Nancy Crow

In January of this year a friend and I attended a workshop with Nancy Crow . We Travelled to Upper Hutt, near Wellington in New Zealand for five days of tuition. We worked as hard as we have ever worked at anything...Nancy set up tasks which we were expected to have completed each day - this meant we were sewing into the wee small hours of the night, and then jumping out of bed each to to start bright and early with the next day's challenges.

We learnt so much, not only about color and design, but also many practical sewing tips, studio design and general information.

Our final task was a huge one, we had 48 hours to get it done!!!! Most of us got the "big idea" sorted out for our final piece, and then some construction started.

I cam home, life took over and my piece sat on the design wall for months.

But now, am taking advantage of some unexpected time at home to complete my piece - this shows one of the final seams being sewn.

We needed to take about 100 1 yard pieces of solid colored fabric - 100 different colors. My friend and I almost managed to achieve that, and we still didn't always have the right color when we needed it!!!
But as Nancy says "Just do it!" so we did.
Would I go again?
Absolutely, even though it was exhausting, emotional and challenging.

A big one to tick off my bucket list!

"Centenary of federation"

On a roll....why do we leave things unfinished??? This one needed about 2 hours of stitching and now is ready for quilting (which I am going to do myself!)

The Centenary of Federation in Australia was celebrated in 2001. To commemorate this event I joined a fabric swap, you had to use fabric in one of the "Centenary of Federation" colors. I think there were 100 swappers in the swap.

I combined my fabrics with a piece I created at a class with Susan Matthews at the Dookie Quilting Weekend held that year (from memory). Then I added some gum leaves and a tiny bit of machine embroidery.


(sorry, this one of the centre is a bit blurry, you don't need to adjust your glasses)


Once quilted I will hang it in my office at school for a while.

"Summer's end"

I bought this as a kit at the Houston International Quilt Festival three years ago on my first trip to the USA (Hawaii doesn't really count, does it?). I had admired the quilt on display every day and on the last day, when it was 30% off I couldn't resist. I don't care that it was a kit and that there are others just like it in the world, I like it.
I have since been lucky enough to return to the USA twice, however all 3 times were at the end of summer so this is my "American Quilt" - reminding me of the color of the fall leaves. It reminds me of the color at Gettysburg, Central Park in New York, Baltimore, and Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona. I have been fortunate enough to fly from the south to the north a couple of times and watch the colors change through the plane window.



I used viseofix to affix the leaves, and then dived into my stash of variagated threads to raw edge applique them. Every time I thought I was done I found another few leaves which hadn't been stitched.


The ten foot rule applies....if it looks OK from that distance then it is OK.

Another WIP ticked off the list!

Yikes....

There I was, having a little sit down and a bit of a stitch when I heard a weird noise beside me.....

it was kind of a thump and then a scratch.....

I looked under the chair, behind the curtain and then through the window .....

I saw scales......

My heart stopped and then I realised....

It was our resident blue tongue lizard, it looked like he was trying to get inside through the window.

He is huge, about 18" long.....

The old wives say that while you have a blue tongue lizard around you won't have snakes. I hope they are right.

(Having a cup of tea to calm down.)

..and now there's Kiama

Finished is better than perfect....



all done!

and now there's Adelaide

and Adelaide's Siggi is now done - all it needed was a small border and some backing fabric..



Leftover "Pansy Park" was perfect


now to see what else I can find in those cupboards...

Tumbler quilt

and another one bites the dust....
My tumbler quilt top is done - 800+ tumblers - all reproduction fabrics. I love it!!!

Here's a close-up. Perfect border fabric bought on sale at the Cohuna quilting weekend earlier this year.

and Spotlight had suitable backing fabric on sale this morning....I needed 7.5 metres of backing fabric!! This is a BIG quilt!