My Sewing Room



The shallower of the bird baths



 My sewing room/studio is 4.2m by 5.2m long with cupboards along the 4.2 m end wall. It is a tight space to fit all of my sewing things within the room and I keep eyeing off my family room as a possibility for extension. I enjoy standing at my longarm and looking out the window into my Frangipani garden at the bird baths. I regularly have Blue Wrens, Willie Wag tails, honey eaters, doves and the double barred finches are back for this year.

 

The view from ny sewing machine towards my windows.

Rotated view from my machine looking towards my kitchen

Looking straight ahead from my machine.

Glacier Star

I was very fortunate to spend last week in Melbourne in a class with Judy Niemeyer of Quiltworx.  She was teaching her Glacier Star quilt, which is one of her patterns that is only available through Certified Quilt Shops that have undertaken training with her.  We spent four days some of them working up to 15 hours, there was nothing else to do in the motel,  with a few more hours over the weekend.  I can now show the finished centre part of the  Glacier Star.  The NYB blocks in the corners are only pinned on as the Circling Geese which I have still to piece, need to be attached to them before they are pieced into the quilt.  So far I have about 55 hours of piecing in it.  Someone mentioned the geese take about another 24 hours!!!!!!



Simple Things

Sometimes it is the simplest things in life that can give a lot of pleasure.
We drove about 2700 kilometres last week to visit family for a niece's wedding.
Stopped with my daughter on the way south, borrowed the grandson and drove further south to stay overnight with my son.
To see my son and husband chasing each other around the house with Nerf guns, priceless. My son and grandson playing with water pistols.......fantastic.
The wedding and catching up with my husband's family, while still spending more time with my grandson before the long drive home...... that could be a holiday.

For the last two years as I have driven through the Pilliga Scrub, at this time of the year I was sure I could see flannel flowers growing.  So on this trip on the way down I studied just where they grew.  Mentioned something to my husband on the way home and he pulled up.  So I scrambled up the sandstone embankment to take some photos.

Later on we saw them closer to the road on the flat and at one stage you could see them growing further into the bush.

This is the first time I have been up close and personal to a flannel flower and to me that is priceless. This one lone beauty is still looking healthy and it wasn't taken from a state forest!

APQS machines in Houston

 

Quilters know that Houston have the biggest quilting show. I think it is great that the APQS machines are well presented in their booth.  These demonstration machines from the show circuit were offered for sale at really good prices.  Used at the show, taken back to the showroom and serviced again before being shipped to their owners.  Lenni, Lucey, Freedom, George and a Millenium with Quilt Path, the new comuterised quilting system.  Millenium and Freedom are both the same machine.  The Freedom does not have the automatic thread cutter so is a few pounds lighter. 

George lets you sit down, at the height suitable to you, as his table is fully height adjustable.  Many art quilters use him for their intricate award winning work.  You can alos purchase another height adjustable table to put behind him or to raise and use as your cutting table.      I am biased but I love my machine.. and it is great to see pictures of them displayed at Quilt Shows, with other people also enjoying them.

Hexie Quilt Finished

It was on my frame for 12 days but I was at the Queensland Quilt show for 6 of those days, but it is now finished.  10 bobbins used so almost 2000m of thread.  Each of the hexagons were SID, most of the inside pieces were also SID but I did give some of them wavy lines or outlined patterns within the fabric.

Now onto the next quilt a signature quilt in rows with a lovely stained glass applique rose in the centre.  I 'll look at it for a while.  I have some housekeeping to catch up on.

A modern Hexie Quilt

This hexie quilt has more than 300 pieced hexagons through out it.  I am up to my fourth set of pins to pin each hexie as I quilt the background first.  I am using  Glide Cleopatra thread, love the sheen on the batik fabric.  Quilting a feathered meander across the top, but only on the background fabric.  It looks like it is continuous but once I come to a print hexie I stop the feathers.  One meander goes left to right, the next one goes right to left.  I chalked where the spine would be before I started and once it was on the frame  found I needed to chalk the boundaries of  the feathers so I didn't get carried away with the bubble fill I am using behind the feathers.  Am almost finished the background then I will start on the actual hexagons.  Still toying with ideas on them.  Possibly will do the same pattern in every diamond no matter what size, different pattern for trapezium etc to fill them up.  Hexagons have 2 1/2" sides.  and I only found 2 papers in the whole quilt!

Judging a Quilt Show

I am a quilt collector for this years Queensland Quilt Show.  So this morning at 6.30 am I set off with thirty quilts from my local area in my car.  Once at our Meeting venue nearly 300 quilts were unloaded from the respective cars by the other quilt collectors.  Sorted into their categories, and the fun began.  Fun ... exhaustion.... we did stop for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, but were constantly on the go for the rest of the day.
Putting large quilts into small bags after the judges have finished with them is not an easy feat.  Not is putting tiny quilts into bagsmany sizes too large for them.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and now know what goes on behind the scenes of a quilt show..

A LOT OF HARD WORK FROM SOME VERY DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS!!!!!

After 11  & 1/2 hours I was eventually back at my home ready for a nice cold drink.
Now to do the same road trip next week when we hang all the quilts!
There are some great quilts so if you are in Brisbane from next Wednesday make sure you head to the quilt show.