Another weekend is over......

Here it is Sunday evening again, and I have the laptop on my lap, for a catchup blog post. Recently I made the decision to spend weekends doing my own things, when I was not away, or having a retreat here.  I have a big quilt on Max at the moment, that needs to be finished soon, so I decided to quilt for half a day yesterday, and then get my hexagon quilt out of the box.

I was putting "stuff" away, and came across the bolt of fabric I purchased to use as my background for my "Dear William" quilt. This quilt is a fair way down on my "to do" list, but I was curious to see what the applique pieces would look like on that fabric, so I cut out 2 squares. I had already cut out most of the applique pieces, and they are all in their relevant paper bags in a box, just waiting. Before I knew it, I was at the iron and laying them out in their positions and pressed them on, as you can see below. Michele's design has more elements in the blocks than you can see here, but I have decided to leave some out, so that my quilter has more space to be creative!?

I love the shine of the background fabric, and am very pleased with my purchase. This square has been put back into the box, to wait until after our local exhibition in October, as it will take more time to finish than I have in the next  few months.

It was late afternoon before I finally got to these blocks. You can see the creases from being rolled up on a sheet since the last time I worked on them.

And this is my progress, by mid Sunday afternoon. I have sewn rows together, and even sewn 4 rows into one section. The rows have been numbered, and are all laid out now, waiting for me. I considered finishing this today, but sewing set in seams is a bit slower than a straight row. If I leave it by the machine, and not packed up in a box, maybe I can make time to sew the rows together?? I think some evening sewing could be my future??

 It was then time to cut the strips of fabric ready for another Antelope Canyon quilt. Now I need to cut these strips into sections and label them ready for next weekend, when I hope to sew them together.

This is what I am working on at the moment. A quilt full of the most amazing needleturn applique. I can't even comprehend how anyone can do such small stitching. Lots of SID in my life at present.

Even the zigzag border is needleturned!!

And you can see from the ruler, that the stems on this flower are only 1/8" wide!!

I "borrowed" the next 2 photos from facebook this week, and Miss Bridie is nursing a sleepy lizard, and looks really pleased about it. She is also sporting an injury from a collision with the bookcase.

On Friday it was 2 years since she was born, and here she is blowing out her candles. I can't believe it is 2 years already. She is growing up so fast. I have not seen her for a while, but am looking forward to her spending some time here in August.

That's about all the newsfromjude for now. Almost time for bed, ready for another busy week.

Blessings, From Jude

This and that........

I am sitting in the lounge with my feet up after 2 days standing at Max, so thought I would post more newsfromjude before I call it a day night. The following photos give a summary of the last few days.

I mentioned in a recent post, that I was disappointed to miss Quilt Encounter, as it clashed with my Melbourne trip. But Marie attended, and she brought her samples of indigo dyed fabric to show me when she returned. Ann called in to pick up her quilt, while Marie was here, and was very interested in the various blues. And if you look closely, you might notice that Marie has got more than blue fabric. (Look at the hair!!)

This is where I went a few days ago, to sit in one of these chairs. I won't be leaving it so long next time, and have scheduled regular hair appointments for the next few months.

This was my weekend project, and I have titled it "Finished is better than perfect".

This is my effort at using the Quick Curve Ruler. I thought it would be a good way to make a Wedding Ring quilt, but because I made a cutting error early in the process, things did not turn out as planned. As a result the quilt is a bed runner instead of a bed quilt. The blocks did not fit together very well, hence the name. I had hoped that my quilter might fix it, but she didn't!

 This is what I have been working on for the last 2 days. I will post photos of the quilting one day.

Monday morning I had to call the plumber, as my hot water, was not hot! I was hoping that it was time for a new element, but unfortunately the news was not good. The hot water service had come to the end of it's life, and needed to be replaced. As it was in the roof space, the plumber took photos to show me how bad it was, and this is one of them. It was not unexpected news, as we knew it was on "borrowed time."

 Tiles had to be removed while they worked on the job, and you can see we had some blue sky today.

I now have a new hot water service on the path outside the laundry door, and hopefully in the morning I will be able to have a hot shower.

Tomorrow I will be loading a large quilt, that is full of needleturn applique, so I expect this will take me quite a few days.

Time for bed now, as it has been a long day, after an early 5am start.

Blessings, From Jude

Quilt photos again

As promised in a previous blog post, here are closeup photos of the 2 quilts that were hanging at The Festival of Quilts in Adelaide last weekend. As they were going into the show, I did not post photos of these on the blog earlier.

The first is the one I quilted for Melann's shop. The navy strips have circles appliqued and embellished with an embroidery machine. I loaded this quilt with the length going from side to side, and quilted the 6 pieced strips with 3 different background fills, and put more circles in the background of the embroidered circles. This is a very large quilt, that had a pellon stabilizer underneath, and no extra wadding was added.

And here is Cathie's quilt again, with closeup photos of the quilting.

The centre star was all hand pieced, and then appliqued to the background fabric. Cathie's instructions to me, were that she did not want lots of heavy quilting, so I had to put my thinking cap on and work out what to do on each block, without lots of background fill, and still fill the open areas. Lots of quilts are heavily quilted these days, and certainly many show quilts, and I do this too on some of my own quilts. I have another large needle turned quilt to do soon, and this owner also does not want heavy background fill. And a lot of my customers specify "not dense" when they bring quilts for allover quilting.

Now I seem to have a backlog of other quilts, that have not been blogged, and it is over a month since I posted any photos of quilting, so it is time for a catchup. (And I apologise if I have posted any of these before.)

This is Joan's quilt, and quilted allover with a pattern called Merrily. As with other members of our local group, she is working on finishing lots of PHD's ready for our exhibition in October.

This was made by Jenny, and quilted allover with a Modern Curves pattern.

Linda made this quilt many years ago, and had intended to hand quilt it. Life got busier, and she decided that finished would be good, and it was quilted allover with a pattern called Rose Leaves.

Another made by Cathie, for her daughter, and quilted allover with Gingko Garden.

That's about all for now, although there are still about 20 quilts in the files. It is time to head out the door and go to church. The rest of the day will be spent doing my "stuff". Yesterday I loaded one of my quilts, and hope to finish that today. I spent a little time in the garden, and maybe some more toady? And then I hope to get back to piecing of that hexagon quilt, that I was working on a month or so ago. Too many things I want to finish, and I am also on a time line to get some PHD's finished for our exhibition. I have made a list, and aim to cross some things off. Tomorrow it will be back to Max and a lineup of mainly custom quilting for awhile. But each weekend, I am setting aside for me, at least until the next retreat in August!!??

Blessings, From Jude

Melbourne trip

Over the years I have made a few flights to various parts of Australia, but have never actually flown into Melbourne from Adelaide. As I live on the border between South Australia and Victoria, I am almost half way to Melbourne from Adelaide, so usually go there by train, or car.  As I arrived back in Bordertown on Wednesday evening, and saw the signpost that said Melbourne was about 4 1/2  hours away, I thought how strange my journey really had been. I drove 3 hours to Adelaide on Saturday, flew to Melbourne on Sunday, (in a direct line over Bordertown), flew back to Adelaide Wednesday morning, and then drove 3 hours back to Bordertown!! 

Now on with the rest of the story. Elaine and I are at the Adelaide airport, waiting to board.

And here we are, packed in like sardines in our economy seats! 

We arrived in Melbourne after a flight that only took one hour! We caught the Skybus into the city.

Then we met up with another friend, Alison who had arrived by train, and the 3 of us caught a taxi to where we were staying. We were very fortunate to be able to stay at Elaine's sisters apartment at Docklands, which was conveniently located to the venue for our classes. By this time it was mid afternoon and we had not had lunch, so went in search of food. We ended up in the food court at the DFO (Direct Factory Outlets).

Then it was time for a wander around the shops, looking, but not spending. After a while, we headed where we thought the way out was, but found a car park instead!! After another walk, we ended up back where we had already been, so it was time for Elaine, (who had said she knew where to go?), to ask for directions on how to get out!!

The building on the left is where we were staying, up on the 19th floor, and once again I apologise for some blurry photos, as most were on my phone. Some turn out ok and some don't. I am still working on this problem.

And this is the view out the front of the building, looking towards the city.

There were 2 days of classes, and a walk along the South Wharf Promenade to get to the venue. I took these photos on the second day, and you can see that Alison is taking her bags, as she was leaving for home straight after the day's class.

I was wondering what makes it a Really Happy Hour??

Now it is 2 floors up, and there were escalators, .......

or stairs, and Elaine was showing off, and took the stairs to both floors.

The view from the second floor.

And here is where we were going for the next 2 days.

These 2 ladies were our teachers and travelled from the USA to teach us about the new software that our Statlers use. The lady on the left is JoAn Knight, from Alabama, and it did not take us too long to get used to her Southern accent. Karen Farnsworth came to us from Missouri, and taught in Australia last year, at the AMQF in Adelaide, so this was the second time I had attended her classes. There were more than 50 people attending the classes, from all states of Australia, and New Zealand. We all learnt lots about what our machines are capable off, and there were many lightbulb moments.

The class setup.

Some of the class in the foyer during the breaks, and a chance for networking with each other.

This photo is of some of the girls who come to Bordertown for the Statler Gatherings, and we had our photo taken with the teachers. We are looking forward to our next gathering in October, and will have much to talk about from the classes.

The catering for this conference was amazing, as you can see in the photos below.

On Monday evening DD3 and DSIL came to take me out for dinner, in a restaurant not far away.
We had a great catch up and it was good to see them.

Wednesday morning it was time to pack up and head home. We caught the sky bus to the airport again. Although the weather had been very cold during our time in Melbourne, the rain had held off, until Wednesday morning, Apparently we missed some very wet weather in South Australia during our absence.

The clouds out of the plane window, that look just like cotton wool.

That concludes my report on my few days away. It has been back into action since my return, with Max getting some edge to edge jobs done and a few customers picking up quilts that had been finished before I went away. This afternoon I have sat in the chair at the hairdressers, and had a long overdue "renovation". And looking back at the photo above, I probably should have made time much earlier. It might be a good idea to schedule an appointment into the diary in future??

I will be back soon with some more quilt photos, as once again there are a lot "unblogged" ones.

Blessings, From Jude