Sasiko Quilting on my quilt

Well here we are Easter is just about over and finally we have had some rain and the cooler weather seems to have finally arrived, fingers crossed.  Of course the rain and cooler weather means that I have been out in the garden and not stitching, but soon the ground will be to cold and I like to get my plants started now so that they will survive the hot weather next summer better.

I have also started hand quilting  a quilt which I made to go on my bed as a bed spread.  I am putting shasiko quilting in the plain squares, I am using our Primke over dyed perle 8 cotton.  I got the idea from the Quilted Kimono a quilt designer in Queensland, she uses our threads on some of her designs and I thought it looked really good.  Well decide for your selves I have included some photos of my quilting (don't judge the quilting to harshly this is my first attempt).

 Oh and because I was short of a fabric I stenciled this one, and then quilted the outline of the dragonfly.  I am still deciding if I am going to do the butterflies as well, this could be an ongoing project for a while.

Well hopefully next time I can show you some progress on my schwalm.

Oh and I nearly forgot we have started doing a mock up layout for out stall at the Quilt and Craft show in Melbourne in July.  So if you are going we hope to see you at stall C24 to catch up.

Up date on Schwalm project

We have a large Pine tree opposite our house and the other day some Cockatoos came to feast on the pine nuts.  They looked like exotic flowers, one year a whole flock came and almost turned the tree white.  I took some photos, this time there were only 4 or 5 but you can see they are enjoying themselves.

As promised here is the first of my progress pictures of my Schwalm center.  I have withdrawn the threads for the hem, mitred the corners and cut and cut and pulled back the threads for the decorative hem (corners only so they can be tucked under the hem.)  I have also hemmed 2 sides.  Does not look like much, but as you all know it takes quite some time.

Hope to show you more next time and also the quilt that I am working on.

New Schwalm project

This year we have all three decided to work on a Schwalm Whitework table center each.  Schwalm white work or Hessen stickerei as it is know in Germany, where this lovely style of embroidery comes from is a form of both surface and counted embroidery.  So far I have just mitred the corners, remembering to take lots of photos for the notes (not very interesting ones).  I will post some of the work in progress as I go along.

My bell pull

I do have a few photos of the bell pull and goldwork that Monika and I finished late 2012

Monika's Goldwork bycicle

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote to say she was working on it for the Tour Downunder and here we are they are racing again next week.  Hope the weather stays not to hot for them.

If you have not looked at our web site lately, I have slowly been adding some colour cards.  I have just finished Colour Streams, have added buttons and am in the middle of adding Mill Hill beads.  I hope to this year finally finishing them all, but by saying so have perhaps just ill wished my self.

Hi I am back

Well here I am again finally, my but the last 6 months have just flown by.  The last time I was taking pictures of the cyclamen in our garden just coming into bloom, I was going to post the photos to show you how they had inspired me, well maybe later.

 We then got very busy with our stand at the Adelaide Craft and Quilt fair, getting ready for it, deciding what to take, setting up and then putting everything back to more time than you would think.









Us setting up at the Craft and Quilt Fair

Gunter at the stand on the first day for the fair.



Well we hope to get better at it as we will be going to the Melbourne Craft and Quilt fair in July, we hope to see you there.  And if there is anything you would like to see on our stand either our kits or other threads, beads etc let us know and we will see what we can do.

Peek at our 'Studio'

I thought you might like to take a look at our new 'Studio', I call it that with tongue firmly in cheek, as it is our bed room with table set up for our class.  It is small but well up to having 6 girls stitching plus Monika and myself, plus assorted 'staff'.

The photo shows it only set up with the small table, we can add another long table which lets some of the girls us a sewing machine as well.

Here is one of the 'staff' on the sewing machine very busy stitching, ha ha.

Well I will be able to show you my completed bell pull soon, I have just to hem it.  Also there are some new colours from Gumnut Yarns which I will upload for you.  They come in all weights of her threads and look great.

New Cyer classes

Hi all,

I have just updated the Class page with the details for the next lot of cyber classes, these will be a more advanced piece of Myreska and a Crewel piece called 'Exotic Bird ' which is a bag but can be finished as a cushion if you like.

Later in the year I hope to teach the Hardanger bell pull that I am working on at the moment and a stumpwork piece that uses only Gumnut Stars, a lovely hand dyed silk thread that is a dream to work with (my opinion only).

On another note we have just paid our deposit for the Craft and Quilt fair to be held in Adelaide in November, I will give you more details such as stand number etc closer to the time.  Hope you come and see us there.

Hi all,

Well I was wrong things are still not back to normal, just when we thought we had every thing set up we were invaded by some very particular mice.  They came along one night and picked some of our Kacoonda silk threads as bedding and left us the tags.  So while we admire their choice of threads, they walked past other silks and wools, we had to make everything mouse proof.

Well now fingers crossed we should start making progress.  Our classes have settled in well and I am slowly updating our web site, adding more photos and colour cards, let me know what you think and what other information you would like to see.

I am working in our next lot of Cyber class information and will be publishing it soon.