Fashionably late - and a new Quilt Show fashion?

I'd just about abandoned the idea of writing a wrap-up post on the Sydney Quilt and Craft Show when this arrived in my Inbox. 

Well (I thought to myself) if it's not too late for a sophisticated soul like Molli Sparkle to do a post on  how he made and used his cute mini quilt / sash at the show, then who am I, a card-carrying member of the glitterati, to beat myself up over being just a tad late to the party?

I've been itching to cut into my FQ bundle of Emma Jean Jansen's Terra Australis, but I'm waiting till Terra Australis 2 is released shortly and I can add some of her extra colours to my fabric palette. 

For now, however, I gave that itch a little scratch by snipping off some teensy weensy pieces of said Terra Australis to foundation paper piece a name tag with my Instagram handle so any of the Sydney quilters I 'play' with on Instagram but haven't met in real life might identify me and say 'hi'.

The 'wing span' of each of those flying geese is approximately 1/4 inch, so I can safely say I still have oodles of my special fabric left.

My name tag worked! Apart from catching up with old friends like Jen, Sel, Michelle, Lissa Jane, Heather, Lisa, a couple of Sues (and more), the lovely Louisa and Lorena recognized me too, as did the delightful Molli, seen here helping our group of three Di's and a Sue take a #selfiewithsparkle

Sue Miller, of Fabric Garden, the 'fabric enabler' from whom I bought my Terra Australis bundle, had plenty to tempt us, and Di B, Sue M and I happily scrambled to sign up for her 6 month Mini Quilt Club using patterns by Julie Herman (Jaybird quilts). We also came home with Jaybird Quilts' Hex 'n' More rulers in both the full size and the mini. Sue's stall was an absolute delight!

A few new fat quarters from here and there might ... (ahem) ... have come home with me too.

Helen Godden had me dreaming of owning a Sweet Sixteen quilter after her fabulous demonstration, but unless I win the lottery that won't be happening any time soon.

And with next year's St Luke's fundraising stall already on my mind I bought patterns from Cameron - James Designs to make the adorable Digby the Dog and Stripes the Cat. It was so hard to choose from this wall of cuties!

I didn't receive permission from Paddington Patchworker Isabella Klompe to share her quilt until after I had done my previous post on Quilt Show favourites, so here it is now, a pretty fantasy in black and white.

And did I mention fashion? Here's the selvedge skirt I made to wear on the first day.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then my friend Linda, who inspired me, can take a big, deep bow. 

Her Name Dropper skirt, which she made to wear to the AQS Quilt Show at Paducah earlier this year, was A line, but I felt a straight, pencil skirt might look better on me.

Before I started I sorted my obscenely large collection of selvedges into colour piles. I'd decided on a rainbow colour scheme, with the full spectrum running across both the front and the back.

 

In a similar fàshion to Linda I sewed selvages together, end to end, to get strips of each colour long enough to reach from waistline to hem. When I use selvedges I like to leave at least half an inch of coloured fabric attached.

From my commercial straight skirt pattern I cut 3 base pieces from some neutral yardage that had been in my cupboard for ages. Since it was going to be covered up the pattern wasn't important as long as it was pale enough not to show through.

I started from the side edges, working in, covering the base fabric with selvages. To help keep my strips relatively straight up and down I pressed a seam down the centre of the front piece, and used my tape measure to measure and pin one selvedge at a time all the way down before machining.

For the two back skirt pieces I used the centre back edge as a guide to keep my selvedges straight, until the base pieces were completely covered with selvedges.

I sewed as close as possible to the neat edge of the selvedge, being careful to cover and catch the raw edge of the previously sewn selvedge underneath.

Once all three skirt pieces were covered I turned them to the reverse side and trimmed off the excess selvedges to make them the exact size and shape of the pattern pieces. Then I sewed darts, inserted the back zip and finished the skirt following the pattern instructions, with just one variation - I left the waist of the skirt without a band attached, and simply trimmed off the hem edge to a suitable length. Then I bound both the waistline and the bottom edge of the skirt using a nice black Japanese fabric whose origin escapes me right now.

In keeping with the selvedge theme, when Di B and I went back the next day I wore the selvedge Stable Bag that I made last year. Selvedge overload? Quite possibly!

Let me leave you with one final colourful pic from the quilt show, the brilliant sunset we enjoyed as we waited at Glebe Island, footsore and happily weary, for the ferry to take us home.

Gifted

How blessed am I? I've been spoiled with some pretty special gifts recently.

My friend Di B recently surprised me with this cute Edith Bag she made from pretend selvedge fabric. She knows what a selvedge 'tragic' I am😊

It was designed by Edith Bieri of QuiltsUndMehr and you can find a tutorial to make your own here on Linda Hungerford's blog

I love 'just because' gifts. Especially when they're as pretty as this. Thank you, Di.

Not a personal gift, but a couple of months ago Anorina, Samelia's Mum offered to give these pretty little items on Facebook to the first Follower who could identify what they were. Can you guess?

Yes, they're holders for grasping hot saucepan handles! I guessed correctly, and I now these humble little items grace my kitchen bench and make me smile me every day. Thank you, Anorina, I love Flower Sugar 😊

Most recently my young friend, artist Jo Chew, ink-painted this amazing picture of my darling Chester and gave it to me the week he turned 5.

She's totally captured his shiny black coat in this typical Chester pose, and I'm as much in love with her exquisite painting as I am with the real Chester. Thank you, Jo.

Finally, I was just a bit excited when our local real estate agents, Martin Property, approached me a few weeks ago and asked if they could feature me in our neighborhood magazine as Local of the Month for July. 

It took me a whole nanosecond to think about it!

I've never been called a 'superstar' before, but I could get used to it😄.

I am indeed a passionate 'Zetlander'. Every day is a gift living here, and I'm so grateful to God that Chester and I are part of such a friendly neighborhood.

A Weekend Making a Stable Bag = A recipe for restoring one’s equilibrium

Take nine delightful quilters (Sue’s missing from the photo).

A gracious hostess, Margaret, content to sit and sew hexagons and keep Matilda and Chester happy.

Two whole days at Di B’s cosy harbourside home, taking over her sitting room.

A little bit of silliness (of course!)

And the opportunity to sew a Stable Bag - a project that’s been on all our Bucket Lists for ages – while having our hands held by a friend who’s already made several herself.

It was too good to pass up!  It’s been ages since I’ve had a needle and thread in my hands and I tend to get a little twitchy if I go too long without stitching. Do you?

You’ll see versions of this nifty bag everywhere on the internet, including this jazzy one here, but while everybody loves the design it’s had the (deserved) reputation of being a notoriously challenging pattern to make up.

Daphne showed us how to make a version with outside pockets using a Cathedral Window-type fold-down edging, something I haven’t seen elsewhere.

Our feature panels couldn’t have been more varied, but every single one was such a beauty. Janet’s panel (above) has been in her cupboard for many years just waiting for that special project to come along.

Don’t you agree, Pam’s golden oriental fabric looks fabulous edged in bright red?

Here’s Desley’s, teamed with a rich burgundy co-ordinating fabric.

Glenda was our first finisher.

Then Gillian (above). And then Di B (below).

Mine was just a little different because I chose to use strips from my selvage box to create my feature panel. I really like it .

By the afternoon of day two we were able to line up our bags for this photo, and feel mighty pleased with our results.

After two days by Sydney Harbour in the company of cheerful ladies, stitching my selvage-style Stable Bag, I confess I’m feeling much more stable myself .

Thank you, Di, Margaret (and Matilda) for hosting this wonderful weekend.

 Di

Di J’s and Di B’s Big Day Out

In the pre-dawn gloom on Friday Di B and I were grinning like cheshire cats as my DH drove us to the airport for our 7am flight.

In my bright pink coat, toting my selvage bag, and accompanied by that very colourful character Di B, we might have been just a little conspicuous on the plane amid a sea of dark suits hunched silently over their iPads reading the Sydney Morning Herald on their way to conduct business in Melbourne.

We were on our way to the Melbourne Quilt and Craft Fair for the day, and in particular to see the Victorian Quilters’ Guild Fabric of Society Challenge quilts.

This challenge involved making a quilt inspired by, recreated or adapted from any quilt published in quilt historian Dr Annette Gero’s book, The Fabric of Society – Australian Quilt Heritage from the Convict Times to 1960.

Months ago I had entered a photo of my Scrappy Hexagon quilt, a version of Kerry Dear’s Candied Hexagons, and was amazed when my quilt was accepted.

Long-time followers of this blog will recall that Candied Hexagons was inspired by the Frederica Josephson quilt (shown here) in Annette Gero’s book.

I’ve never entered a quilt in an exhibition before, so it’s somewhat ironic that my first entry should be a quilt that was not made for competition and was only meant to cover my knees as I watched TV on winter evenings. It’s not show-perfect, but it does fit the criteria for this challenge, and my highest hope was simply to see it displayed with others similarly inspired by antique quilts.

Consequently as I sent my quilt off I had visions of the lovely ladies opening the box, throwing up their hands in horror at my workmanship, and putting it quietly aside. Di B was the only person I told about my entry, and she insisted on coming to Melbourne with me to share the experience.

Best of all, good friend that she is, she promised not to laugh if my quilt wasn’t hung.

To see my Scrappy Hexagons (as I now call it) hanging in the exhibition space, alongside other much more exquisitely executed quilts , was an absolute thrill for this novice.  Can you tell?

Does everyone who enters a quilt for the first time feel the same way, I wonder?

The winning quilt, and Best of Show in the Fabric of Society Challenge, was Dear Prudence by Linda White, and it was stunning!

Those are 1/4 inch hexagons, 17,977 of them, patiently stitched together with more than 500,000 stitches over 12 months. You can read about the making of this quilt on Linda’s blog here.

As I was taking this photo a lady beside me commented, “I don’t usually like machined quilts, but this one’s really good”. She was somewhat taken aback when I explained that it was in fact handmade. Congratulations, Linda!

The “icing on the cake” is that my humble Scrappy Hexagons quilt will spend next year travelling, with Linda’s magnificent Dear Prudence and the other beauties in the Fabric of Society Challenge, to the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne and then to the Quilt and Craft Fairs all over Australia.

Such exciting news inspired a little silliness   *

We don’t get out much (lol!). My quilt, however, will make up for that next year.

And since we were indeed at a Craft Fair, we also managed a little lot of shopping, lunching and meeting up with two dear friends that I’ve known for several years online but had never met in person – Lynda and Neroli. There were hugs all round, and so much excitement that I completely forgot to take photos before we had to leave on a jet plane to fly home again for dinner.

As you do.

Di

* Quilt Police please note – It might not look like it, but in fact no quilts were touched in the taking of these photographs!