Monday 27 March 2017

Statler Gathering report

 It has been another fantastic, fun filled, full of busyness, few days. I didn't think I had taken many photos, but seemed to have found a few here for you to see.

These girls, who lead busy lives and run their longarm machine quilting business' don't get a lot of personal sewing time. So they all come prepared with projects to work on, while we are chatting and laughing. Some bring sewing machines and lots of tubs of fabric, and some are working on hand piecing, which are part of the "slow sewing" movement.

These are both hand piecing projects that Naomi is working on.



Gayle is hand piecing Patchwork of the Crosses blocks, and has been working on this for awhile. 


She was very happy to finish a block, and is showing her progress.


Niki was making placemats for her daughter in law, and made good progress.


Brenda worked on lots of projects, and one of them was this gorgeous little suitcase, and here she is stitching in the zip.


Now finished, this is the Small World Suitcase by Jodie Carleton of Ric Rac Designs.


And then it was onto the Zippy Hobby Bag, a Claire Turpon Design, which she made in the same fabric.  If you are interested in these, you can purchase the pattern or kits, or fabric from Brenda at Widebacks I am sure she would love to hear from you. I reckon any little girl would love these. And if they were made in sewing related fabric, they would be a great gift idea for a quilter.


Pam made some lovely bright shirts.


Alison arrived with a quilt cut out that is to be a shop sample for her shop, Canterbury Quilt


She made good progress, and had almost finished by the time she went home.


Asking for opinions about the best way to cut up the border print. And there are usually 8 different opinions when you ask.


The decision had been made, and the corners were being mitred.


I forgot to ask what the name of the quilt was, but I am sure if you are interested you could contact the shop, but clicking on the link above.


I even managed some sitting at the table time, and was working on more tracing and cutting of the blocks for my Dear William quilt. I am happy to report very good progress.



In every group their is an over achiever, and Elaine is ours. I think she must have almost filled her car with plastic tubs, but she was prepared for lots of jobs.
First up she finished a few shirts, and a dress. 



 Then she finished this woollen star quilt.


And this scrappy diamond star quilt was put together, although the diamonds had been made.



And then it was time to cut and piece this flannel quilt.



Then it was time to get out the tub of scraps and piece some more diamond sections.


Another 29 of these were made before it was time to go home!! A great way to use up lots of scraps, but Elaine said that the tub did not seem any emptier when she left.


 And here she is showing some of her weekend's work to Pat when she visited us on Monday afternoon.


 Alison from Canterbury Quilts was very generous and brought along a bag of wrapped items, and told me to decide what to do with them. So I thought about this and made up some word puzzles for the girls to do, and gave out prizes. This was a lot of fun, and one of them was a list of Acronyms relative to quilting. There were simple ones like BOM (Block of Month) and DWR (Double Wedding Ring) and then one lady made up her own answers! Instead of Half Square Triangles (HST) she said Hot Sewing Teacher, LQS, Lost Quilt Society, and GFG, Girl Friend Guild! We had a lot of laughs.


Faces of concentration!



We had a show and tell and sharing session.





And there was also some teaching of various parts of the programme we use, and here is Gayle having a "one on one" with Alison.


And then they were joined by Elaine, who also supplied them with lubrication.


At most retreats, a few of the ladies "retire" to the lounge to watch TV or do some hand stitching with their feet up. But this weekend was the exception, as they were all hard at work into the evenings. I did hear of one lady who sewed to 1.30am the first evening.




 And the second evening 2 ladies were up late, and then went to bed and talked until well into the morning! (I did hear about 3am??) They did all go to bed early Sunday evening though.

Our group photo, taken on Sunday, and even Gypsy features in the photo.


A bit more spoiling of the cat. Gypsy must love it when the retreats are on, because she doesn't get spoiled with me.


 On Friday morning I was doing some cooking for the weekend, and had planned some nice little fruit custard tarts. I was a bit disappointed when half of them broke when I was trying to get them out of the patty pans. This was how they looked. 😢


 This changed my menu plan and I had to think about what I could do instead. When my class girls make a mistake and things don't turn out how you wanted, I usually tell them it is a design opportunity and think of how they can change their original intention. So I thought about my crumbled tarts, and came up with the following idea instead. The crumbs were placed in the base of the dish and custard and fruit placed on top. My disaster was now a success, and tasted just the same as the original intention.




Phones have multiple purposes these days, and are not just used for phone calls. They are the photo albums as well, and used to store quilt pictures to show each other.


And at the end of the day, it is a lovely treat when a visitor massages your shoulders, after a weekend of hand sewing.


Once again, it has been a great weekend. We talked about our machines, the programmes we use, and our longarm business'. Two ladies also have retail shops as well, and they shared a lot about that. We also talked about the changing demographic of our industry, and the quilting industry and the direction technology is taking us in the future.

The last of the stayers will leave in the morning, and it will be back to reality for me. As each person has left, there are lots of hugs good bye, and we were lining up at the door. Great friendships have been made at these Statler Gatherings, which is very special to see. And as with most of the retreats, it has also been a Therapy Retreat for some, if not all of us.

Time for bed,

Blessings, From Jude



I am still here...

Just checking in briefly for now, and I will be back later to write a longer report on the Statler Gathering. There are still a few here, until tomorrow morning, and then it will be back to reality again. It has been a great few days, and I have taken some photos to share.

In the meantime I thought I might have a little giveaway to see who is checking in on me. Leave me a comment, and I would love to hear from you on the blog if you can do that. I will accept email, or text messages if you are unable to work that out. The prize is the"little"shopping trolley photographed below. They are so cute, and contain 14 x 5" squares of fabric, the details of which are below.



Canterbury quilt is the place to go to if you are interested in buying these cute little trolleys.

Time to get back to my guest, and spend some more time with William. 

I look forward to hearing you you all, and you have until midnight on April 2nd, and I will put all the names in a "hat" and get someone to pick one out. Will post in Australia and overseas. 

Be back later,
Blessings, From Jude.



Friday 24 March 2017

Coffee break time....


I am just taking a break and checking emails and blogs etc after an early start this morning. It was  lovely  to be out early, listening to the kookaburras and other birds waking up. It is very still this morning, and sightly overcast, but I think the sun might peep out later. This is perfect autumn weather, and I for one, will be happy if the HOT doesn't appear again soon. Daylight doesn't happen until 7am, although this will change soon when daylight saving ends.

I still have some preparation to do in the kitchen, but everything is almost ready for the arrival of the Statler girls this afternoon. I know one lady who was up at 4am, to be ready to leave for a 7 hour drive to get here. (We might all need a nanna nap this afternoon!).

I "borrowed" this photo from facebook this week, after GD2 passed her test for her "L" driving licence. Now there are 2 of my grandies on the road. It sure makes me realise how time is flying by. 


Time to head back into the kitchen, and cook a little bit more. I am trying to do most of the prep of meals, so that I can spend time with the girls this weekend. I might even get some more tracing and cutting out of the blocks for my "Dear William" quilt done!!??

Catch ya soon,

Blessings, From Jude

Wednesday 22 March 2017

And the rain came down.....

The garden was blessed yesterday with water from above. The clouds came over, and looked threatening, but with thunderstorms, you never know just where it will hit. I was pulling some weeds in the garden, until the rain started, and then I ran for cover. (Well, maybe not ran, just hurried!!)  I am not sure just how much rain fell, as reports in town seemed to vary a lot. I think I need to get a rain gauge of my own. (The farmer in me still wants to know those details!)





At least the watering is one job I won't need to worry about for a few days, except in the pergola.


I have loaded a quilt, as you can see onto Max, and the 2 tops I pulled out on the weekend, are hanging behind. I have not quilted much of the quilt yet, but I have made progress with the book work, and will put that away this morning. It's time to go shopping for supplies, and do some cooking ready for the arrival of the girls on Friday. Looking forward to catching up with them again, and we have lots to talk about.  Will come back with another report in a few days.

Blessings, From Jude.

Sunday 19 March 2017

Breathing easier.....

It has been a quiet weekend at home, and time to breath easier. The quilting queue is on schedule, the garden is getting by with a bit of water, and the occasional pulling out of some weeds, and I am not planning on being away anytime real soon. I thought about what I would do for the weekend, and even pulled a couple of tops out of the tub with my name on it. I have hung these up near Max and hope that they might "talk" to me sometime, and maybe they might get quilted. I also thought about getting started on some more Mystery Cases, and then decided that my priority should probably be the book work, as once again, I am a few months behind!! Except for going to church this morning, I have been working my way through the "paper" trail, and trying to remember what I did last year?? While I am not up to date yet, I am happy to say I have made good progress. The weather has been quite warm, so it was a good place to be, beside the air con.


These are the photos I took at Coonalpyn last Sunday, and they are a week old now, so not sure how much progress there has been since then. The first 2 photos are as you come into the town from Adelaide, and can't be seen from the other end.




And I shall finish this post with quilt photos, as I still have a few in the files. The first is a Ring Cycles quilt, made by Trish, and custom quilted. Trish used Kaffe Fassett fabrics, so it is quite bright.




This very large quilt was made by Lois, and was quilted allover with a Baptist Swirl pattern, and I love the texture that it has given to the quilt.



That's the end of the newsfromjude for tonight. Tomorrow I need to load another quilt, and also think about making some beds, and getting ready for another group to arrive on Friday. It is always good to welcome the Statler girls, and chat about the things we are doing, and learn more about our machines.

Blessings, From Jude