Week end in Brisbane

Just got back from Brisbane. Went down to do a
brush up seminar for my teachers accredition.
It was a realy good day.Catching up with all the
other ladys was good.
Sue, Jan & Ros do a wonderfull job . If any one is
interested in doing there accreditation,I realy do
reccomend it. Those 3 ladys know there stuff.

We arrived in Brisbane friday morring,Daugther Megan & I.    I had the worst sore neck

I could hardly move my head.Woke up this way, What I done in my sleep I dont know.

I had this wonderfull weekend planed,  but it didnt turn out that way.                             

I did make it to the Ekka.Went to see the quilt I put in Quilt across Queensland.There were

a nice lot of quilts on dissplay, all very good. I had a  fast look around at every thing,so much

to see, Great art , pottery , cakes , quilts and lots more .

The Ekka is full of inspiration . Every were you look

there is colour , shapes & so many ideas.

Each picture I took was full of colour.Wonder if the same would happen in aquilt.

I will have to play and see.

Wonderfull quilting design .This was the non

slip mat at one of the rides.Great pattern.

Flower Garden Quilt I made

for the Ekka , Quilts Across Queensland.

From Old To New

  My mum has just been up for her winter get away.

  Last year while mum was here she come in to the shop to help Bev & I cover a chair each. We thought we done a great job and were very pleased with ourselves.

  This year Mum arrived with a old chair that my uncle gave me. The chair came from my great Grandmother

(Mums grandmother).The chair would be well over 100 years old.Greatgran made the chair. There are 3 chairs in the family. Mum has one, Aunty Mary has one. Aunty Mary's chair is a 2 seater. Both have been coved by mum or with help from mum. Great Gran also made some other furniture.

   It took us a week to recover this chair. Once we started to pull it apart it was surprise after surprise. It had 3 different covers. The original one was a patch work job. Hard to belive that one little lady on her own did all this work, and without the tools we have to day. Strong & determined woman in those days.

  The packing or padding was bits of everything - feathers, wool, old shirts and singlets, towels, hessian bags. And the string Great Gran had used, it was so strong we had to cut the whole lot to be able to do anthing.

  The wooden frame was mostly packing boxes with odd sized and shaped bits of boards here and there. It had wonderful strong legs , as well as wheels. Mum and I were amazed with the nails and tacks. I have never seen tacks with such big heads on them.

  Mum and I had a wonderful time pulling layer after layer away. Lots of oh's and ah's.

  putting it all back together was a big job. Two of the springs in the seat had broken, so we had to replace them. It was lucky that the upholstery man in town had a couple of spares poked away in the back of his shed.

  This chair was contructed in such a different way to the chairs previously done by mum -  we had to do it all backwards. Had to start with the seat and then do the arms and then do the back last. We also didnt get the same shape that Great Gran had. We did the best we could, with the materials we had.

  Great Gran had a really nice shape to the arms and head rest. She had built them out a bit, bulged the head rest and arms for that rounded plump look. Unfortunately we didnt have the material or knowledge to do that.

  But all in all we were both very pleased with how it turned out. Think we did pretty good.

  Mum and I think it looks lovely, and i think she would be happy with what we have done with it. Plus I believe Uncle Brian will be pleased with it. And that it has ended up  with another member of the family (and we think its pretty neat.)

  I wonder if years down the track that one of my great grankids will do the same thing and have just as much fun ripping it to bits and putting it back together.
 

As we pulled the chair apart this is what we found

lots of surprise.

Patchwork seat,unreal

better look at the patchwork seat

Stitching holding the hole lot together

Had to redo the springs

All the stuff we pull off the chair

Getting the seat ready for the top cover         

All finished & looking brand new.

Virgin Blogger

My first time writing on a blog.  How exciting!  I love patchwork, sewing, gardening, creating and I'm hoping to be able to share this here.

I recently completed my Teacher Accreditation with Qld Quilters and thought this would be a great way to share my ideas and designs.

This is one of the designs I'm currently working on - using Marti Michell templates, but like many others I do have a few more on the go at this time.  I particularly love free motion quilting and my time is currently taken working on a quilt I want to enter in the Queensland Quilt Show later this year.