More Unplugged!

These photos are not much better but they will have to do for now. Besides, as David helpfully pointed out, I still have to do some “quilting do-dads” in the purple centre of the light turquoise block so more photos will be required later:

For those of you who are new to my blog, this quilt was started in my July workshop with Nancy Crow. The hatch quilting is done using the darning foot but still with the feed dogs up:

Because of the quilt’s irregular size and style, I opted for facing rather than binding and used a technique kindly sent to me by Kathy Loomis.

Worn Out

Much of today was spent putting together more Colour Rhapsody fabric sets. It appears that I have done so much ironing that I have worn a hole in my ironing board cover. Time to order a new one from Interface Australia who have quality products and an admirable community spirit as the employ rural men and women with disabilities.

I have also just finished facing “Unplugged”. Come back for better photos tomorrow:

Quilted Treasures

At last I have finished quilting Seaside Treasures (well apart from a few sections of the spade). You will see that I have combined free motion quilting and hand quilting with perle thread:

Paua Bag Finished

For those of you who admired my paua-inspired foundation piecing, here it it is made up into a tote bag. Side one:

And the other side:

Adhering to my resolution NOT to buy more fabric for these bags, I used some synthetic lilac fabric that was lurking in my stash (from my experimentation with fabric crayons that do not work on 100% cottons) for the lining. After sewing with cottons so long, working with the synthetic fabric was truly horrible. Never again.

On the subject of man-made fibres, Jacqueline’s collection of acrylic knitted tea cosies brought a smile to my face. The owl is especially quirky.

New Zealand Quilting Symposium

This week Alison Schwabe and I had an on and off- blog conversation about improvisational curved piecing. Although Alison lives in Uruguay, through her blog I feel like I know her. It helps too that I attended a slide presentation that she made at the Quilting Symposium in Christchurch, New Zealand 2003.

The symposium was very influential on on my quilting development. In addition to five consecutive days of workshops, I attended every lecture and exhibition that was available including inspirational talks by Alison, Rosalie Dace, Dottie Moore, Charlotte Yde and Judy Dales. There were also the obligatory trips to the marketplace. I still have these Melody Johnson classics:

I wasn’t familiar with Mrs Mel or her blog but I know better now! The next National Quilt Symposium will be in Palmerston North in early 2007. I won’t be able to make it but I’m sure everyone who attends will have a wonderful time.

Preparing for the Big Trip

OK, I’m back in blog land. My online tax return has been duly completed, triple-checked and dispatched and new personal/business accounting systems have been set up to streamline the process for future years. All part of the transition from my corporate lawyering life.

Next week I am off to Canberra to give a presentation to Canberra Quilters and to do some teaching. Whereas previous trips to the national capital have been dominated by business meetings with lawyers, lobbyists and bureaucrats, this time my focus will be on galleries and quilt shops. I am looking forward to checking out The Crafted Object exhibition at the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery generally.

Of course, first of all I have to get to Canberra. I’ll be undertaking the 4+ hour drive by myself which means I get to choose the driving music. While Shelina chose loud Japanese music for her road trip to Fort Collins Colorado, I favour 80s pub rock. Just have to remember to keep my eye on the speedo…

But before I even get into the car, I have to make sure that I have all my quilts, my speaking notes and my teaching materials. A great deal of advance preparation is required for teaching. I can understand how this is offputting for some people but so far I am enjoying all aspects of teaching. If you are considering teaching, then you may be interested in Robin’s recent musings - To Teach or Not to Teach - that is the question.

Designing with Electric Quilt

Despite my best intentions, I didn’t get far with finalising my tax return yesterday. Instead, I got distracted with miscellaneous guild business and resizing quilt images in Photoshop so that they have 300 dpi resolution suitable for publication in the next issue of the guild magazine, The Template. I enjoy getting to grips with technology but some applications are so powerful I know I am only scratching the surface. It is instructive to be confronted with a specific task that requires you to learn more about particular aspect of a product. Reading manuals is all very well but there is no substitute for hands-on practice.

I have pre-ordered the upgrade to Electric Quilt 6 and look forward to familiarising myself with its new features and functionality. Although I don’t use EQ5 for every quilt I make, I do find it is a useful planning tool particularly when I am making a quilt for someone else and want to convey in advance what is whirling around in my mind. For example, when I sent out “confetti” circles for people to sign for my sister Amy’s wedding quilt, I included this concept design for their information:

Having a concept design did not preclude the serendipity factor coming into play. Here is the resulting Confetti Wedding Quilt, the border being inspired by a text message sent by my brother who could not attend the wedding:

Similarly, when I decided to make an green and purple quilt for a new baby in the family, I started out with this concept design:

Along the way, I decided to go for a more scrappy look and Apple & Lilac came into being:

Back to playing with my receipts and dockets…

Another Groovy Bag

This will be another lite post as I finalise my tax return. Not that it’s difficult but I am trying to be scrupulous about distinguishing between my personal and business expenses - it’s moments like these that I regret the shopping that accompanies my quilting habit, one receipt seems to look like any other.

In the meantime, check out this groovy bag and other bag designs from Envirosax:

Better than your average “green” bag.

Stack, Slash, Sew & Turn

As I plod along with some boring but necessary bookkeeping (I must also do my tax return), I thought I would share this sequence of photos for the samples that I made for my demonstration at the guild meeting last Saturday.

• Make a stack of four fabric squares (mine were 15 1/2″) right side up and make 6 freeform cuts.
• Swap the cut strips around to make a pleasing arrangement.
• Sew to make four new fabric squares

• Stack the new fabric squares on top of each other
• Make six cuts through all layers
• Peel off strips to make a pleasing arrangement

• Sew seams to make four new fragmented fabric squares.
• Play with possibilities and don’t go cross-eyed

Ever feel like screaming?

The winners of the Guild’s Going to Pieces challenge both captured that “aaarrgghh” moment.
This is a detail shot of “Going to Pieces” by Tanya Coxsedge:

And this is “Screaming to Pieces” by Helen Godden:

Check out the guild’s website for a gallery of all 41 challenge entries. The quilts each measure 50cm x 70cm or 70cm x 50cm.