The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sew Along Epidemic!

I admit it! I get very excited about patchwork and quilting. Sometimes I even finish some of the projects I begin with this unbridled enthusiasm.

My current passion is THE FARMER’S WIFE 1930’s SEW-ALONG. There is a ‘one stop page’ for all the information curated by GNOME ANGEL. (gnomeangel.com).

My book arrived last week and I am busily preparing my patterns and choosing my fabrics for the September 28th start date.

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Book and Fabrics

I know I have promised some unique results from the 200g of scrap swap….

Scraps Become a ‘new’ fabric

Half Square Triangles created with these great papers from Quilters Barn

…and I will finish that project…
BUT, this is a SEW-ALONG and I have never done a SEW-ALONG like this before. The group has its own Facebook page and there are already over 2500 members. Can you picture the diversity and cleverness of all these Patchworkers sewing along? It quickens the pulse.
My bobbins are full and my needles are new.

Fabrics, Bobbin and Needles

Come on and join the world wide project that has developed a life of its own! You know you want to…think of it as using up lots of fabric you already have to make room for new fabric that hasn’t even been designed yet…..ooooo aaahhhhh.

Longbourne at Castlemaine

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a class with Katrina Hadjimichael. http://katrinahadjimichael.blogspot.com.au/

The class was hosted by Corliss of Threadbear Patchwork and Quilting in Castlemaine. http://www.threadbear.com.au/

I have been an admirer of Katrina’s work for a number of years, so when I heard that she was to teach here in Victoria, I knew I had to be there! The quilt being taught was “Longbourne”,  number 3 in Katrina’s Jane Austen series, which currently numbers eight. It’s a feast of applique, fussy cutting and English Paper Piecing. Bliss!

Katrina and “Longbourne”.

Twenty eager ladies gathered in the light and cosy venue for a day filled with lots of learning, inspiration, friendship, laughter and delicious food (that I didn’t have to prepare!!)

When we arrived and found a spot to park our bags, belongings and bodies, we received a lovely little gift bag from Corliss, complete with chocolate sustenance and fabric treasures.

What’s inside?

Treasures!

Katrina also came armed with a gift: a copy of the recent Quilters Companion magazine which included a DVD featuring Katrina and her tips for Jelly Roll quilts.

Then to the real work of the day! Katrina is a very organised and meticulous teacher and led us through the various techniques and processes required to make our own version of Longbourne. All the extensive notes, beautifully drawn pattern sheets, and a collection of photos showing in detail various elements of the quilt, were presented in a display folder for each participant.

Pattern sheets and detailed instructions in a display folder.

Most participants chose to use reproduction fabrics for their quilts as in Katrina’s original, but one other brave soul and yours truly ventured into the realm of brights. I have decided this presents an additional challenge: many of the fabrics in bright modern fabric ranges have larger scale designs on them. For some elements of the quilt, especially the centre panel, small scale designs are also necessary. I found I had to go shopping for some additional fabric. (Oh dear, such a hardship)

At the beginning of the class one lady asked Katrina what her secret is for such accurate and neat work? In short, the answer is attention to detail.  All applique components are tacked onto paper first. Katrina takes great care when tracing and cutting out her pattern pieces. No sloppy workmanship here!

Tacking onto cartridge paper for fussy cut components.

 

More tacking.

Here’s Katrina demonstrating how she makes tiny (3/8″) hexagons. And the thread of choice… Aurifil of course!! (Here she is using 50 weight).

And so, to sew. The bias stems come first.

Ready to applique the bias stems.

I have not done a great deal of actual sewing as yet, but I have done a little playing with various fabric combinations, and lots of thinking about my creation.

Playing and thinking.

And when Longbourne is finished, there may be another of Katina’s Jane Austen quilts calling me.

Lambton, the latest in Katrina’s Jane Austen collection.

Thank you Katrina and Corliss for a most enjoyable and inspirational day.

 

Holiday Dreaming

I’ve been back at work for less than three weeks and already my holiday is a distant dream, so I browsed through my photos to re-live some of the memories.

We drove 10,000 kilometres, over many gravel & dusty roads, saw lots of bush and wild life and very few towns.

However, what I did notice is that in nearly every one of those towns, regardless of the size, there was always a mention of a community quilt to commemorate something special.

The quilt above, hangs in the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame & Outback Heritage Centre in Longreach, Queensland.

I could not find any reference to the makers, but the quilt captured the stories that were displayed around the museum, of women’s lives in isolation in the outback in the past.

Other quilts told stories of settlement anniversaries, mining and local interests and all were hanging in community halls, libraries, council offices and other public places.

It was obvious that the making of these quilts had brought people together to share their love of stitching and their community.

So long live the sharing of patchwork, quilting and embroidery!

 

Recycle, Reuse, Renew……Recover

Last week we were all entertained with ladybirdee’s recovered pincushion.  It was inspired and inspiring, and I have taken this ‘recovering’ theme one step further.

I was in need of a table and chairs and after perusing the furniture stores and not finding what I had in mind, I had a look on eBay. I fell in love with a table advertised there….because of the chairs! I  purchased several meters of fabric from “that Swedish furniture store” to use for recovering the chairs.

Cotton drill fabric for recovering chairs

After recovering the chairs, I had some fabric left and the table looked so naked.

Chairs with ‘new” seats

Then, I remembered I had Judy Neimeyer’s Compass Rose table runner paper piecing pattern. The finished size of her table runner was too long for my table so I decided to do some modifications.

Paper piecing

Using my left over pieces of fabric from recovering the chairs, some gorgeous Reece Scannell cottons and other pieces from my stash,  I stitched my compass sections, using Aurifil 50 wt. cotton Mako (orange spool).  Use a slightly shorter stitch length to make removing the paper after piecing easy.

Aurifil for perfect piecing

Stash fabric,chair fabric and cotton like SILK from Reece Scannell

Triangles were cut over sized and added to the compasses to create squares from my octogonal shapes.

Triangles ready to sew

One Finished Compass Rose…3 to go

Sewing these new squares together resulted in the perfect sized runner for my ‘new’ table.

‘New’ table with a new look

This project was quick and easy and ready to enjoy in a few days.

We would love to hear about your adventures with turning something old into something new again.

Aurifil @AQC

The Australasian Quilters’ Convention is just around the corner (16-19th April) held at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building.

This is always an exciting event for quilters: an opportunity to see the latest in quilting trends, be inspired by the work of others, and shop for all things quilty.

Even the venue itself is full of inspiration!

Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Carlton Gardens

Stencil detail from Royal Exhibition Building….would look good as an applique border!

Here at Aurifil we have been very busy packing up stock for the Aurifil retailers to display on their stalls.

Packing thread for one of our retailers.

Some of the retailers are taking a range of individual spools in various thread weights, while others are running special projects (such as block of the month) and we have been making up small packs of specially selected threads for these.

 

We have also put together some new four packs, including 3 new reproduction basic collections, just perfect to give you a range of “go to” reproduction-coloured threads.

 

One of three new “Reproduction Basics” collections.

These little four-packs also make great gifts (for yourself too!)

New Four Pack: “Purple Passion”

New four Pack: “Bubbles”.

The retailers who we know will have Aurifil for sale on their stands are:

• Cherry Pie Designs http://cherrypiedesigns.com/
• Elm Grove Patchwork http://www.elmgrovepatchwork.com.au/
• Marg Low Designs http://www.marglowdesigns.typepad.com/
• Needles and Pins. http://www.kayesneedlesandpins.com.au/

Other Aurifil retailers present at AQC are:

• Barossa Quilt and Craft Cottage http://www.barossaquilt.net.au/
• Fifi’s Fabricology www.fifisfabricology.com.au
• Material Obsession www.materialobsession.com.au
• Millrose Quilting and Gallery http://millrosequilts.blogspot.com.au/
• Palm Beach Quilting https://www.palmbeachquilting.com.au/
• Sewn and Quilted www.sewnandquilted.com.au
• Somerset Patchwork and Quilting. www.somersetpatchwork.com.au

In addition, some of the talented 2015 AQC tutors including Deidre Bond-Abel, Kathy Doughty, Karen Styles and Lisa Walton use Aurifil thread.

Look out for Aurifil at AQC and be sure to make certain that you have all the Aurifil supplies you need to successfully complete your current and future projects!

Not the perfect match

Jenny and I were delighted to see the February issue of Australia’s “Homespun” magazine in the shop this week.  It is always a good read, with lots of projects to do and plenty of articles about patchwork and sewing plus great advertisements  to drool over.

Several of our customers had mentioned that they were going to be selling the Homespun Block of the Month “China Blue” in their patchwork shops, and some had mentioned they would like some suitable Aurifil thread packs that would also work with the fabrics.

We knew that Kathy Doughty (from Material Obsession), one of the designers of this block of the month  was an Aurifil stockist, and we noted that Kathy recommends, in the materials list, Aurifil 50 in a neutral colour like 2900.

This got us thinking.  What other colours could we use to make up a small pack of threads for this amazing BOM and to go with the fabulous Kaffe Fassett  fabrics?   Always Quilting has a small range of Kaffe Fassett fabrics, so we selected a few, and matched them up with our thread selection.  This was a very difficult task as Aurifil has 270 colours to choose from!!

My spool of Aurifil Ne 50 in colour 2900 looks good

2564 works well with these assorted mauves

We also realised that you don’t need the perfect colour match for your applique.

The citrus  fabric colours can be appliqued with a soft green/grey or even a soft blush pink

Although Kathy has recommended 2900 for this first part of China Blue,  you may be interested in these other colours as well:  2564, 2846, 6724, 6727, 6723 (the last three numbers are part of the gorgeous new colours available in the Aurifil range).

Our selection of threads

We will be looking forward to seeing what the coming months bring us with this exciting BOM from Homespun, designed by the fabulous Kaffe Fassett and Kathy Doughty (and the design team from Material Obsession).

It is January so it must be time for a Fabric Frolic

January in Melbourne means “Fabric Frolic” time from 16th to 25th.

Seven shops in the eastern suburbs collaborate to organise a splendid week of treats, shopping and competitions for the patchwork enthusiast.

This year I was pleased to see that two of the shops on the shop hop map are Aurifil retailers so be sure to stock up on your thread supplies when visiting Patchwork Passion and Palm Beach Quilting.

Patchwork Passion in Cranbourne has a good supply of Cotton Mako’ 28 for your blanket stitch applique & quilting.

 

and Palm Beach Quilting in Carrum Downs stocks an extensive range of Cotton Mako’ 50 for piecing and needle turned applique.

So it is time to get together with some friends and plan a road trip to visit these shops in the next few days.

 

 

 

Not long now

I’m looking at my calendar and counting down how many sleeps until Christmas. In other words, how much time I have got left to do all the pre-Christmas things that need doing and my list is getting longer.

I have managed to complete one project, a Christmas tree ‘skirt’ for a family member who hasn’t seen the finished item yet – and as she doesn’t read this blog, I am fairly safe it will be a surprise when I give it to her.

I looked and looked for a suitable pattern, and was thrilled to find a whole book with beautiful Christmas things to make.

I wanted a modern look, and this design suits my criteria – colourful, modern and relatively quick to do.

I had to add a slight change to the pattern, as I stupidly cut the centre hole far too big.  Memo to self:  read measurements twice before cutting! I cut the circle out of the centre twice the width it was supposed to be (measured out 7 inches on both sides of centre inside – darn!). Of course I had started to scissor cut the circle when I realised. So my design has an extra ‘garland’ to match the outer one.  I guess that makes the pattern more original!!

Naturally some AURFIL thread was used in the construction and quilting. I had the right colour for the buttonhole stitch in Ne 28, and used the Ne 40 in red and soft aqua in the quilting.

I bought some pretty reindeer fabric for the backing

and a chevron striped binding worked too.

Happy Christmas to everyone – just one week to go…

PS  Our shop, “Always Thread” is closing from the 19 December 2014 until 5 January 2015.

The end of the year is nigh …

It is almost the end of 2014 and looking back all I can say is what a busy, adventurous, year it has been with lots of trade events and new directions taken for the business.

As always the final event for the year is the Australian wholesale Quilt Market, held in Melbourne in November.

Not a huge event by world standards, but still very important for Australian shops, and a great opportunity for us to put faces to names & voices that we have met by email, & telephone, during the year.

It is also the perfect place to catch up with many of the pattern designers who feature Aurifil threads in their work.

So let me introduce some of our favorite designers:

Marg Low uses a lot of Cotton Mako’ 12 threads in her designs

The Quilted Crow Girls have been using Cotton Mako’ 28 to applique their beautiful wool fabrics.

Zoe Clifton uses Cotton Mako’ 40 & 50 to piece, applique & quilt her designs.

Leanne Knell of Petals & Patches has started to use the Cotton Mako’ 12 for her stitchery designs.

The Australian Quilt Market is always such a great opportunity to meet people, to see what is new and go home inspired for the next year.

I wonder what we will do in 2015, after the 2013 market we decided to give our 2014 stand a modern twist with our Twenty First Century Round Robin.

Watch for more information about our “Twenty first Century Round Robin”  in the next post by KnitsnQuilts.

 

Oh dear, it comes around again.

Yes, the shops are starting to fill up with Christmas decorations, the catalogues are full of gift suggestions, and my calendar is filling up with end of year celebrations. I know I should be very happy to get so many invitations out  and have people to buy gifts for – but IT HAS COME AROUND TOO QUICKLY!!!!!!
Looking in the Always Quilting shop I discovered some ideas for Kris Kringles or gift making. Re the latter – I had better get sewing quickly if I want to make a quilt! but some of the other ideas are done much quicker – or don’t involve any sewing at all.
My ideas list:

A “quick” cushion??

Perhaps a table runner – or one table mat??

A Christmas Stocking??
For those with more time on their hands than me, a lovely Christmas quilt

Can always give a card (for someone else to make!)

For a special friend, a collection of thread??
A quilt label??
And always appreciated – more Christmas fabric and some gorgeous Brillo thread!!

You can check out the Always Quilting online store for more ideas. I hope you can find something special for your gift buying.