Quilting in the Highlands 2014

I have been asked to teach at the Berrima Patchwork, Quilting in the Highlands retreat in 2014. I know that everyone had a wonderful time at this year's retreat and everyone who went is eager to go again next year.

Imagine four days of sewing, mingling with other quilters and fine food, all in the beautiful historic town of Berrima! Berrima is in the Southern Highlands of NSW between Canberra and Sydney.

I am going to teach hand embroidered crazy patchwork with a block from my Crazy about Australia quilt for the first two days.

Crazy about Australia by Linda Steele

For the other two days I will teach my quilt Tulip Dance. In this class we will be learning free machine thread painting using wash away stabilisers and machine applique. It's a fun class and I find that people who have learnt thread painting by machine gain a lot more control and their machine quilting really improves.

Tulip Dance detail
 

The butterfly and the Praying Mantis that you can see on the photo above are sewn with an ordinary domestic sewing machine using a straight stitch. You do not need a fancy embroidery machine to make the motifs.

Tulip Dance

There are six other wonderful tutors at the Quilting in the Highlands retreat.
Ruth Bloomfield
Julie Haddrick
Sandra Leichner
Marti Michell
Yvette Stanton
Mariya Waters

 You don't have to do all four days; you are able to just enrol in a two day class. The dates for the retreat are Saturday 26th July to Tuesday 29th July 2014.

All the details are on the Berrima Patchwork, Quilting in the Highlands website.

I hope to see you there.

Bye for now,
Linda

New Fabric storage

I have found some new plastic containers for holding some fabric. I happened to be in the Reject shop when they caught my eye. I keep all my fabric in plastic drawers labelled by colour but sometimes I keep some fabric in range order as well. I have some silk containers and hand dyed containers, batik containers, floral fabric containers and Christmas fabric containers.

These new containers seemed just the right size for fat quarters or half yard pieces. They are quite deep as well so they fit right into the back of the cupboard.

Front View

They stack on top of each other and they are quite light weight and easy to manage. They have plastic dividers in them and this is what they look light from the top.

Top View

They are a good size too, 14.5" (37cm) wide, 22" (56cm) long and 5" (13cm) deep. Here is a side view.

Side view

These containers are holding my latest favourite fabric, Stonehenge by Northcott. They are perfect for landscape style quilts and that is what I am planning on trying next year.

Stonehenge Fabrics

They have a bit more detail and life than the normal tone on tone style fabrics and are perfect for trees, hill, rocks and flowers.

How do you store your fabric?

Bye for now,
Linda

Final Charm

The final charm package arrived the other day. I started getting them 12 months ago and they have been arriving every two months since then. They have been sent by the Quilted Crow Girls and I have really enjoyed getting them.

The last block to be done is a square in a square, so that shouldn't be very hard to do. The one before had been more time consuming and I was thinking that they might be getting more difficult as they went along.

It was a larger package than usual because it also contained the pattern and fabric to make the blocks into a small quilt to match the bracelet.

I usually make up the blocks soon after I get them but I am very time starved at the moment. My oldest daughter is getting married next month and our life is consumed by dress fittings, guest lists, bridal showers and high teas. It's hectic and busy but really enjoyable as well.

This block will have to wait until I get some spare time, possibly not until the New Year!

Here is the final charm.

Bye for now,
Linda

Cover Quilt

My quilt Holiday Waltz is on the cover of the latest Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

I was at the newsagent yesterday innocently looking at the latest magazines as I do from time to time when I decided to buy one. As I was turning away the magazine with my quilt on it caught my eye. I didn't notice it before and when I come to think about it, the magazine that I was buying might have been in front of it.

APQ Vol 23 no 2

It's APQ's Showcase edition where they show photos of quilts that have been in shows and they tell the story of the techniques and ideas behind the design of the quilts.

It was a big thrill for me and certainly put a smile on my face because I was having a fairly ordinary day before that. I was so excited that I actually told the lady behind the counter that it was my quilt. She said that she had been discussing the magazine with another lady at the shop and they were trying to work out how I had done the trapunto on the outside cream triangles. They ended up deciding that I must have bought the fabric with that already on it!! I then tried to explain how I did it and she was very impressed.

There is a two page article inside about the quilt.

 

 

I was interviewed for the article a couple of months ago now and they didn't tell me when the magazine would be out and they certainly didn't tell me it made the front cover. They usually like to keep it a surprise though. I was surprised!!

Bye for now,
Linda