All week I’ve been bursting to let you know that I’ve been invited to teach a series of contemporary quiltmaking workshops at Material Obssession in Sydney over the next few months. On the first Saturday of August, September and November, we will be covering the following program:

• Serendipity Circles
• Scrap Queen Odyssey
• Stacks of Improvisation

Spaces are limited so contact Kathy & the MO Girls to book your spot (Tel: 02 9817 2733). I hope you can come join the buzz.

I will be travelling to the United States for Christmas this year and will be based in San Francisco for the first two weeks or so of December. While the main priority will be to catch up with family and friends, I’ve been wondering about doing a day or two of teaching. So if you live in the Bay area (or even Sacramento) and you think your group or local quilt store might be interested in one of my workshops, please e-mail me the details (or leave a comment) and I’ll see what I can work out.

Download my Serendipity Patchwork & Quilting Workshops Brochure.

Excuse me while I take this to the post office:

Having carefully ironed and folded up all my fabrics from my dyeing session last week, I promptly pulled them out again and messed them up in various sets. Interesting things happen when you add and subtract black; add and subtract the golden yellows; pull out the cerise reds and mix in other reds. I’m no closer to making my next 12×12 quilt but I’ve had fun playing:

These yummy variagated perle threads may feature in my “Passion” quilt for the Twelve by Twelve Collaborative Art Quilt Project:

“Stephanie from Perth”* traversed the country to join her friends at the Sydney Quilt Show. At the Gala dinner she shared an array of Artist Trading Cards inspired by her trip to Broome. Even better, I got to take one home and here it is on my wall along with postcards, ATCs and ACEOs from inspiring exhibitions and artist friends including Lisa Call and my fellow Twelves Terri and Kristin:

 

I will be teaching at The Cottage Quiltworks at Bilgola on Friday 14 August and Friday 16 October. Chris and Jann welcome your input on selecting which of mySerendipity Workshops we’ll be doing. Maybe it will be my new workshops Strata Various or Stacks of Improvisation or maybe it will be something else.

Call Chris or Jann on (02) 9918 7550 to nominate your preferred workshop and to reserve your place!

Today a courier delivered my prize from the Art Quilt category of the Sydney Quilt Show - a veritable treasure chest of Madeira rayon and metallic threads. I am looking forward to some thread play.Thank you to Guild sponsor and craft and haberdashery supplier,SSS Pty Limited.

 

Ironing damp fabrics smooth and seeing patterns emerge is one of my favourites parts of the dyeing process:

I asked for recommendations both here on my blog and on my Facebook account. Both Rowenta & Black & Decker brands were popular choices but neither is available at the Australian stores I visited (although we have a B&D iron in the main house that we bought ages ago). I’ve veered away from the Tefal in the past because of its bulky profile but since none of my previous irons (top-end Sunbeams and low-end, department store homebrands) has performed particularly well I thought I would follow reader Judy’s recommendation. So far, apart from the smell (think new car smell on steroids), I am quite impressed - great heat, steamy steam and fine mist diffuser, and auto on-off without an annoying beerp. Thanks Judy!

And in answer to Sue’s question on my previous post, the fabric pieces that I scrunch into the plastic containers are approximately 24×36 inches and sometimes I squeeze in a smaller piece later in the batching to get a lighter colour. My base fabric this time is some 180cm wide white calico purchased from Lincraft. I think this might be a new line. Certainly I’ve not seen it before. Anyway, it’s not a high thread count and there are slubs here and there but it has dyed up beautifully and has a soft hand so I will be buying some more.

There were some messy moments in David’s workshop today as I dyed some fabrics for the next Twelve by Twelve challenge - passion. Ssshush, don’t tell him…what goes down in the workshop, stays in the workshop.