Good Weekend - 1984 revisited

The Good Weekend magazine (distributed with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne) is celebrating 25 years of publications. In a special edition to mark the occasion, GW took us back to significant events of 1984, including the scene in "A Country Practice" when Molly Jones died. At first glance it looks as though Molly's sofa is covered with a quilt, but on closer inspection it looks more like a fabric with a patchwork print. Does anyone remember?

"Dear Jane" in glass .....

You know how quilters take inspiration from all over, and translate designs and artworks into quilts? Here's someone who has taken inspriation from Jane Stickle's Civil War quilt, and translated it into glass!

The X block files ......

This simply elegant quilt top was made by Dina from strip sets sewn from just three coordinating fabrics, cross-cut into squares - it has no angled seams.


Using the same technique, Lynette's black and white strip sets became these blocks (displayed on a design wall consisting of the underside of a flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth):

And Pam's tan and cream blocks (note there are two sets) became the complex woven design below:

How can this be?

On Tuesday evening, Dina showed us how to use an X-block ruler:

Bev produced these classic blue and yellow combinations, and is deciding which way she wants the lines to run in the finished quilt.

Marijke chose pretty pink and cream:

Heather made a variation, with a narrow centre strip in earthy tones:

And Noelle began with true nine patches, with a subtle pattern in the centre, and a jade "zinger". The blocks are set in the same arrangement as Lynette's black and whites above, and Dina's finished top (first picture):

Very intriguing .......

a little sew and tell .....

Louise used up some Japanese scraps to produce these beautiful liitle tessalating pinwheels

... with big-stitch quilting ....

and a an equally gorgeous backing.

Marijke's still using her wedge ruler - here's Christmas table runner number 2. Nice fabrics!

Australasian Quilt Convention 2010 class bookings open

If you are thinking about going to the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne, April 29 - May 02, 2010, you might need to think about booking for any classes you want to take now - online bookings are open, and apparently they are filling fast. Early Bird rates close on 30th November.

There's lots of other information about all aspects of the Convention and Expo on the ACQ website.

Auction starts on Friday 27th November

The Bid-4A-Cause auction of 14 art quilts begins this Friday, 27th November. Check the details of how to make a bid or follow the auction at the Bid-4A-Cause blog.

Sew and tell, 17th November .....

Pam wondered what to do next with her nine-patch and snowball centre - not sure that we can up with anything useful, but we liked what she's done already.

Marijke likes her Christmas table runner so much that she "ran up" another one in stylish black and white.

Jo did something clever with strip pieced wedges, and produced her Christmas tree skirt!

Those wedge rulers are getting a good workout with great results.

...... and of course Jo's Cutout Magic ferns have their curved borders, are quilted, and will by now be hanging on the wall.

Janet's braid-bordered, barn-raising set log cabins with crazy-heart centres needed many pins .....

Jill's raspberry and lime disappearing 9 patch is quite "loud", so the quilting, by Jo (Quiltwise) is deliberately understated, but striking

Jane's choice of the subtly-patterned blue fabric gives a different look to her X-block top - borders to be added. Dina and Jane are going to show us all how to do it this week.

Heather's Cutout Magic top is finished, including the free-curved borders.

Heather's Canadian calendar quilt has been a long term project (also quilted by Jo from Quiltwise). She plans to add the initials of her Canadian friends to the blocks corresponding to their birthdays.

Elle's Cutout Magic blocks are all cut out and fused down - her fabric choices have really paid off.

Dina's wedges from a couple of weeks ago are now an elegant table runner and table mats - lots of binding to sew down.

And her Christmas quilt has been embellished with seed beads, bugle beads, sequins and pearls - great fun!

A fun slide show of quilts from the Guild

What Tickles Your Fancy was the NSW Quilters Guild for 2009. The thirty one entries can be viewed here as a slideshow in Picasa (click on the slideshow icon, and set the timer to about 10 seconds for time to read the captions as the slides automatically transition). There are some familiar names amongst the quilters.

Cut-out Magic workshop with Lisa Walton

Lisa is an award winning quilter and textile artist, maker and seller of hand dyed fabric and beads, and a very popular tutor. Her Sydney-based business is Dyed and Gone to Heaven, and her blog is Fibre Inspirations (both are now linked permanently in the right hand column)

Fifteen of us from both Monday and Tuesday groups had a fabulous day with Lisa yesterday, doing her Cut-out Magic workshop - we learned a lot, worked hard, produced the beginnings of some fabulous quilts, and really enjoyed the day. Thoroughly recommended. Lisa teaches all over Australia, and internationally, so we were lucky to have her for her very last workshop of what has been a busy year.

She has invited us to her first ever Studio Sale in Sydney, 28th-29th November - see the announcement on Fibre Inspirations for details.

We weren't quite sure how we we were going to produce anything like Lisa's samples in just one workshop!

Jane did such diligent cutting-out that she killed her scissors .....

.... and a few fingers seemed to have very close encounters with the craft irons!


We were delighted to have our youngest member, Elle, with us - she's very interested in design, as you can see from her work below.

Step one ....

We tested our design wings with paper cut-outs under Lisa's careful eye, before risking our fabrics. Then we progressed with paper from simple geometric cuts to more complex and organic shapes. Here are a few examples, by Elle, Margaret, Elaine and Elle again:

The results .....

And here are some close-ups of what we actually made with our fabric - by the end of the day we all had at least part of our quilt top fused with out cut-out design in our second fabric. Several of us opted to ease into the technique with variations on our first paper cut-out exercise, while others threw caution to the wind let their imaginations fly.

Heathers' curved triangles demonstrate the grid layout of the blocks with her high contrast fabric choices.

Phyl chose complementary aqua and purple with good contrast, and she was careful with the iron!

Noelle chose a lovely combination of jade and mauve. We used tweezers to place the smaller fabric pieces accurately.

Bev's background fabric recalled reeds and water, so she cleverly cut out fish to swim through the depths .....

But when she turned it through 90 degrees, we thought they were surfing.

Dawns' design required great care with those delicate, tiny pieces ....

Dina's bold colour contrast sings .....



Elaine's background fabric is beautiful, and this design was her first attempt with paper, translated to fabric.


It took a while to "get" how to work out the placement of pieces. This is Georgie's lovely lolly pink on aqua, with the design just emerging .....

Elle didn't hesitate with safe and easy .... her design is stunning and she was quick!

Helen chose a gorgeous coral and olive combo .....

No wonder Jane killed the scissors ...... look at all those intricate pieces!

Jill chose two of Lisa's hand dyes, and cut-out onion dome shapes ....

Here Louise has two intricate blocks laid out, and the next two cut ........

Margaret chose high contrast fabrics, and designed a leaf-inspired cut-out that produced some unexpectedly complex of shapes

And Jo was the only one who completed all nine blocks! Her cut-out fern fronds echo the print of her background fabric.

Thanks Lisa for a most enjoyable day, and Georgie for organising it all.