exhibition just a week away!

in exactly a week, we will be attending our exhibition opening
My sewing room  looks like a bomb hit it, there is fabric everywhere, my husband is making quilt hangers and Megg has been  running around town putting up posters.
The local paper is taking photos of us and our work tomorrow.
A very exciting time...

Sun bonnet sue is in the quilting frame, a lovely 1930s quilt top that I am working on

There is also a stitch and flip table runner which I  will be teaching in classes, and  20 hand pieced blocks which I  have joined into a quilt, backed and quilted.

Not long now...

Fibre and Fabric exhibition, Murwillumbah Nsw Australia

A group of 4 of us, fibre artists, are exhibiting in Murwillumbah fromOctober 10th to 21st.
The  exhibition, "Touched and Felt"showcases  quilts, beanies, capes and other textile works of   four  creative women.
There will be a variety of classes in small quilting projects, crocheting and needle felting.
See our Facebook page for our "Virtual Show"
www.tinyurl.com/TouchedandFelt
Location - old Salvation Army Hall , Queen St, Murwillumbah
Opening Hours  9 am to 5 pm daily
Exhibition opening night Thursday October 10th 6-8 pm.All Welcome.

This is  a detail of one of the vintage quilts I will be displaying at the exhibition.
These old quilt tops, put away and forgotten, have been restored and completed by adding backing and wadding, and creatively quilted.
They provide a fascinating history of fabrics and techniques of quilting from the late 1800s to the 1950s.

An inspiring week...

This is  a foundation pieced small quilt I did  some time ago. Easy technique, very eye catching in the black and multi colour.

The  most exciting quilting thing that happened this week was that my friend Louise bought one of my quilts at a charity auction, and  wants me to enlarge it  from double to queen size by adding a border . It was very encouraging that someone liked my quilt enough to actually pay MONEY for it.

Also went to the Craft and Sewing Show in Brisbane on the weekend. Most impressive were the "Under the southern Sky" quilts,banner shaped quilts  depicting many aspectts of Australia and New Zealand.  Another interesting thing  at the Show were talks by the woman from the Punch with Judy  stand about "upcycling" or re shaping or embellishing plain T shirts and sweatshirts to make  new clothing. That is exactly what I am interested in at the moment.

Off the sickbed and back into the routine

Hello, back again after illness and a short stay in hospital. Nothing serious, all better now.

this is just a doodle where I started in the centre and just kept adding. I have noticed a theme  in my doodles  of repeated shapes connected by bars.

This photo below is the portrait I have been working on.  It looks quite strong and compelling in a photo.  I have overlaid some beige satin on the highlights of his face, ready for some free motion machine stitching.

My journal has lapsed a bit also. It's so easy to get out of the routine. But I am making the effort and trying to do the daily drawing again.

fabric journal cover

This is a fabric journal cover that  I made, using leaf themed fabric and appliqued leaves drawn from real Australian gum leaves. Inside the covers the fabric forms a pocket to hold the covers, and the top and bottom edge are bound in satin stitch .

self portrait, quilt design

this is  the week's  offering,  a basic quilt design inspired by a necklace.  I liked  playing around with the necklace to find the most pleasing design. The necklace had beads of a consistent size but I think the variation in size is more pleasing. This one definitely needs a bit more work.

this is a self portrait in pen  and watercolour pencil, done with a magnifying mirror. Bear in mind that this was first thing in the morning, and I am not a  morning person!

Miniature quilt nearly complete

My miniature quilt is nearly complete. I have added sashing and corner posts to the 12 foundation pieced blocks. It was  all very tedious and I think it will be my only miniature quilt. What was particularly hard was accuracy on the sashing. In retrospect this  should have been foundation pieced also as any tiny  error really shows up. Next step  is the quilting. I was going to hand quilt this in the ditch, but hand quilting is very difficult when there are so many seams and thicknesses. I did a few stitches then gave up,  so this will be a machine quilting job. It is destined to become a table runner. Miniatures are very cute but definitely for the obsessives among us. Having said that, it was good to do once!

I came across a great quote today, in a decluttering  and organisation website-

(with apologies to 'Me and Bobby McGee')

Freedom's just  another word for

Nothing left to do.