Doodles

At guild this week we were fortunate to have Bonnie McCaffery as the speaker, she showed us slides of her quilts from the beginning of her quilting journey up to the present day. One of the workshops she teaches is 'doodleszendotz' which starts off with a doodle. Doodles are such fun to work with, several of my prizewinning quilts were started as a doodle namely 'mollusc' and 'gourd', you will find photos and closeups of these quilts on my blog.
Bonnie's talk also prompted me to show you a new photo of one of my earlier quilts 'nostalgic roses' which won an award back in 2004.
Regards Elizabeth.

A wonderful retreat

This weekend I went on a quilting retreat which I have attended yearly for the past 9 years. It was wonderful. I always look forward to this retreat, a chance to catch up with friends, sit sewing all weekend without any other responsibilities and delicious meals I don't have to prepare myself - a quilters heaven.
 I spent the time working on my flower meadow quilt and achieved my goal to finish the applique of all the dresden flowers using needle-turn. The next stage of this quilt is to design some flowers to add by embroidery and sashiko but this coming week will be quite busy so I don't know when that will happen.
Karen says I should put some more photos up to show you, maybe next week I will have more time to do that.
Regards Elizabeth. 

Barossa day trip

Yesterday we went on a lovely drive through the Adelaide hills to visit quilt exhibitions in the Barossa valley. It was a beautiful day and all the autumn foliage was in full color. Our first stop was Jenny's sewing centre in the main street of Angaston where there were some beautiful quilts. Several of these had exquisite machine embroidery. Needless to say the shop had some fabulous fabric that I couldn't resist. Further down the street we visited the Vine Patch Quilters exhibition where we had delicious tea and scones after viewing the quilts. This time quite a few of the quilts had hand embroidery in the blocks. The next stop was the beautiful display of quilts at the Barossa Quilt Cottage. I enjoyed seeing so many of Michele Hill's quilts together in one place and also some of Lorraine Cocker's recent work. I particularly liked Lorraine's "Little Speckled Bird" quilt, the applique blocks were just lovely.
All together we had an enjoyable quilty day out.
Regards Elizabeth.

Flower meadow

This is what I am calling my new quilt in Mckenna Ryan fabrics. I have finished the dresden plate flowers and have made a start appliquing them by  needleturn which I have chosen for portability so I can take the project with me on a retreat which is comming up soon. I am really pleased with how it is looking and because I am excited about it I spend every spare moment on it and so it grows quickly.
Another thing I did this week was to make myself a proper design wall. You'd think I would have something so vital to designing but no, I have been accustomed to pinning pieces to a quilt which hangs in my workroom, that worked OK but was far from ideal. Last weekend I taught a workshop where there was designwalls for all the students and it was fantastic so this has prompted me to finally make a proper one for myself. All it took was a piece of light plywood, a piece of batting, a staplegun and a small amount of time, well worth the effort.
Regards Elizabeth.

Nursery Quilts

This week I've added some photos of nursery quilts to the gallery page. These are both small wallhangings that I've made years ago. The cat & the fiddle is from a very old childrens picture-book that I no longer have and I made it for my daughter when she was small. The Crooked Man is my own interpretation of the nursery rhyme of the same name. Also new this week are a close-up of Roses N Cream on the patterns page and Flower Gems which won an award in 2008 on the home page. I hope you enjoy them.
Regards Elizabeth.

A new quilt for myself

A few weeks ago I showed a friend the lovely McKenna Ryan fabrics in the shop and I just couldn't get them out of my mind. I've always loved the beautiful soft blends of color that McKenna designs and I finally succumbed to the temptation to use them in a quilt. I have decided on large blocks to show the fabrics to advantage and am making a king size quilt broken down into quilt as you go sections for easier quilting.  It will have appliqued flowers scattered all over in a random manner. this quilt and the  labyrinth quilt are both at the forefront of my mind at the moment so it will be interesting to see which gets finished first. Of course they are both competing with other quilts I am working on for patterns. Life is always full and interesting with so many quilts to make isn't it.
Regards Elizabeth.

close up photos on gallery and block of the month pages

Check out the new photos I have added this week. I've also found a photo of my assistant putting her paw of approval on the quilt I made for my niece a few years ago so here she is.
regards Elizabeth.