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.

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!

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.

 

Wednesday Wonder: Thread Painting

How time flies!  This time last month I was frantically packing threads into the van to drive to the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in Adelaide.

Ten hours, and 800 km,  later it was time to set up the vendor stand in association with Hettie’s Patch, one of the Aurifil retail outlets in Adelaide.

It is the third time Lorraine, the owner of Hettie’s Patch, & I have collaborated to take Aurifil threads to the Australian Machine Quilting Festival and it is always a fun weekend helping people choose threads for their classes.

This year, the highlight class was a two day workshop learning to thread paint with Pam Holland and, at the Hettie’s Patch stand, we took great pleasure in helping students colour match the Cotton Mako’ 50 threads to their images in order to reproduce them in stitches.

It was great to see the projects developing over the two days and I was sorry to miss seeing them all at completion but Jill W did bring her finished stitching back to show us how well the threads worked on the photo of her pet.

And a close up view of Jill’s dog to show the realistic light & dark, 3D effect, that she achieved with the stitching, I keep expecting him to bark.

AMQF was a wonderful experience as, as the wholesaler/distributor of Aurifil in Australia, I don’t always have an opportunity to be so closely involved in helping textile artists match their thread choices to a particular project.

If you missed the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in 2014 be sure to watch for the next event in 2016.

As to our next venture into collaborative marketing with a local Aurifil retailer, we are just waiting for the invitation. So come on retailers contact us.

 

Aurifil at Market Trends, Brisbane

Did you have an exciting weekend?

I did!  ……  I went to sunny Brisbane and escaped the cold Melbourne weather for three days.

I had a vendor stand at the Market Trends wholesale trade show, held at Doomben Racecourse in Brisbane.

It was a great opportunity for people to see the Aurifil threads first hand, and for me to meet, in person, with people who I have only previously meet by telephone & email.

As well as being the place to “put faces to voices on the telephone”,  trade shows are always a great opportunity to meet new friends.

I was particularly excited to meet the special guest, Camille Roskelley,  and to see her beautiful modern take on traditional patchwork blocks.

Camille also had her books, patterns & Aurifil Collections on display.

This inaugural Market was quite small,  but well attended by retail store owners from Queensland & northern New South Wales.

As well as having plenty of time to speak to each of the Wholesale vendors,  the visitors had morning training sessions and demonstrations during the day.

They were also treated to an evening talk by Camille, explaining her fabric design inspirations, talking about, and showing, the quilts that she has made for each of her Moda fabric ranges.

It was fascinating to see her miniature quilts, and to hear how they started because she wanted to keep a smaller version of each of the larger “fabric range” quilts on her wall.

Camille said that she stitches her quilts with Aurifil Cotton Mako’ 50, and she has created patterns for each of her miniature quilts so you can make your own versions.

Each wholesaler had put a lot of effort into setting up their displays to make the market hall look interesting.

My  “across the aisle” neighbor even had cupcakes made, and decorated with designs inspired from their Tilda fabric range.

Just too, too tempting.

Then suddenly the weekend was over, my display stand was pulled down, packed into two  suitcases, and I was ready to ride away into the sunset ….. no …. I mean catch a plane back to Melbourne.

My Waverley Quilt Show

A banner to quicken the pulse

Every two years my local quilt group presents the work of their members. I have been a member for 15 years and I went to my first Waverley Quilt Show just a few months after I moved to the area.

Every Quilt Show visitor received a bookmark

The quilts on display were all beautiful and represented every genre of patchwork from traditional to modern; hand pieced and quilted to machine pieced and machine quilted.
This year I entered my “Big O” Birthday Quilt. My friendship group, World Wide Wanderers, secretly worked on this quilt for a year. They even covertly contacted my husband to find out places of personal significance to me and then represented these places with its floral emblem.

My Big ‘O’ Birthday Quilt

 

Appliqué detail

I was so pleased to show off this quilt to the community. It represents so much more than a special birthday. It is a treasure from my dearest friends.

More appliqué detail

If you would like to see more quilts from our show, including the Viewer’s Choice Award winning quilt, visit Rose Lewis Quilting.

Cinderella Transformation at the Australasian Quilt Convention

The beautiful Melbourne Exhibition Building underwent a cinderella transformation yesterday as the quilts went up, the exhibitors stands were decorated and the classrooms were prepared for today.

Set up day was misting rain all day so I was pleased that I had loaded the Aurifil parcels into the van the day before, ready for an early delivery run into the city.

Even so, by the time I arrived the merchant hall was well on the way to being well dressed.

Orange fluouro vests were the standard dress for people, but the walls were looking much more appealing.

I love the way each exhibitor has stamped their own store personality on their display

Yesterday was a rumble of trolleys, and ripping of boxes, as stock was unpacked and displayed but for the next four days the hall will be a buzz of excited chatter as visitors discover amazing treasures of “must have” items.

I can’t wait to see the transformation.

Make sure you visit the Aurifil retailers to take home some thread treasures for yourself:

Stand 43    Cherry Pie

Stand 45    Elm Grove Patchwork

Stand 21    Fifi’s Fabricology

Stand 181  Millrose Cottage Quilting & Gallery

Stand 44    Miss Sampson’s Drapery

Stand 23    Needles & Pins

Stand 58    Somerset Patchwork & Quilting

Stand 55    The Quilted Crow

Each retailer has chosen the threads that are particular to the fabrics, designs & techniques that they are featuring at the show so you may wish to visit each one to build your collection of Aurifil.

Happy Treasure Hunting!

 

 

How to find Aurifil at the Australasian Quilt Convention

It is less than a week until the Australasian Quilt Convention opens so we have been madly packing threads for the various teachers, using Aurifil in their workshops, and the patchwork stores where it will be sold at the Expo.

Each exhibitor will stock the particular Aurifil thread weight that relates to their patchwork style and patterns, so take note of the retailer’s stand number, and the Aurifil product line, so that you will know where to find the thread weight that you wish to purchase.

Cotton Mako’ 50 will be found at:

Stand No: 43      Cherry Pie Designs

Stand No: 23      Needles and Pins

 

Cotton Mako’ 40 will be found at:

Stand No: 45       Elm Grove Patchwork

Stand No: 58       Somerset Patchwork & Quilting

Cotton Mako’ 28 will be found at

Stand No: 21       Fifi’s Fabricology

Stand No: 55      The Quilted Crow

Lana will be found at

Stand No: 181    Millrose Quilting & Gallery

Unfortunately none of the exhibitors will have the Cotton Mako’ 12 for sale this year, however you can always place a special order with us for collection at the Convention.

Cotton Mako’ 12 is the thickest thread in the range

PS:  Contact us before midday Tuesday 8th if you are wish to pre-order a particular thread weight or colour so that we have time to arrange for a collection point for your order.

 

Tuesday Treats: AQC Class and Workshop

Have you ever heard the saying, “My eyes were bigger than my stomach”? When the class booklet arrived last year from AQC with all the possible available classes I wanted to take them all. I had a tough time narrowing down my choices…think box of favourite chocolates.

Around the same time, Judy Neimeyer, from Quiltworx, was in town teaching several shop owners her newest quilt design. One of these shops is way too close to my house. You can see how easy it was for me to over indulge.

Yes, that’s right. I signed up for two days at the AQC AND the first installment of the Australian Glacial Star quilt to begin the next day. As the dates inched closer I began to question my judgment. I also had a friend visiting from overseas who was attending AQC as well and our time together usually involves fine food, good wine, and chats into the wee hours of the morning.

The adrenalin kicked in on the morning of AQC and I boarded the train into town toting all my class supplies; full of excitement.

by Susan Brubaker Knapp

My class with Susan Brubaker Knapp did not disappoint. I painted on fabric for the first time in my life and it actually looks like the picture.

First try at painting on fabric

Susan, an Aurifil sponsored designer, was very generous with her time and ideas and brought many samples of her beautiful work to class.

Class Samples by Susan Brubaker Knapp

All this inspiration  carried me on to a local quilt shop, Palm Beach Quilting, and I began the journey into becoming a paper piecing expert.

Judy Niemeyer’s paper piecing techniques

Maureen patiently taught us new techniques and introduced me to gadgets I had never seen before.

Maureen’s New York Beauty

The excitement was still driving me on to cut and sew…by the time I started home after 6 hours in class, I knew I had over indulged. I felt weary and a little light headed. I had one too many pieces of chocolate….I had ridden one too many rides at the fair. But I still knew  after a good nights’ sleep I would be back amongst my new projects and fabrics.

I have all year to rest before the next AQC and a full month to complete my homework before a new design is offered from the ‘chocolate box’…..yum….

So  jump into the deep end! Over indulge! You can never have too much when you are creating!

Tuesday Treats: Aurifil back in stock

Have you noticed how our Tuesday Treats seem to be slipping later into the week?

Well I’ve got a good excuse this week.

Boxes & Boxes of Cotton Mako’ 40 waiting to be counted & shelved

Our latest shipment of threads arrived yesterday so I spent the day trying to make space so that we could shelve the new stock.

Then today, it was all hands on deck as we unpacked, counted and put away boxes, & boxes, and even more boxes of thread.

Unpacking day is always a strenuous day,  but it is fun as we stop to check out the new goodies in the shipment.

Just have a look at these thread packs!

The colours in this pack were chosen by Edyta Sitar

We managed to put everything away BUT it is a very tight squeeze on the shelves at the moment

So watch this space for a Space Maker Sale later this month

Of course tomorrow, I will have to start filling the orders and packing stock in preparation for delivering all the beautiful colours to the Aurifil retailers at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne next week.

So no rest for the next few days.