Catching up again

 

Doing a quick blog catch up this morning, before my ladies arrive for another day of classes.

Below are 2 photos of quilts made by Lyn, both quilted with all over designs. The first one using a pattern called “Spring”, and the second quilted with “Pearl Strand”.

And this quilt made by Margaret and quilted all over with “Merrily”.

And the following photos are some of what the girls did in yesterday’s Embellished Quilts class.They all had fun, (some more than others, as one lady had a few machine problems)! It was rather puzzling why her machine was not behaving, until later in the day, when her bobbin case fell out in 3 pieces! This is a well used, and dearly loved machine. Just as well there is no shortage of machines in this house! The house was abuzz with 10 ladies all getting to know each other, and checking out each other’s collection of fabric, laces, and threads etc. It will be exciting to see how the different colour schemes come together. We have navy with gold, cream with pink and green, grey with black and white and a white with a touch of blue. 5 of the ladies are first timers, and the others are all back for more.

I am holding these classes at my house, as I have too much “stuff” to cart to The Sanctuary, but some of the ladies are staying “over the road”. There are several weekends scheduled over the next few months as this is an ongoing project, that covers quite a few lessons. We cover lots of different techniques, using our machines to do a bit more than straight stitch and zig zag, including fabric manipulation, decorative stitching, couching, bobbin work, applique, needle lace, thread painting and lots of other things.

Below are a few photos of quilts that have been done in previous classes. Looking forward to seeing how this group of quilts come together.

 

This turned out to be a “not so quick” blog post, and thanks for reading if you have come this far. It is now time to finish off and make another cuppa before they all arrive in half an hour.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you are doing.

Blessings, From Jude

EQ Retreat report and a finished quilt!

 

Before the week disappears I thought I better report on the weekend. We had a great class with The Virtual Quilter, (otherwise known as Judy B), and all learned that the EQ programme does some amazing things. I need to remember to play with it more often, so that I don’t forget what I learnt. Numbers in the class were limited, so that Judy could give each person individual attention when they needed it. Thank you to those who attended, and especially those who travelled 3 hours to get here. Just a pity you did not bring a bit more of that rain the city had, as my rainwater tank would have loved a fill up!

Below is a photo of one of Judy B’s quilts, and the screen shot of the design.

And below is the group photo. I have started putting up group photos in frames around the walls of The Sanctuary. It’s always a talking point to see who you know, that has attended retreats, and there are a couple of girls, having a bit of a competition to see who can get their photo up the most times.

And finally I have finished this custom job on a sampler quilt. It has been on the machine for too many days, although I have not worked on it everyday, with all that has been happening around here.

Now I have a few all over quilts to do, and finish the preparation for this weekends classes. It is the start of another round of Embellished quilts classes that I teach, and am looking forward to meeting some new girls, and for some to finish what they have started, and some coming back to make another!

Hope you have a good week, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. The weather this week is just lovely, with temperatures in the 20-30deg range. Good living weather.

Blessings, From Jude

A blog post because I am being nagged

My apologies for not having posted since the 6th February, and I have just been "reminded", so I thought I had better remedy the situation. The week has just disappeared again, and my intentions were good, but life has been a bit busy.

I have had a sampler quilt on "Max", and as it is a custom quilting job, is taking awhile, although I must admit that the "thinking" time was the longest. I am over half way through now, and will post photos when I am done. I did take it off the machine (thankful that I have zippered leaders), and did a couple of edge to edge jobs in between.

This week has also been busy with a couple of medical appointments, a committee meeting, a trip to the hairdresser for a new colour, and preparation for this weekend's retreat.

Thursday, it was the monthly sewing day of the Angels charity group, and added to that the continuing job of watering the gardens at 2 houses and that seems to have taken care of this week.

Thankfully the hot weather has eased, and we were hopeful of good rains, which most of our state has received. But, it seems to have stopped just short of where we live, and only about 10mls fell, when lots of areas had over 100mls. But we are thankful for the bit that we received, as it has settled the dust, and helped the garden a bit.

 

Below are 2 photos of a Lone Star quilt, which I finished last month. I am pleased with how it turned out.

 

And these are the journals that I made for the girls doing the Electric Quilt weekend retreat this weekend. I had a lovely afternoon last weekend, when it was so hot, and I was sitting in the cool of the air conditioner. I had a friend staying with me, as she had been in hospital for 2 weeks, and was not quite well enough to go home by herself. It was a great way to spend the hot day.

And this photo is what I have picked this week in my vegie garden. It is the first vegie gardening I have done in about 20 years, so I am quite pleased with this. Nothing tastes better than home grown tomatoes. And the sweet corn were so good. My pumpkins are looking good, and it would be lovely to get enough tomatoes to make some tomato sauce.

Well, I hope this gets me off the hook. I shall post more photos of the retreat when I am home on my other computer, as this laptop does not want to recognise the SD card from my camera.
We are having a lovely weekend, learning what great things that EQ7 can do, ably taught by Judy B, the Virtual quilter.
Time to finish, hope you are having a great weekend, whatever you are doing.

Blessings,
From Jude

Back to quilting

 

After my time away from the machine in January, it has been back to action this week. It’s a full time job keeping up with the watering this summer, and it seems a long time since any rain. My rainwater tank, and the garden, would say a big thankyou for some water. And there are areas in parts of Australia that have not seen rain for a LONG time, so I am not really complaining, just saying… It is so ironic, that parts of the world are crying out for rain, and other areas have so much that there is much damage.

It is also quite a long time since I have posted photos of quilts, so here’s an update.

Lyn travelled overseas for a holiday, and used the fabrics that she purchased to make a quilt. I did a simple custom job, as the fabrics are surrounded by little “flippy” corners that are not stitched down. I suppose there is a really technical name for them, but it escapes me at the moment.

This is a stack and slash quilt, using Oriental fabrics, so was very busy, so I quilted a simple block pattern in the blocks and a simple border.

Another quilt made with Oriental fabrics, very effective way to piece them, and quilted with an all over pattern.

In between the quilting, and the watering I have been working on my Ladies quilt, still to have a proper name given to it. As the class I am teaching is in a fortnight, I need to get moving.

The weather has warmed up again this week, and the weekend is going to be HOT again.  The poor old garden is looking a bit sad, so need to get in there with the snippers and do some trimming, when it’s a bit cooler.

This afternoon I was thinking about a lovely friend that I had not talked to for awhile, and decided I should phone her soon, and guess what, the phone just rang and who should it be, but Raelene. Had a lovely catch up, and what an amazing coincidence!

Time to switch off for the night, so hoping you have a great weekend coming up, whatever you have planned.

Blessings, From Jude.

Where has January gone??

 

It seems that it is over a week since I last posted, and have been meaning to do this all week, but……

Bit of a wakeup call to realise that January has been and gone, and just seems like yesterday that we were heading into Christmas! I had great plans for January, which usually is a month where life seems more casual, the usual meetings etc. in recess for the holidays. I had a lot of projects in mind, getting ready for new year and finishing class samples for the next round of Embellished  Quilts classes I am doing.

But not much of that happened, and not too many quilts were quilted either. Trying to work out where the month went, and looking back at photos to post today, I found a lot of family ones. So now I realise where the month went. A weekend visitor, a trip to Melbourne for an engagement party, a trip to Adelaide for “grandma” duty, more visitors, a birthday,  and time soon went. Add to that mix quite a lot of HOT weather, when I usually melt, and finished off with an Aussie retreat at The Sanctuary, and that was January.

Above are family photos, of my 6 gorgeous grandies!

Below is a photo for you Faye, of Pat’s Reflections which is making progress.

Below is a gift I received from a friend, because I had admired one she had in her kitchen window sill. So lifelike and cute. He/She is sitting on my desk keeping me company. Big debate on whether a he or she, and a name. At the moment Miss Piggy, but I am open to any other suggestion, so look forward to hearing from you!

And Jocelyn spent all last weekend doing bindings, and did manage to finish this one.        And Marie was up to sewing rows together of her Ring Cycles, a Lessa Siegele workshop from earlier in 2013.

A lot of blogs that I read have been talking about One Word for One Year, which has made me think about this too. Deciding on one word to strive for during the year seems a bit hard. There are a lot of words that I could apply to my life, and I have written a few down as I read about them from others.

Finish….. so many projects I have that are PHD’s, and are heavy on my mind.

Balance……. finding a balance between my work and other life is tricky. Some of my other interests include making quilts, decorative sewing, teaching patchwork, gardening, hosting retreats, all are related to my work. (And I am so blessed for this). So this tends to take up a lot of time, and as I live on my own, somedays I tend to “live” in my studio. So this year I aim to try for another balance, fitting in family and friends, and also I feel I need to find some more time for me. And I hope that doesn’t sound selfish? Even finding a balance for family time is tricky, with 4 children who all live some distance from me, and I know this is not balanced evenly.

Choose……. sometimes I feel that instead of running my life, that it’s running me! This probably relates to what I have written above about balance.

Simplify….. Declutter…..Organise…. are probably words which all go together, which I need to do, especially in the filing cabinet, and other areas of my house. Did do a small bit of this in January.

Believe and Trust…..in God, in myself, and in the future. We are not guaranteed a tomorrow, we have said goodbye to yesterday, and only have today, so must live this wisely.

Freedom…….from debt, and from negative things in our life.

Gratitude… I list this last, but it is certainly not the least of my list. I am so grateful for the abundance that I have, even if the weather is hot today! I am grateful that I can work inside in air conditioned comfort, that I have a job that I love, and family and friends that care. Lord help me to use all that I have to benefit those that have less.

Now that I have written all that down, and looked at it, I think my word for the year ahead needs to be BALANCE.

I think after all that, I better get off the computer and actually do something. The weather is supposed to be 44deg today, with the promise of much cooler tomorrow. Can’t wait!

If you have read this far, I thank you, and have a good day, stay cool or warm, where ever you live in the world.

Blessings,

From Jude