on the central Queensland coast, where there were lots of pineapple farms. Of course now it is highly sought after coastal property and the farms are being pushed out.

I am going to make a larger version of this piece with some spike pieced blocks to echo the spiky pineapple tops. Naturally there were no 'just perfect' colours in the whole 65 metres that we dyed, but I am happy with this choice of colours:

The one on the right is much bluer in real life. I have added some pink to make it feel tropical and bring the other colours out. Will post photos as I go along.

Sorry about the title too, a reference to bad 80's pop.

November Stall at Craft Market

Yesterday Flo and I launched our hand-dyed fabrics at a local craft market. It was not the resounding success we were hoping for! We sold only enough pieces to cover our stall - which we thought looked pretty good!



Doesn't that look like the sort of stall that you would want to visit? It seems that most people were looking for ready made items - we had none. The stall next to us made a killing selling pink, glittery items (ghastly) to parents who could not say no to their daughters. Smart lady selling that stuff. You can see a peek of her stall here.



So now the fabrics are neatly piled up on the shelf at my house while I gaze admiringly upon them.



Maybe I ought to put them onto the internet?... Maybe Flo and I should use them! We think they are beautiful.

Quilting

I am pretty happy with my machine quilting at the moment. I have progressed in my free motion to the point where I am forming feathers and swirly shapes as background fillers. This is a client quilt which is soft and pretty and looks great with these romantic swirls. The rose buds that you can see are a Quilters Niche design stitched out with the computer.

Work in Progress and Helpful Husbands

I recently bought the blue and green fabrics in the new Nancy Halvorsen range, Angels Among Us. I love these colours. I have made 4 inch half square triangles, using the fabrics randomly, and cut 4 inch squares. This random layout that you see here took me about two hours to arrange. It reminds me of under the sea. The diagonal lines are the light penetrating the water. My husband listened to this, nodded and asked "So why is the sunlight coming from two different directions?"

So the blocks are still laying on the floor while I ponder whether I will change the diagonals to run in the same direction or just take 'artistic liscence'.