I thought many of the NSW Tatters' Guild members would be entering their tatted pieces to the 125th Castle Hill Show
in April this year. But I was wrong.!! As a member, I haven't been
contributing much to the Guild mostly because of my commitments to
both work and home.
So, I have decided to take this opportunity to contribute and have
been madly tatting up a storm in my spared time during the past
week. I needed to hand the tatted pieces to the Guild's Show
Director this afternoon, so have finished the sixth piece this
morning and I'm tatted 'out'.!! In total, I have tatted 3 small
doilies and 3 bookmarks. I have mixed and matched the designs to
make them my own and have given each piece a name to make it easy to
refer to. In the process, I have found myself enjoying tatting with
beads. They add dimensions to the pieces, I think. I'm now getting
on with my quilt and hope to finish it in time to enter to the Sydney Quilt Show.
The Show is in June but the closing date for entries is in 2 weeks
(11th March 2011), the day before I fly to Seattle, WA, for GHME 2011 Conference.
My toes are tightly crossed, my fingers are very busy sewing, my
brain is sorting through the tasks to be done for work, and I'm loving
it all.
Everyone in my household loves Charlie and Lola. We went to 'Charlie and Lola's Best Bestest Play' at the Sydney Opera House in the middle of last month (January 2011). After the show finished, we collected some 'Charlie and Lola's butterflies' from the floor of the Play House to come home with us for scrapbooking. I took the opportunity to make a template of the butterfly. I then appliqued different colours of the shape on my black apron that I have made from the thick material, mixed between hem and linen, left over from when I was re-covering our dining chairs at home. I wear the apron when I'm in my sewing room. It helps to keep loose threads and sharp pins from catching onto my clothes and, subsequently, scattering around my home, everywhere I go. It is acutally absolutely definitely my favourite apron - I'm starting to sound like Lola.....!!
After returning from France at the end of 2010 and wanting to get back into my sewing room as quick as I could, I have decided to piece this quilt top using a jelly roll from Moda Birdie range by Me and My Sister. I have got a pattern from a book called Jelly Roll Inspirations by Pam and Nicky Lintott. I was careful with the cutting and so was able to make the quilt top a little larger than the published size. I have also chosen to do the border slightly different, so the quilt top is a modified version of the one in the book. I then took the quilt top to get quilted by a computerised quilting machine hired out at Thimblelady (Liuxin Newman) shop in Thornleigh, Sydney. Liuxin was very helpful and patient with me (thanks very much, Liuxin). I was able to complete the quilt soon after I came home with the quilted quilt. It was a good learning process for me to experince the machine quilting. I have placed an order for a computerised Gammill Statler Stitcher Optimum (30-12) Model and am looking forward to having a 'play' with it after I return from France in July this year - yes I'm going back to France again in a couple of months.!! I'm now one of the Statler siblings, and am proud to be one. :-)
