Ricky Timms is coming to Australia

I was very excited to meet the extremely talented and very friendly Ricky Timms in Houston last month.  He was more than happy to pose for this photo together.  If you are not familiar with Ricky, go and check out some of his quilting and musical achievement on his website.

As I didn't take any classes with Ricky, I was thrilled to find that he will be coming to Australia next year.  Ricky is going to be teaching an all day class on Friday 28th September, 2012 at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival  at the Adelaide Convention Centre.  Registration for the Ricky Timms all day seminar "Ricky's Best Kept Secrets" opens on 15th December, 2011 through the AMQF website.  More information is also available through the AMQF Blog.

The AMQF is being run over 4 days from 28th September through to Monday 1st October, 2012.  The festival is catering for all machine quilters from Longarm quilters, Mid arm and domestic sewing machines.  If the 2010 AMQF was anything to go by, it will be another wonderful event and I am certainly looking forward to attending.

Life is a Celebration Quilt

I have just finished quilting the most amazingly detailed applique and stitchery quilt made by my customer Alison.  The quilt is a very pretty quilt in baby blues and pinks which will make a delightful quilt for a little girl.  The project was originally run through Australian Homespun as a Block of the Month raising money for research into Ovarian Cancer.

I have quilted Alison's quilt with lots of feathers, stitching around all the applique, a range of background fillers and continuous curves.  Here are a few samples of some of the wonderful blocks.

Alison has also included some beautiful hand embroidery in the quilt.  I particularly love the blue and white scrolled sashing with its delicate embroidered flowers.

The circle of flowers on the setting butterfly blocks is gorgeous too.

More photos of Alison's quilt can be found on my flickr account.

Thank you Alison - your quilt was a delight to work on and I hope you will be as thrilled with the result as I am.

Vintage Quilts of Houston Quilt Festival

It is over a week now since Mandy and I returned from our trip to Houston.  We had a wonderful time - the events certainly lived up to their reputation.  The quilt exhibition was wonderful and the standard of quilts amazingly high.  We had some fabulous longarm machine quilting classes and the booths at Quilt Festival were endless...

I must admit, however, that my favourite part were the vintage and antique quilts.  Unfortunately, we don't see many vintage quilts in Australia - we just don't have the history.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were some 8 or so booths selling vintage quilts, quilt tops, fabrics, orphan blocks and sewing notions - by the end of Quilt Festival, several of the booth owners knew me by name.

Amongst the vintage quilt booths with their wonderful treasures were:-

Cindy's Antique Quilts

Mary Koval Antique Quilts

I think my favourite purchase from Houston is the very green vintage 1930's Double Wedding Ring quilt top which I bought from Cindy's Vintage Quilts.  It is shown here by Cindy.  Eventually I intend to quilt this gorgeous quilt top.

The vintage applique quilt top below was bought by my friend Mandy, also from Cindy's Antique Quilts.

I did buy another vintage quilt top - a 1930's Eight Pointed Star Quilt shown here together with the Double Wedding Ring Quilt.

I spent the last day of Quilt Festival trying to shop with "fresh eyes" after Kathy from Patchwork House showed us some of her purchases.  Whilst I had been looking at the vintage quilts, I had completely overlooked the vintage sewing notions.  I managed to buy a lovely collection of spools, a Dutch retractable tape measure, a needle holder, thimble and needles - some great treasures.

It is back to the present and reality for now - working hard to finish numerous quilts before Christmas.

Houston International Quilt Market & Quilt Festival 2011

Only 4 more sleeps and I will be heading off to Houston with my quilting friend Mandy.  We will be going to both the International Quilt Market and Quilt Festival. 

My bags are mostly packed, everything is just about ready...  Neither of us have been to Houston before but we can't wait to see the amazing quilts, the huge number of vendors and to experience some of that famous Texas hospitality. We will also be undertaking Longarm Machine classes with tutors such as Jamie Wallen, Linda Taylor, Sue Patten and Irena Bluhm so should be coming back with lots of quilting inspiration.

I can't wait for the adventure to begin.  Is anyone else lucky enough to be going to Houston this year?

Hexagon Stars Quilt

I have recently quilted a wonderful scrappy Hexagon Star Quilt for my customer Maree.  This absolutely stunning quilt was made by Maree's patchwork group for her as a present for a significant birthday.  The quilt is completely hand pieced and has an amazing array of fabrics in it which have come together beautifully.

I have quilted this quilt with continuous curves in all the diamonds, adding loops in the diamonds which form the setting hexagons.  The loops have created a secondary design with which I was really pleased.

Many of the diamonds forming the stars in this quilt were fussy cut.  I had a hard time deciding which stars were my favourites so have made a mosaic with a lovely selection.

Maree was absolutely delighted with her finished quilt.  I believe a further five members of Maree's patchwork group are making their own versions of this wonderful quilt - I can't wait to see them.

Star Quilt

My customer Marg has been patiently waiting for me to quilt her stunning Star Quilt.  Marg's quilt is made with nine small lone star blocks, set with purple background fabric, surrounded by a green sashing and a beautiful, large Amy Butler border.  I am sure you will agree it is a striking quilt.

Marg's quilt has been quilted with a narrow piano key border, continuous curves in the diamonds of the blocks, a scroll in the narrow sashing and lots of feathers elsewhere.

To draw your eye around the quilt, I quilted spinning feathers in the setting blocks.

Enjoy your quilt Marg, it was a pleasure to work on - I hope you are as thrilled with the end result as I am.

Quilts in the Barn 2011

Quilts in the Barn 2011, organised by Linda of Quilts in the Barn is on again - the exhibition is being held from next Friday 2nd September through to Sunday 4th September, 2011.  The exhibition is a fundraiser for breast cancer research.

This year, the quilter being featured is Jo Morton.  Jo is a quiltmaker, author, teacher, lecturer, a designer for Andover Fabrics, Inc. of New York, and a student of ancestral quilt making.

Jo presents re-creations of antique quilts, imitating colors and styles of period pieces. Using an antique quilt's color and/or design as a source of inspiration, she creates an interpretation - a quilt that might have existed in the 19th Century. Her quilts are made in a lasting tradition, using new cotton fabrics, cotton batting and cotton quilting thread.

If you are a lover of vintage and reproductions quilts, then this year's Quilts in the Barn is an exhibition not to be missed.

I have recently quilted two quilts for Linda which have been made exclusively with Jo Morton fabrics.  The first quilt is a Strippy Nine-Patch Quilt.

The fabrics used are just beautiful - the quilt has been simply quilted with continuous curves, some in the ditch stitching and 1/4 inch outlining.

As described on her blog, Linda has been working hard on her Tumbler Quilt which is the second quilt I have just completed.  The Tumbler Quilt is huge - a massive 98 inches x 87 inches and an incredible 1,334 tumblers!  The quilt was too large for me to photograph in its entirety, however, here is a snippet.

In keeping with the traditional fabrics and design, the Tumbler Quilt has been quilted with Baptist Fans - one of my favourite designs for reproduction quilts.  I believe they have added some great movement to this quilt.

To see the above quilts as well as many of Jo's quilts from her personal collection, visit Quilts in the Barn.  Wishing you all the best Linda for a wonderful exhibition - may the sun shine this year!