Summer School Bookings.

Hi Everyone,
Such a lovely long weekend and nice to have some time at home.
I hope to get the last two blocks sorted out for The Marriage quilt but I really should be doing my tax....so boring.
Yes you are getting a new post rather quickly but I am avoiding my paper work plus I am not looking forward to discovering how much I have spent on fabric.
Two of the classes for Summer School are fully booked but there are still places in other classes.
I have had questions about what type of fabric to buy for the broderie purse on County Kilkenny so here are a couple of photos to help.
I do have some birds and baskets left so always happy to share.

 

My Lovely border.

Also for the girls doing Miss Porter and John if you want little sayings in your blocks you might look some up.

We had a great time at Cottage Quilt Works last week and the new fabrics just kept being delivered a great time to shop.

Here is some of the girls work.

 

Plain and Fancy.

You don't always need a stripe to fussy cut.

The miss Austen's.

Three great panels to use for this quilt and the pattern allows for any size.

 

Bev finished Anna and Miss Austen's garden.

A very inspiring three days!

 

Finally from my Concord group Julie has finished her version of The folk Art Quilt.

 



In my last blog I mentioned I bought The Auntie Green pattern at the Sydney show, I bought my pattern from Irene Blanck and it is a really great pattern, cant wait to start.

 

Well there is no getting around it I will have to do my tax now I have run out of excuses.

Have a lovely long weekend girls,

Karen





 







Summer School

I have spent most of today sending emails for Summer School.
If you have not received the information please email me so I can send one out, apologies if I missed you, the list is so big!
I love the beautiful basket quilt Susan is teaching another pattern for my retirement, I bought Auntie Green at the Sydney show and that is calling my name perhaps I should buy the fabric for it just in case.
We are having dinner at The Paragon again it was so lovely last year, should we ware vintage clothes? I think yes.
Our technical class is just about booked out it is interesting in these days of glue and supposedly new fast techniques for everything our most popular class is taking the time to improve hand stitching.
I have tried lots of new ways to sew quilts but I always go back to stitching the way my grandma did its the only way I really relax. I can almost see the young quilters out there rolling their eyes at me, we are all different and there are no rules saying how you should make your quilt.

Let us look at some quilts.
This is my Folk Art Quilt hanging up at Quilt Smith, Melinda is one of the few shops who have a wall big enough.

One of my students had her Folk Art Quilt in the Sydney show, the picture of her quilt ended up in Quilt Mania.

Vicky from Miranda designed this quilt herself.

Here are the girls at work in the Blueberries shop Wyong.

Marion's quilt. My design Antique Applique.

All the Plain and Fancy quilts on the go.

Anna just put a bag of skittles on my desk and I cant stop eating them.

 

Sharon has nearly finished Miss Austen's Garden.

 

Carol finished French Mosaic.

Helen's Folk Art.

Annette Nottingham quilt.

 

I love watching my designs turn into these beautiful quilts it is so satisfying to see all the different versions.

Well my son is coming for tea and it is now 5.30 so I best get on, my other son Jake or horizontal as he is affectionately know has only been up a short time and thinks its lunch time.

I will be at Cottage Quilt Works next week so hope to have plenty of show and tell.

Take care everyone,

Karen.

 



 

 

 

 

Spring at last

The weather is finally warmer I have sat outside to eat my lunch twice this week, so tired of the cold it has been a very long winter.
Thank you to all the girls who emailed me last week asking how I was my medical procedure is over and I am much better nothing serious or scary just annoying as the cyst on my back was in such an awkward spot and large I didn't mind not being able to do housework but not able to sew was the pits!
I was home a week and unable to do my homework for class, but today I made a start here's the proof.

 

My sewing room.

Block six of The Marriage Quilt is on the way.
Fabrics in the foreground have been chosen for next major works inspired by daffodils, tulips and other spring flowers.
I am loving all the old brights that are available at the moment Rhonda from Post Office Patchwork Glenbrook gave me a bundle of Pomegranate by The Rock Mountain Quilt Museum 1800-1850 by Bluehill fabrics just delicious.
Glenbrook was my first classes after my week off so here are the girls and their homework.

 

First two quilts are Ruth's.

Lucy Boston.



French Mosaic

Liz just needs to finish her mitred corners on French Mosaic.

 

Pru didn't want a Cream Tea so here is her Green Tea.

Just love it!

My Summer School samples are almost ready just need a few bits and pieces to organise and your emails will be sent.

I will see the girls at Quiltsmith tomorrow and then on to Miranda for Thursday Friday so look forward to catching up.

I will be keeping up with my blog now!

Stay safe everyone

Karen x



New Quilt

Hi everyone great news I finished a new quilt today!
An Irish Medallion "County Kilkenny" All ready for quilting I can almost hear you all asking what fabric to buy so you will need a lovely border always nice to find a stripe and  a smaller print fabric to go with it. Alright 3 mtrs of border and 1 mtr of matching small print, my quilt is c1800s my border is a copy of an 1820's fabric.
I had my border fabric for about seven years you know the fabric you cant cut up well I had five yards and I used all of it the width of each stripe was fourteen inches and I could only cut three down the length so a little drama today as I didn't have enough to mitre but I found a solution.
You will also need fabric suitable for broderie perse: birds, baskets and flowers.
This is not a replica of an old quilt so Mr google wont find it.
This will be one of the quilts for Summer School.

There is other exciting news Michelle did her homework!
Such a shock she even received a star, such a busy girl its wonderful when we get time to just sew.

Michelle

Here are more high achievers.

Jan is behind her blue Nottingham quilt.

Bev and Sue with their Hidcote Garden's.

Karen with her Nottingham Quilt.

Chris with the centre of Miss Austen's Garden.

Here is a lesson for you all this is my mum and dad unpicking machine quilting she had done on her Irish circles quilt.

Make sure you choose a quilting pattern you like have a look at the samples on display or study quilting on other quilts to better judge what would suit your quilt.

Such a cute photo but in reality it took a week to unpick threads everywhere even the bathroom!







Here is Denise an outstanding student from Port Maquarie yes I only see her once a year and look what she gets done. Plus every year when I teach in Port it falls on Denise's birthday so she comes to class as part of the celebration I am always so happy to see all the girls each year.

Jester Quilt



New England fall.

Anna

I just cant make out who was behind this beautiful Anna Quilt but another Port Maquarie girl.

Let me know who it is!

I had afternoon tea in Port at the lovely Tea rooms.

Well it is time for bed its 10.30 and I am in Sydney for the next three days with a lovely evening planned at the Camden Quilt shows opening night on Friday.

One of my favourite shows just love the atmosphere and lovely quilts to view.

I will leave you with a photo from my trip to America this is the children's garden in the beautiful Longwood gardens PA

Goodnight all,

Karen x









Catch up

Block four "The Marriage Quilt"

I know its been a while since my last blog but since I arrived home from America I have had three of my children's birthdays a road trip to the country for two weeks, which was fantastic and lots of sewing to prepare for Summer School and class.

Thank you to all the girls who worried about me I am well perhaps a little frazzled but now I am feeling like I just might catch up!

I have had a few emails asking for my patterns at the moment I don't have any for sale  correspondence school will start again next year in February.

I have been looking to hire a graphic designer to perhaps make my patterns easier to print and more cost efficient just haven't found the right person yet. I know it is something I can no longer do on my own so that is a step forward as being a Taurus I think I can do everything myself.

I will be posting again soon I just thought I would quickly catch up today and get back to block five of the Marriage Quilt and add the next borders to Plain and Fancy so I can get the next correspondence posted.

Hope you are all well and stitching away,

Karen x



Home.

Hi Everyone, I am only now feeling back to normal, it is so hard to get your sleeping habits back on track only the last few days I have been able to stay awake all day.
Anyway I am going steadily through my emails and requests for patterns so please be patient if I haven't  got back to you all.
The correspondence school will be a little late my daughter did a great job of keeping track of payments I just need to have a day to get it all straight in my head.
The trip was fantastic a combination of good company great weather and amazing days of sight seeing and textiles galore.
The quilts we saw in the museums: DAR, Smithsonian, Winterthur and The folk art Museum were outstanding one of my favourites was the Harriet Powers Bible Quilt I have loved that quilt for so long to see it was amazing. of course I can't show photo's of these quilts we were lucky we could take photos with the flash off but as with most museums these are for personal use only, all the girls in class can have a look at my photos.
So let us start at the beginning of the tour at Paducah my favourite show to date.
The whole town welcomes the quilters with stores set up all over town with fabrics and antique quilts.
The National Quilt Museum had a lovely display of quilts some basket quilts I would love to make one had baskets only 3 inches so adorable.
And the show was beautiful so many lovely quilts I bought the disc so I can sit and look at them close up whenever I like. So many great vendors just wonderful to see how creative the stalls were.
I am so glad we did all five days we were busy every day the shuttles dropped you off at Hancocks or any stop you liked and were back in an hour to take you to the next stop fantastic would love to go to this show again!
A few in my group visited The Metropolitan Hotel in Paducah which used to be the only hotel African Americans could stay in so a lot of very famous musicians stayed there. We had a fish fry, cat fish, white beans, slaw and corn bread very delicious and viewed quilts by the late Pearl Smith.
At three we attended a lecture by Dr Pearlie Johnson the topic:The intra-diasporic connections between African and African American quilts and the ways in which African American quilters reinterpret African cultural features in their works of art.
Such a great talk one of the highlights of my trip, you know how I love birds in my quilts and my favourite colour is blue well Dr Pearlie told us that the colour blue is a symbol of birds.

Dr Pearlie Johnson in the middle.

We did a walking tour of the lovely historic homes.

Here are a few of the shops.

There was an antique quilt with my name on it in Finkel's pity the bank account disagreed.

We thought we would try the local roadhouse it said welcome and it was half price Margarita  night.

Didn't know they came in a bowl.

I did have a few more photos to download but my computer will not do it something about space left so I will have to do some work on that.

Next time we will move on to The Shaker Village and some show and tell from class as I return tomorrow.

Thank you to all the quilters in the U.S for being so friendly I hope some of you come to Australia so we can reciprocate your hospitality.

See you all in class,

Karen x