Back home

I have been tripping around the past week. Last week I went to Sydney and then on the weekend up to Toowomba to "Precious Time" teaching.
The girls were working on a variety of things, but a large group were commencing my BOM quilt"Stonefields"
I am nearing the end of it, a few blocks left to applique,two borders of the flying geese to make and a few more hexagons to make. All going well it should be ready to send off to Ireland at the end of February as planned.
I am borrowing a few photos from Lisa's blog at Precious Time

Lisa had a brand new design wall, so we christened it with the Stonefields blocks

Trish brought along her Ann Daggs. I had quilt envy as I have a few days of applique to finish mine. This was a quilt I did as a BOM several years ago.

I arrived home with finishitis so decided I will finish my "Little Sparrow" quilt for summer school. I have just a few pieces left to applique so I am planning on having it appliqued and quilted by January for our show and tell.

Meanwhile I am making my two quilts for summer school.
After a year of nothing but quilting, I am looking forward to a year when I can do a bit of knitting and crochet again next year. There are some beautiful knitting patterns around for children so the little girls I knit for, Mabel,Clemence, Imogen and Audrey might all have something special next year.

a year's work

I have been a busy sewer this year. I have had so many trips away, more trips to Sydney and Melbourne than I wish to count, and I knew time would be short with lots of work to be done. I made the decision when I accepted the commission to make a quilt for a movie, that I would have a year of no knitting, crocheting or lace making, but just concentrate on my sewing.
So my "Stonefields" quilt is nearing completion, one of my summer school quilts is currently in Sydney  being photographed for "Homespun" magazine and I will be starting my other two quilts this week.

I have deviated from my"work" quilt to make two other quilts for my daughter. One for her for her bed when she is working at the hospital in the country and one for her friend's new baby.
I was in Toowoomba a few weeks ago teaching and did a little bit of shopping with the intention of making my daughter a happy quilt. so came home and got right into it.

my daughter's quilt

a quilt for a new baby girl

a border of Stonefields ready to applique

and a little bit of my linen quilt 

now back to sewing

Sweet William

The year is skipping by very quickly. I hope somewhere I find an extra month or so.
I am playing catch up today, Mother's day. I spent Friday afternoon with my darling daughter, my mother is visiting next week, so today is a quiet day on our homefront.

First job to do today was to get my new quilt online. I have had the patterns here for months, so with that job done, here is the link  to Sweet William to purchase patterns

I loved making this quilt, and it is leaving my home tomorrow to go to Toowoomba, where I will be teaching it in August.

My other quilt I am very busy working on, is my quilt Stonefields, my Block of the Month quilt. Its growing and I hope to have the centre all cut out and the hand pieced blocks done, by the end of this month. Then just a bit of applique ( well actually a lot of applique) and the centre will be done

Two weekends ago we had a sewing weekend in Wodonga, and this is where I am up to with Stonefields. The battery was almost dead on my camera, so no flash was working, but for those of you busily making this quilt, its something! It is a lovely project for me to work on, so I am very happy everyone sewing it, is enjoying it too. I have about 40 of the 121 centre blocks to make.

our next quilting weekend in Wodonga, will be the first weekend in October, so by then I should be finished the centre and almost have the borders completed (I hope)

I have decided to have my summer school back in Wodonga next year. It will be early as we need to use the school when there are no trades people working, from Saturday January 4th to Wednesday January 8th, with gorgeous new quilts and sit and sew.  

last but not least, over past years many people who share my love for little dachshund dogs, have asked for the pattern of my sausage dog quilt. Finally I agreed to publish it and this month it is inside and on the front cover of Homespun magazine. It has been presented really nicely in the new revamped Homespun. So a special thankyou to Homespun.

wrapping up last year

December came about very quickly. During the year we had a challenge with our sewing group. We had brought in fabric from our stash, anything, any size. Christine and I sorted it out and put it into unmarked paper bags. We were allowed to use 2m of one fabric to complete a quilt.
The results were pretty fantastic.

Lucy made this quilt with a jelly roll she had bought ages ago

Julieann's "pies and tarts" was gorgeous

Beth made this from her bag of stash fabric. This is the quilt that impressed me the most!So much work!

and I hope it is correct in saying this was Bridgette's quilt- not quite certain how Bridgette found a minute or two to sew this. The back looked just as nice as the front.

this is just the beginning of our December show and tell. It went on all day! More to come

and then came June

In June, I was contacted by the art director of a movie to be filmed in New Zealand and Ireland re buying or hiring some of my quilts and perhaps making a new one. When up in Sydney, I met with a representative and discussed options. The project sounded exciting, but lots of work.
Having done work for movies before, I insisted on having direct contact with the art director, so this has been happening for the past six months. Hundreds of emails have been flying back and forth of photographs of beautiful old quilts, photographs of the beautiful old home in Ireland, and we have decided what quilts of mine will be used, and what I have to make.

My quilt is called "Stonefields" and I started a month ago and I am loving working on it. It is to be a big quilt 96" square.

Meanwhile I have made a new quilt "Sweet William" which is an adaptation of a quilt that appears in the book "A Treasury of American Quilts". The original quilt is in pink, and a few extra baskets to mine.

I will release the pattern of this quilt in the next few weeks, I just need to catch up on a bit of work first.

our daughter has finally finished medical school, so this was a big occasion ( she has been at university forever) and the graduation was in early December. She is now working as an intern on her first rotation  in accident and emergency and loving it.

going back to April

It has been so long since I wrote on the blog, I had to search where to write, it has all changed.
I sort of had a bit of a year off from quilting last year.
I did no sewing until August when I had to force myself out of rest and recreation, away from the knitting needles, and sew a quilt for summer school in the Blue Mountains.
I fell in love with sewing again, so this year will be the year of the quilt and as I have lots of projects in mind, I promise myself to keep the blog up to date.

I thought I would head back to April and play catch up.
April we went to London and then to France, and visited our former housemate Jean-Baptiste.

My favourite place to shop in Paris, right across the road from the apartment where we stayed

a rare moment of sunshine in paris

The quilt show at Nante, such a gorgeous city

and beautiful Toulouse

The trip was wonderful, the weather dreadful but I managed to fit in lots of shopping, and fill my head with things I would like to see again, to make and explore a little further.

What I did do for winter was knit! Lots of knitting for new beautiful baby Mabel, a friend's grand daughter born on Bastille day, and a few things for myself
 I was lucky enough to know this special baby was a little girl and had a lovely time shopping for her in France.

I am going to play catch up all week!