an era ends

It is so long since I have posted but life has been a bit more than hectic, with getting ready for summer school and I have been ill which has lead Christine and I to make the decision we are going to close the shop at the end of March. It has been sad telling everyone as they have arrived for summer school but Christine has wanted to retire and be free to visit her family a little more often, and at the moment I need to retire to deal with my health. But as we have told everyone, I will still do some teaching, I will still continue to make new quilts and I will still sell patterns and there will be hopefully some more time for blogging! Christine tells me she will be my "roadie" so we hope we can still get to see so many of the dear friends we have made in the shop over the past 11+ years.

Summer school is underway at the moment, Karen Cunningham arrived last night with some gorgeous quilts, old and new and the show and tell from the girls was wow! I hope to get some photos from one of the keen photographers, so maybe some show and tell on line in the next few days.

I have been teaching classes with my clamshell quilt, Swan Lake, Bird on a Wire and my new quilt "Little Sparrow". I managed to get it joined in the nick of time, all bar two sides of the sawtooth border.  I love it so I am looking forward to a few weeks of applique to complete it.

clamshells and slugs

How am I going with all the quilts I have to get done? So far so good, I am calm at this stage.
 Christine's sister in New Zealand is helping me out with Duck Hill Farm and the Browne Sister's ( they are the two I am panicking about!) and the summer school quilts bar 1 are almost done.
Last night I finished quilting the clamshell quilt. I wasnt going to quilt it, but rather leave it as a coverlet but then in the end decided to put some quilting on it. I am pleased with the result, so tonight I will bind it.
I also have only about three evenings of applique left to do on the "Bird on a Wire" and that is done, and on the weekend I will back my "Swan Lake"  quilt and bind it. It has to go to Melbourne by the end of next week to travel across to San Francisco for an exhibition. Deadlines make you do things. Then its onto the "Little Sparrow" as I have sooo much work left on that one, but I am looking forward it.

Yesterday Christine and I had a gorgeous and inspirational outing to one of our local primary schools, Wodonga West primary school, to see a quilt display in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden. The garden was the real star of the show. It was absolutely fantastic. We grow all our own vegetables at home but this was the garden I would love, so it had me thinking all the way around the garden. The children were so happy working away, learning life skills, running slugs down to the chook yard for a happy hen's lunch, digging away in the compost. What very lucky children to have such a wonderful thing at their school, and then there was the kitchen!

My favorite quilt was made by Jan from our shop( Jan's grandsons attend the school).It captured the happy feeling in the garden.

Happy stitching, Susan 

a little civil war quilt

I have eleven quilts I have to have completed by March. ( some just to gluing stage thank goodness),
so it was with great relief I completely finished the first one this week and popped it into a bag to Sydney to Quilter's Companion.

 Next year, as it is the 150th anniversary of the commencement of the Civil War, Quilter's Companion magazine are doing a feature and this little quilt will be one of their projects.
I remember about thirteen or fourteen years ago when I made the first Civil War quilt how I excited I was with the new fabrics released by Judie Rothermel. Now there have been more collections than I could remember, so finding fabrics to make this quilt was not difficult. Watch out for the pattern in the magazine next year.
Friday morning is a great delivery day at the shop. A few gorgeous fabrics came into the shop this morning. I loved these three- the brown with blue and pink flowers, the red and pink serpentine and the pretty pale pink. I needed all of them!

Now back to my clamshell quilt. I am hoping to complete it this coming week along with the summer school quilt.
Happy sewing, Susan x

nothing to do with sewing but....

Christine has been in Dubai the past two weeks, visiting her daughter and granddaughter. She had a wonderful time, loved seeing their life and where they live. Today was first day back to the grindstone.
I have been busy sewing a baby civil war quilt due to Quilters Companion magazine by the end of the week, and working away on my clamshell quilt. They are both almost done.

And in between I have been trying to get rid of mess around the house. I was very pleased to get rid of three more bags to Vinnies this morning. I have been telling Christine it still looks no better, but she is like a training partner, giving me encouragement. She told me today eventually it will be done, so I hope so! I have found a few treasures so that is always encouraging.

Yesterday morning my husband and I went to a gorgeous place in Wodonga, Sumsion Gardens, where Michael goes for a walk each lunchtime. He has been watching a pair of swans nesting for weeks and on Friday saw their new babies for the first time. So armed with my camera I found the darling family on the lake and just had to take some photos.

the lakes are also full of long necked turtles and yesterday they were sunning themselves on logs while the swans were playing in the water. The little cygnets were swimming between their parents and when they tired they would hop up on the mother's back and nestle between her feathers. It was beautiful to watch.

happy sewing. Susan

after the storm

The past few weeks have been chaos. I have been trying to get as much done of the summer school quilts as I could ready for the mailout and then the mailout happens. The phone runs hot, as does the email, and its easy to forget about everything else.
Our house has fabric scraps and template scraps all over our family room, Christine ate lunch about 3.00pm, and then I discovered there had been a delivery today of a box of gorgeous things.......

Boxes by Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler each filled with 9 reels of beautiful threads, and some gorgeous new Liberty art fabrics.

I wish they had arrived before I finished cutting out my Bird on a Wire

I am off to Melbourne tomorrow for a quiet weekend, to go to the ballet "The Nutcracker" and for a doctor's appointment, breakfast with my daughter on Sunday and maybe a bit of shopping on Sunday afternoon, home Tuesday.
No phone and no email. Bliss!
Susan x

... and a second peek

Just a quick post to put a photo up of "Bird on a Wire". I love it , it is just so whimsical. This is the second little quilt for summer school. The pattern will be available from next week.
the quilt is a reproduction of the centre of an English quilt.

sneak peek at summer school

It is September and this week we are posting our summer school details and enrollment ( probably Thursday). Karen Cunningham sent everything to me the last week of August but I still had nothing much to photograph as I have been busy handpiecing some little darlings for the centre of my new quilt "Little Sparrow". So the past week I have buried myself in fabric and paper and have been cutting out and gluing.
I have decided to call a stop to the cutting out of this quilt today ( I keep making mistakes!) and took a photos as I think it is becoming obvious as to what the quilt will be like.
Christine is off to Dubai in less than two weeks to visit her daughter so we need to have things sorted out beforehand.

I still have the four corner blocks to go, all the little birds, the butterflies and the rabbits, plus other detailing. ....and some more of the little darlings in the centre and a sawtooth border, but its only mid September.

Happy sewing, Susan