Quilt Retreat 2009

The Pumphouse

Quilt retreat is coming! We will be holding our inaugural quilt retreat at Mannum from June 12th - 14th. We will be staying at the Pumphouse in the grounds of the Mannum caravan park on the banks of the Murray. There is dorm-style bunkhouse accommodation available or we can book you an ensuite cabin if you prefer. We have three lovely quilting projects in a variety of sizes planned for you to suit everyone from the beginner to the more advanced patchworker. Photos will follow soon but there will be a double irish chain quilt and a rising star quilt both with flying geese borders and available in two sizes and a hexagon quilt strip pieced and made from a jelly roll in a large lap size. The retreat is $170.oo and includes:

FREE bunkhouse accommodation
Pattern for your choice of project
All meals (except for Sat evening dinner - we will be going out for a lovely meal)
Tuition
A gift bag filled with goodies

There are only 20 spaces available and places are filling fast - please call Sharon on 0411 268 924 to secure your place and join us for a lovely fun filled weekend doing something that you love!

View of the Murray from the caravan park

Mum and Scarlett on the verandah of the Pumphouse

The lovely airy work room

The FREE dormstyle rooms

Antique Nine Patch Workshop

Our next workshop is going to be the lovely Antique Nine Patch quilt. It is a one day workshop and we are running two of them on the last weekend in March (28th & 29th). There are still a couple of spots available on Sunday so be quick and call Sharon on 0411 268 984 to secure your place. The cost of the workshop is $50 and includes your pattern, lunch, tea and coffee and yummy cakes!

The quilt itself is rotary cut and machine pieced and is suitable for all skill levels. The finished quilt will be 56" x 56" but can easily be made larger to suit your requirements. It is comprised of a nine-patch and a diagonal cross block and can be made from scraps in your stash or purpose bought fabric. For a scrappy look, use up odds and ends from your stash or, as is my personal preference, go for the more stuctured formal look that is created when using only 4 fabrics - but each to their own! What I will say though is that the cross blocks definitely look better when there is a strong contrast between the cross fabric and the background fabric - you really need this contrast to tie the quilt together. The photos below should make all of this clearer.

This is Mum's antique nine patch. She has made it bigger by adding extra blocks - easily done and now it fits her king-size bed. Also, she has only used 4 different fabrics and has acheived a lovely structured look.

This quilt is the size that we will be doing in the workshop. I have also only used 4 fabrics.



This is the original antique nine patch that I made at a workshop with Faye Packham. You can see that I have completely lost the effect of the cross blocks in the light blue squares and the quilt looks a bit wishy-washy as a result. I learned alot about fabric selection while making this quilt!

No-waste Flying Geese

This is my favourite method for making flying geese. It is quick, you can power sew and there is no wastage!

You start with one square the width you want your finished (see note at end of post) flying geese unit to be plus 1 1/4" and four squares that are the height of the finished unit plus 7/8".
On these smaller squares you need to draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the fabric - you can use anything you like here, pencil, pen etc.

I love using the quick quarter ruler to mark my diagonal lines.

Next, with the right sides of the fabric together you place two of your ruled smaller squares on the larger square as in the picture below. They will overlap slightly.

I like to pin them as illustrated to keep them steady.

Next, you sew a scant 1/4" seam either side of the line you have drawn.

Then use your ruler and rotary cutter to cut along the line.

Press the seams towards the small triangles. You will have two units that look like this.

The next step is to line up another small square on the large triangle and again sew a scant 1/4" seam on either side of your line.

Cut along the line again to create two units.

Last step! Press the seam towards the smaller triangle. Congratulations, you have a completed flying geese unit!

Now all you have to do is trim the little triangles off. In the photo above I have trimmed 3 and left the one in the top right hand corner so you could see what they look like untrimmed.

A note on the measurements: The "finished" measurement is what you want the unit to measure after it is sewn into your quilt or project. For example, I wanted the flying geese pictured above to measure 3 3/4" wide by 2" high when sewn into the quilt, so raw they are 4 1/4 across and 5.5" high. I hope this makes sense.

Carpenter's Star Workshop Oct 2008

Well, I have finally ventured in to blog land! I have found reading other craft blogs to be so valuable that I thought I'd like to have a place to share all of the tips and great ideas that I have picked up over the years. I'm hoping that over the next couple of weeks I can add lots of pictures and links to fabulous things I have discovered in the world of patchwork and sewing - I just have to figure out how to use blogspot properly!

First, a bit about me....My name is Shontelle and I have loved making things since I was a little girl...longstitch, hobbytex, cross stitch, tassels, embroidery, ceramics, decopage - this list goes on. It wasn't until my mum, Sharon, bought me a sewing machine and signed us up for a Sampler Quilt class at our local quilt shop that I discovered patchwork and I have been an addict ever since. So much so that in 2007 Mum bought an A1 longarm machine and now runs a machine quilting business called Patchwork on Parade from home. As part of the business we hold workshops and retreats a few times a year. So apart from using the blog to share tips it will also feature details of past and future workshops.

Last October we held our first workshop and we had a blast. It was a busy, tiring day - but loads of fun. The quilt that we chose to teach was Debbie Maddy's 'Carpenter's Star'. It is a fantastic pattern that uses half square triangles to make the star - no templates or hand-piecing. It was such a thrill to watch all of the quilts take shape and to admire all of the different fabrics that the ladies had selected.


Some of the wonderful ladies at our workshop

To prepare for the workshop Mum, the fabulous Barbarella (a member of our quilting group), and I went to Wallaroo for a weekend of power sewing. Barb and I completed our 'Carpenter's Stars' (minus borders) and Mum completed her 'Antique Nine Patch' quilt, which we will be teaching at our next workshop in March.

Mum with her 'Antique Nine Patch' and Barb and I with our 'Carpenter's Stars'

Mum quilted Barb's 'Carpenter's Star' and it went on to win first prize for edge to edge quilting at the 2008 SA Quilter's Guild Exhibition

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Mum with the award winning quilt. Go Sharry!

I will be posting details for our next workshop to be held the last weekend in March soon. Talk to you then!