We make quilts for all sorts of reasons. This one came under the heading of “because I wanted to”. I have long admired Lone Star quilts, generally hand pieced and traditionally quilted, but it wasn’t until I saw the Plains and Pine Big Sky Star quilt pattern, that I was moved to actually make one. This is almost an old quilt for me. I completed it about a year ago, but just hadn’t blogged about it as it was about to hit the show circuit (where it did pretty well), and I wasn’t in a place to work through what…
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It is currently December, and so quilting plans for the new year have begun to pop into mind. Over the past few years I have been interested in doing a temperature quilt, and so planning this in December, ready to kick off in January seems to be the logical thing. But I am starting with some questions (in no particular order): What is a temperature quilt? First thing first – what is this? When I was growing up, stuck to the wall next to the phone was dad’s rain chart. Each morning he would wander out to the garden and…
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I was influenced. You know when you go to the shows, and watch the demonstrations and write the user case in your head to convince yourself that this is something that you “need”. It has turned out that this thing I bought myself (as a reward for something, could have been surviving a Monday), is worth every cent. I bought myself an AccuQuilt. I now have a collection of dies and a head full of ideas of how I want to use it, both for traditional reasons, but also to have a play with something new and play with colour…
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I have been quilting for decades, but it took me becoming actively involved in my local guild before I would even consider entering my work in an exhibition. The first “exhibition” I entered in was for the completed Down the Rabbit Hole quilt top, with Sarah Fielke. At the end of each year Sarah runs an online gallery-style exhibition for her completed block of the month quilts and quilt tops (from any year). I had managed to keep up with the block of the month journey (2017 must have been a quiet twelve months), so I entered the completed top…
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One of the things I am working on at the moment is a beginners class. In some ways I am lucky, I am working to a framework provided to me as this is also a pathway to becoming an accredited teacher through my local guild, Canberra Quilters. But me being me, I have also been having a long term conversation about what should be in and out and the general vibe of beginners classes. Back in the olden days when I did my first sampler quilt (I think it was 1997 or 1998), the range of fabrics available in Australia…