Tutoring

I held out on you after Scrub Stitching in April as there was a project I worked on that I haven't yet shared. This was the last photo I took while there before we packed up and headed home - 

It was a sample for a 'Mystery Midnight Madness' class to be held at The Country Yard....

We held the class a couple of weeks ago with 5 focussed ladies - 

Taking shape - 

Towards the end of the night, I revealed what they were making, here is my quilt - 

It was a fun and straight forward pattern to sew and within a week (I think) we had these. Liz -

Maureen (quilted and bound) - 

Judy-

Bernice - 

The pattern was 'Puzzled Nine Patch' by Franklin Quilt Company.

During the school holidays I arranged a sewing morning with the three younger grandie girls. Sadly one was unwell and couldn't come.

I set up two older machines and pre cut some light denim fabric - 

I pinned for the girls and they did all the rest - 

Interesting to watch them both work. One was pretty quick but her seams veered off wildly. The other was slower but more accurate.

No unpicking allowed/necessary. French seams within.

And what did they make? Simple bags -

While Saydee was busy showing hers off, Kaliah was talking about decorating hers. I was imagining all sorts of applique - but she was happy with marker pens! - 

The girls had brought a pile of books with them so they were able to put them in their bags straight away -

I walked them home. They requested the long route, winding our way along the farm races (tracks). Kaliah squeezed in a bit of reading while she walked (!!!) - 

They are really enjoying reading at the moment - long may it continue!

Photo op with their new bags - 

Loads of fun and happiness for Ganma ❤,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Friday Night Sew In deferred!

It's been a while since I have attended a class so I was excited this week to be able to do so. Ngaire Brooks, a NZ designer, was at my favourite quilt shop with Day One of a class to make a cute little thread holder pouch. The pouch is mostly of wool felt and flannels so it was good to learn some of her techniques for working with these materials. Something I haven't done a lot of before.

A busy group with bits everywhere!

I got to about this stage —

Below is what I'll be making...it is very clever inside, I'll show you more as I work on it!

(As an aside - I was one of those annoying participants who arrived late - the reason? 

This poor girl needed help calving; it was nice to see mother and son 'back to normal' by the time I arrived home after lunch.)

Anyway, once I got home I put it down and didn't touch it again....so when Friday Night Sew In rolled around I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the evening. Especially as we have homework that needs doing for the second class in (under) two weeks time!

I settled down on Friday night to sort though my wool felt and make some more hexagons. However we had an evening of thunder and lightening and instead I spent the whole night comforting a small dog. He was snuggled on my lap quivering and shaking....poor little guy.

So I made my Saturday night a Friday Night Sew In instead  - no thunder, no lightening and I made some good progress —

The rest of the wool felt hexies basted and ready to whip stitch together.

Thank you Wendy for hosting us!!

Apart from this, there's not been a lot of stitching happening here lately but I am making headway on the latest block for the A Holly Cottage Christmas SAL.

I"m enjoying these blocks, they're fun to stitch :-)

Hungry calves are calling!

Must away :-)

Happy stitches,

Catch up time!!

Gosh, has it really been three weeks?!! It's been tails up and heads down in my little corner of the world, and I didn't realise I'd been blogfree for such a long time!
So what has been happening?

Some rather major and exciting Christmas in July sewing happened...my parcel is winging its way to (somewhere and someone in) Australia and I've been camping at the mailbox waiting for my own parcel to arrive :-)

I've also taught two classes recently, which I've really enjoyed. The first one was a Caddy class - this was a two day (over two weekends) class; the ladies did well, several of them finishing their caddies the day after the class.

The second class was a feathered star - this is Bernice's finished block, a couple of the other ladies just need a hand to do the last little bit of assembly and then they'll have completed ones too.

Below are the two cushions I made earlier this year as samples... 

I made the block nice and big so it was more achieveable and wasn't as fiddly, so they've made nice big sized cushions...

...and I started this one for demonstration purposes for the class...hmmm...wonder how long it will take me to get back to this one - (sigh) - I do think I will build mine some more and let it become a quilt.

 Lately I have been putting my Friday's Village quilt together (aka Moda's Be My Neighbour SAL). We have doing this quilt as a sewalong at The Country Yard and it's been a fun project. Last post I bravely stated that I had chosen a grey sashing fabric and I'd sewn it on before I changed my mind.....famous last words...!! The grey sashing was removed.... then I put on a grey (first) border....then removed the grey border...

Here's version 1.2 with a grey border.
I had planned on more borders after this one but wasn't happy with the
start I'd made.

...finally though I have a version I am happy with!

Lots of borders...cream border...colour border...cream border...grey border

...and you can see how big this has grown...it's hanging from the balcony and nearly touching the ground! Quilting time coming up :-)

I'm linking up with Julie and Linda for Sew, Stitch, Snap and Share..feel free to visit their blogs to see what others have been up to.

It's nearly the end of the school holidays and once again we have had the two elder grandies staying with us. The two weeks have flown past really quickly. The girls are delighted that we have started calving and have been busy naming the calves and spending time playing with them.

And helping out too!

Me, well, I'm not quite as delighted to all of a sudden have lots of extra mouths to feed! Downtime over winter has come to an abrupt end. Officially for us this is now Springtime but looking out the window, it doesn't seem that way! Apparently there is another bad weather system heading our way...Northland has been pretty mild lately and I'm really hoping it will stay that way!

Here's hoping it's not quite so long until I post again - I really did miss all the interaction ♥

Until then,

Happy Stitches,

Weekend Wanderings and Palace Pottering

[A mouthful of a title but oh well :-)]

I got a chance to do a bit of pottering in The Palace (as the MOML calls it) last week —
One more block for my Snowflake Land project —

(from Quiltmania#80)

I love these chaps and always get a thrill when I finish one!

And a yellow Honeypot Star —

It took some effort to find enough yellow scraps but I guess that's a good thing!

Six made now, three to go.

A friend of ours' had a special birthday recently so, being quilters, we made her a quilt...she loves brights and gollies ... here is the block I made —

(without his eyes of course)

and here is the finished quilt.....Leeanne of qultmekiwi beautifully quilted it - she shows more detail in her blogpost *here* —

And my weekend wanderings took me down south for a couple of nights - Kerryn from The Country Yard and I visited with The Village Green Quilters where I led a 2-day class making a caddy.

The ladies were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the class. What's more they were focussed too and nearly all of them finished their caddy by Sunday afternoon :-)

This one was finished (soon) after the class  and the photo sent through to me :-)

Thank you ladies for an enjoyable weekend!
Since the weekend the class samples have laid around looking neglected ... I have a great-nephew due shortly so I hope to get this one sewn up pretty soon —

'till next time,

happy creating,

Flying the New Zealand flag in Paducah

How lucky I am that I am able to take advantage of my brother living near Nashville....last week my sister-in-law and I headed up to Paducah, 2 hours away, to the AQS quilt show.
Sandie and I went 3 years ago - and I was totally overawed at the shear size of everything and the amount of people there.  This time I wasn't quite as gobsmacked (I'm an old hand now!) but was still majorly impressed.
Naturally, there were quilts everywhere! In the convention centre, in the Pavillion, in the Quilt Museum, in shop windows, on the street. I could have spent twice as long there and still seen something new every day. The whole town gets behind quilt week and there is a real party atmosphere everywhere.

I really don't know which quilt photos to share, I started out taking photos of everything, marvelling at the design, the colours, the quilting, the embellishments, the ideas... but of course there were so many I gave up! So I'll just show a selection where the photos turned out ok..... (and ones that I enjoyed for a variety of reasons)...

Best of Show - Arandano by Marilyn Badger.

Incredible detail

I adored this one.
Kalocsa by Chieko Shiraishi.
First in Hand Quilted quilts.

Those who know me will know I love these colours...but look at
 the crochet flowers and edging!!!

Why Not? By Angela Petrocelli
Second in Large Wall Quilts, Home Machine Quilted.

This is taking small blocks to a whole new level; an entire quilt
made out of them.

The farm girl in me loved this too,
One Fine Day by Laurie Britt.
Third In Large Wall Quilts, Pictorial.

Happy Halloween 2 by Aki Sakai.
Best Wall Hand Workmanship.

So much fun, so much detail!

The Japanese quilters had an incredible array of quilts in the show. I think their variety of styles is getting broader but the same attention to detail and beautiful handmanship is a common theme across them all. The hand quilting on them was amazing.

Celestial Orbs by Sylvia Schaefer
Honorable Mention, Modern Quilts.

A King on his Throne by Nancy Sterett Martin.

Christmas Colours? by Sharon Hendrix and
My Applique Addiction Continues by Diane LaCombe.

Autmn Baskets by Kathleen Littin and
Eternal by Kazuko Noto

Red Chairs by Mary Ann Van Soest.
This quilt really drew me in, I was ready to sit on those chairs!

Shadows by Carol Perkins.
The 3-D effect/shadowing was very real looking.

Vintage Blocks - Tossed But Not Forgotten by Jane V. Cole and Quilters.
Third in Group Quilts.
Another clever quilt, the centre of the blocks are all vintage.

Ok so I could go on forever but will stop here!! I also took lots of photos of 'bits' of quilts, a bit of quilting here, a bit of applique there and so on.  

The Quilt Show has a slideshow of some the quilts *here* if you want to see more.

I took 4 classes while I was there. Two were with Kathy McNeil, the designer of the beautiful Audubon quilt (and more of course). Those classes were lecture/discussion style on different aspects of design and I enjoyed them a lot.
I took a class with Carolyn Konig, an Australian designer (ironic isn't it, going all the way to America to be tutored by an Australian!). The class was titled Fussy Cutting but really covered paper piecing technique...still enjoyable though. Below is a quilt Carolyn shared with us, it is her reproduction of The Sundial Quilt which is in the V and A Museum, and toured Australia a few years ago. There were numerous tiny pieces and it was hand pieced. Very beautiful.

 The other class I took was an all day one with Pat Sloan, Wild and Free Backgrounds. It is an applique wallhanging with a pieced background..... I decided it would be a good one to stretch me!  I had ideas of breaking out and using fabrics that were completely different to those I would normally choose, but in the end used "Raewyn fabrics" (as my sil describes them). They were a little different to those chosen by most of the gals in the class so it was fun when Pat chose my pile as one of the ones to play with in her demonstration. And then I challenged myself to use a totally different selection when it was my turn to play.

Pat and I with my background. The large floral I brought from
home and used as my guide for collecting fabrics.

At the end of the class Pat shared with us her Splendid Sampler blocks; it was great to see them and to see her enthusiasm for the whole project. She is excited by the quilting community that is being created by it. (If you don't know about it, *here* is a link to the Splendid Sampler project ... I've been collecting the patterns and hope to start them when I get back home).

There is an evening performance every year; Ricky Timms (from The Quilt Show) kept us entertained and in stitches (the laughter sort) with his music, tales and quilts. A lot of fun.

Ricky with some of his quilts.

Well this is pushing it a bit, fitting all these into one post but that's how it is. I'm still getting used to using my tablet for stuff like this and was on a roll today so didn't stop :-)

See you next time, from somewhere in the US,