Flowers for Alison Block 2

This month there is some appliqué and some more piecing.  You will be making 6" finished Churndash blocks and 6" finished Ohio stars.  The churn dash blocks will eventually border the Flame Flower Block but not this month so just put all the blocks aside for now.  

Please note that the pattern for Machine appliqué and needle turn appliqué are the same this month.

I'm Published - Footprints in the Sand

During the Christmas School Holidays I worked on a quilt for Handmade Magazine.  In February it was shipped off and it has been a long 6 months or so waiting for the magazine to be published.

My subscription copy of Handmade Vol 33 12 arrived on Tuesday and I opened it to page 28 to see a fantastic photo of the quilt and the instructions that I worked on all those months ago.

Here is a photo I took of the quilt before it was sent off.

Reminder to Download Month 1 of Flower for Alison it expires 1 August.

Just a reminder that you have just over a week to download the first month's pattern for Flowers for Alison.  Get all the information here and download the patterns for month 1.   If you miss out you can still purchase the patterns for each expired month from my Etsy shop after 1 August.

Here is month 2 and there will be some filler blocks to piece as well.  

Jen Kingwell Class at Hetties

What an amazing weekend.  Love the class, love the quilts which look so much more in real life than on a pattern or in the book and it was just a great relaxed and informative class.

Jen is my type of quilter and teacher.  She uses lots of fabric in her quilts and doesn't sweat the small stuff... something I am learning to do ... and she is happy to give all her secrets in class  and doesn't worry if her students still do it their way ... which I did with appliqué because I've tried her method and it doesn't work for me but there was still a lots more to learn.

Over the 2 days we picked up lots of tips for hand stitching, appliqué, quilting and putting the quilt together, far more than I thought I would.

Here are her quilts that were on display during the weekend, just amazing.  I may just have come away with a few patterns to add to the todo list.

On the mend but still not right

Last week the whole family came down one by one with a flue type bug, it included 2 to 3 days of high fever and then progressed into head or chest colds.  DH and myself have taken longer to recover from this wonderful bug than the kids and in fact there were a couple of days that they sort of had to fend for themselves.   I can't say that I am 100% over it judging by a trip to the city yesterday for a dentist appointment for squid that left me exhausted and needing to go to bed at 8.30.  I also managed to sleep in and be late for work today.  Just really over feeling BLAH.  I headed to the chemist to get some probiotics to try and help my gut which I think is causing the majority of the BLAH feelings.

There has been some sewing done and the appliqué section of block 2 is now complete, I just need to decide how many filler blocks to include which will depend on how much sewing I do this weekend.  Next weekend is the Jen Kingwell Workshop so no sewing will be done on my BOM and most of next week will be taken up with School Holiday activities that the kids have missed out on this week due to us all feeling poorly.  

If you have any progress photo's of the Block 1 send them to me or share a link I'd love to see them.  And if anyone has any questions please let me know.  So far the youtube video has been a bit of a miss but we will get there eventually.  I did tried some video's last weekend but I couldn't talk and all the sound was of me heavy breathing which just sounded too creepy.

I see some classes in my future

That is I'm taking a couple of classes not teaching.

Jen Kingwell in a couple of weeks.  After finding out which project we will be doing, I have just surveyed the stash for the what I might use and I think I may need to go shopping for backgrounds.

In August I will be doing a class with Wendy Williams can't wait for both of these don't know what the project will be but I have a reasonable stays of wool felt and threads so all is cool.

Touch Base

Hows the BOM coming, anyone started yet or do you have some questions?  I have started working on a how to video on the weekend but I think I need some help from the filmmaker in the family.  Will keep working on it over the next couple of weeks school holidays start next week so the film director will be available pretty much full time if I can pry him off Steam.

This week is my last week for the Skill Builder Class and the girls are making great progress with their blocks.  This week we talk about block settings, and I have put all the class sample blocks into a small quilt on point.  This mean if teach this class again I will have to make some more class samples next time, I don't think it will be until next year though so I will have a bit of time up my sleeve.  

Once again I have enjoyed teaching this class and giving my students the confidence to branch out and try more techniques after mastering the basics of putting a quilt together in the beginners class.  It also highlights how by changing the light, medium and dark placement in a block can completely change the look of the block.