Brisbane Weekend

 I just had four days in Brisbane. Went down with my friend Bev. We went to the Queensland Quilt show & Stitchers & Craft. The quilts were wonderfull. You really need a good day to look at them all. I did take lots of photos, but I only put my quilt "Afican Beauty", up for you to look at. (With the copy rights I thought I had better not put any others on my blog) I come home with lots of insperasion.

 Also meet up with one of the ladys from our old sewing group, Helen. It was really good to catch up.
Bev, Helen & I went off to lunch, we had lots to talk about. Its been years since I saw Helen but it only felt like yesturday. There were 7 of us in our sewing group. As time has gone on & people move away there is only 2 of us now (Sylvia & I are hanging in there).


On the way home we stopped of at  Eagle Farm Markets. Bevs lovely son Chris run us to the markets on the way to the Airport. Great little market. So much food & lots more to look at. Just a pity we could'nt  fit any more in our bags.

 Took photos of the grandstand. Wonderfull quilting designs & piecing ideas.All the lines would make a stunning quilt. More ideas & designs to work on.

                                                       Its never ending the ideas we see around us.

    Walking around the markets you see so much colour. More insperasion for quilts.

 The flower stall was to die for, and they had them set out in colour shades red, pink, yellow & so on.

 Walking back to the car I saw a few Fig trees.The branches were all interlocked, twisted & meshed together. Very interesting, took more photos but his one with the bits sticking out the side really took my fancy.

  I have a feeling Chris thought I was quite mad, taking random photos of trees, the skyline and the market place.

 Well our time in Brisbane is over. It's back on the plane to Emerald and home sweet home.

Jo's Quilt

                                          My lovely daugther Megan.
She will be 21 in January.We have both been busy making the invitations. My sewing room had been taken over with writing matrials and pens. All finished & in the post now, thank heavens.

 In the last post I had all the fabrics picked ready for the next quilt I wanted to make. Jo's Quilt. After a few days of cutting & sewing I end up with Log Cabin blocks.  All Green & Pink. The blocks are all up on the design wall waiting to see what happens next. I'm not sure if I like it, but I showed it to Jo & she said it was lovely. Which is all that matters really.

 Stitched the blocks together and added 2 small borders. I made up more blocks, some different ones this time.
I must say this quilt is not my colours at all, but it is slowly starting to grow on me.

 When I was working on the samples for the first step in my No Rules No Rulers class, I got a bit carryed away with the amount of blocks I made . They were lots of fun to make & I was finaly using my own hand dyed fabric. It just seem to grow & grow.    
                                          Doug, my very patient husband holding up my quilt.

 I had a pile of quilt tops ready to be quilted. They had growen so much it was scary, I just did'nt know were to start. In the end it got the better of me & I sent 3 off to my friend  Evol to quilt. She is a lovely lady, and not just because she did the quilts for me.
She's also great at giving me plant cuttings from her garden, I do love this and her of course.

These are a couple of close ups the quilts Evol quilted for me. Lovely work she's done with them. I really think that the circle patterned quilting goes well with the squares of the fabric.

Well I'm off to the quilt show in Brisbane tomorrow morning, very exciting. Bev and I are going for a few days to check out all the stunning quilts that are on display this year. I'm sure there'll also be a rather large dent in our purses after we hit the Stiches and Craft fair, can't wait!!

Works in process

                                                        This is the quilt I started in Toomoowba.
The Sue Ross, "Pickle Dish" workshop at Precious Times. I have all my blocks together & one border on, Second border will be wedges of the fabric used in the quilt .

All the blocks in this quilt have been made useing the "Marti Michell' templates. There

are so many blocks you can make with this template set. The fun is how to put them together.

This is a class I am working on for next year.

            Fabrics for the next project. Not all of those fabrics will be used. It is to be a pink, green, & brown quilt. Still looking for a few more pieces to add to this pile. Looking at the photo now I can  see that I will have to take out the green fabric with the pink  melons. Different colour range for me to be working with, but a friend asked for a quilt in those colours. Can't wait to see what I end up with.

Sewing, Gardenind & Family

                                             Toowoomba Flower Festival Parade

I really like the colours & movement in this photo.

Had the morning at the markets.
All the Ken Dolls were lined up so neat

waiting to be sold.

 

While in Toowoomba I stayed with my Anuty Mary & Uncle Allan, Mum was also staying plus cousin Jan was with us.We all love plants & gardens.

Mary is in the Geranium club, they had a big display & sale on over the weekend. Mum & I went along to help. I think the best help we done was to buy boxes full of Geraniums. I didnt know there were so many different kinds.( well I have a good variety now )

Went of to see the Champion Garden.It was stunning, absolutely beautifull.So many flowers,colour & the perfume. No words to describe it.You had lots to look at. They also had mosaics through out the garden. Another of my favourite things

Mum & Mary in the back ground. Dont you love the lines in this picture. The straigt & curved lines work so well together. Wonderful idea for a quilt.

Its off to Precious Times for a Sue Ross workshop. Sue is a wonderful lady We had a very busy few days.

Sue had lots of inspiration ideas to show us how to use the arcs we made.

To add little bits & pieces makes a big difference to your quilt.

Lisa & Majella spoilt us. They had Yummy food for morning tea , afternoon tea &  lunch.

Thank you girls it was great.

My quilt , still working on it. I am happy with the light blue background but not with the pink in the centre of the arcs.Will try a few new colours, thinking yellow.

Sues quilt

On the road home.Bev took a short cut. Did I say that I went to Toowoomba with Bev. She done 2 workshops at Precious Times while I was out & about looking at gardens. We both done Sues ''Pickle Dish'" workshop.

The short cut took us on a dirt road. It was a pretty drive ,how much shorter I dont know.Its still a long drive (about 9 hours)

Spring Flowers

The Trumpet tree is flowering Its just stunning. The flowers start out a rick cream, as it ages it changes to a lovely Apricot-Pink. It realy beautiful. Flowers about 3 or 4 times a year.

Sorry this one is on its side.Its late & I cant seem to work out how to fix it.

Show & Tell Afternoon

On Saturday  Bev & I put on a Show & Tell afternoon.

One of the hard things about closing the shop  is, we don't get to see every ones quilts. It was lovely to see what people had started or finished.

My house was open to any of our old customers for show & tell plus afternoon tea. It was great to see every ones work.




Ruth holding Bevs work

 

Jeans Roundroben Block of the month

Laurene's  hand work quilt



Pretty Maids in a Row



This is a quick post - I've got a few ladies coming for Afternoon Tea today and wanted to share these quilts before I forget!

Until earlier this year, I owned a patchwork shop with my friend Bev. We closed it at the end of March, and I made this quilt while we were still operating to try out the Dresden Plate templates we had for sale.  I was planning to make it into a class for the shop - may still happen yet.  Although I've been teaching patchwork and quilting classes locally for many years now, last year I completed my Teacher Accreditation with Queensland Quilters.  I particularly love teaching although it can at times be challenging to develop a class, sharing skills and ideas with others is certainly very rewarding and to be honest I get not just satisfaction myself but most classes I'm inspired by what the partcipants create or bring along to share.



Quilting Detail



I quilted it myself - I particularly love free motion quilting! _ I'm a much better quilter than blogger as I'm finding it #$%^^&* difficult to get these photos to go where I want them.  I'm giving up and will work with blogger. 

I have quite a few books and have been particularly inspired by the work of some wonderful artists and patchworks.  Particularly Nancy Crowe, Jean Wells, Gwen Marsden, Katie Pasquini and many others.  So this next quilt came about when I was given fabrics from the "Sugar Snap" range by Melissa Averinos for Free Spirit Fabrics and wanted to do something that showcased the lovely fabrics.  This is what I came up with, again quilted by myself because I wanted to play with my walking foot. Anyway enough for today - I've got tea to prepare.