Magazine Articles

 I've written a couple of articles for magazines lately and they were both published this month.

I wrote an article about the Waverley Art Quilter group that I run for the Victorian Quilter Magazine.

I wrote about the history of our group and how we began in 2007, mentioned some of the artists that we have studied and also talked about how we have been working in a series this year. I was thrilled when they published a 3-page article.

I also wrote an article for the New South Wales Quilting Guild. This time I wrote about how I have worked in a series this year. It was all about the Circle series that I have done, those that have read my blog will know all about it.

The glossy paper is hard to photograph well unfortunately. 

I am not in the habit of randomly writing articles for magazines, but with a shortage of articles due to the Covid 19 lockdowns, they were desperate for content. Luckily, I am used to writing for this blog so they didn't take long to write.

I have actually been asked to write another article for a different magazine and that is due next month. That is a magazine that people pay for and so I had better get on with writing it. Once I'm in the right frame of mind it doesn't take long but this one has to be longer than the previous two articles.

I posted off my Crazy quilted Christmas ornaments today, the group is thinking of having a Zoom meeting where we all open our presents!

Bye for now,

Linda

Crazy Quilted Christmas Decorations

 I have finally finished the crazy quilted decorations that I made for the Christmas swap. I have never made anything like this before, so I was making it up as I went along. Ho hum, at least I did it, I suppose.

Here they are when they were just halves, I have laced them over cardboard circles with some batting for padding. 

I didn't have the correct beads for the tassels and because the shops were all closed, I had to order on-line and wait for a couple of weeks for them to arrive.

I placed the halves together and slip stitched them closed. I tried to do a picot edging at first.

It was taking ages and my thread kept getting tangled into the beaded tassel. I suddenly realised that I wouldn't have enough beads to complete the edge.

Luckily, the shops had just been allowed to open, so off I went with my green beads and they didn't have that colour!!

I had to unpick the beading that I had done and start again, but it was so annoying and the beads looked a bit small and out of proportion and the larger beads I had looked too big. I did put a row of clear beads around the white one but in the end, I just added some braid around the edge of the others.

Here's side one all finished.

Here is the other side.

At least they are done and ready to post, I hope whoever gets them is not disappointed. 

That is the end of my Christmas decoration career!

I was pleased to receive a copy of the Oz Quilts Australia Wide 7 catalogue and find that my quilt was on the cover.

My quilt is the one on the top right. The exhibition is coming to Melbourne next year, so it will be good to see them all.

Bye for now,

Linda

Improv Piecing with Sheila Frampton Cooper

 I discovered earlier this year that I was enjoying Improv piecing which is a big switch for someone who has been concentrating on applique for about 20 years! I was really out of practice but it was exciting to have a new interest.

Just by chance, I read on Facebook that Sheila Frampton Cooper was running a 12 month improv class. I signed up because this was a way to learn the techniques without trying to reinvent the wheel.

We are in month 3 at the moment, Sheila posts a straight and curvy guide with video instruction every month where we learn different techniques. They are just a guide and we are supposed to design our own blocks incorporating the techniques.

We started sort of simply.

These are some of the curvy blocks that I have done so far.

They actually take a long time to make. Apart from sewing the curves, you have to make so many decisions about what and where to sew next.

I am doing my straight pieces in blues.

One of the really inspiring parts of the class is seeing other people's work. There is such a variety of colours and designs. Some people have done classes with Sheila before and so they are much more experienced and are doing wonderful work. 

One of the delights is having a Zoom catch up with the class where Sheila comments on our work and gives some more instruction and hints.

The Zoom catch up is often in the middle of the night for us in Australia but last week she varied the time so the Australians could watch live instead of watching the recording.

Anyway, it's not as easy as it might look and quite time consuming but so addictive and fun.

Some more good news is that we are out of Lockdown after 4 months. At first, we weren't allowed to travel more that 5k and then about a month ago they increased it to 25k. Last week they took the travel limit away and the shops have opened!!

You have no idea how exciting it was to see shops opened and they are so full of Christmas stock that it seems so happy. Masks are still compulsory though. I could finally see my granddaughter Savannah for her 6th birthday last Friday, I haven't seen her since July.

We have had zero new cases for 10 days now compared to the 700 odd cases last July, it is a fantastic result.

Bye for now,

Linda