Time flies

From the beginning of September to the first half of November, I went on four trips to different places, in different directions. A couple of extended trips were for work with a little bit of play thrown in, and the rest was short holiday break.... I never dreamt of buying a carpet in India or thought that I would make it back to San Francisco ever again, and I did (both!!). On one free morning, I even visited a fabric shop, Britex Fabrics, in San Francisco, and bought a few things, of course. :-) The experience was great, especially for the fact that I had little expectation (if any at all). Now that I have settled back into the routine at home, my wonderful Gammill Statler is having a good workout.... 

Floriade

Surfer Paradise QLD

 

My Indian breakfast

 

 

My purchase from Britex Fabrics

 

 My American breakfast (but probably not again)

 

 

A Few Train Trips with Grandma's Squares

I always like to make use of time while travelling on an extended journey by train. Crocheting Grandma's square is one of my favourite things  to do because there is sufficient lighting and I can still see what I'm doing without having to wear a pair of glasses (not yet, anyway!), and it's easily undone if I make a mistake.

Recently, I bought some colourful yarns in Fussen, Germany, and made a table runner while on the train, making my way back to Switzerland. I finished sewing in all those 'countless' tails at home. It took some amount of patience to work my way through them before it's done.

I bought some discounted yarns in Maastricht, The Netherlands while visiting my dear friend, Marijke, and made this scarf on the train, on my way back to France.... I could see from the corner of my eye that there was a pair of curious dark brown eyes observing me, and when I looked up, he asked 'why are you so furiously making a scarf when the weather is so hot?'.... I had a good laugh, and we chatted along about different things during our train journey. :-)

Back at home, I made this poncho on a few train trips to and from work. There are
eight Grandma's squares in total. Each square has 15 rows.

And, there are a few more projects on Grandma's squares for me to look forward to finishing them off. Fortunately, there are also many more train trips for me to look forward to travelling to and from places. :-)

I made it to 'Ultramod'

Last year while in Paris, I went to Ultramod, 14 Rue Monsigny, 75002 Paris, on Saturday and it was closed. The shop is only open from Monday to Friday, I found out right there and then. This year, I made a time to visit the shop on Friday. It is quite close to where I was staying in Paris. The shop is full of beautiful and colourful ribbons, trims and buttons, and scattered with those antique hat moulds, sewing machines, cash registers, etc. It would be 'a must visit' for those who are keen on hat making. I did come away with a small amount of decorative trims for small projects as it was hard to resist.

 

My 'purchase' !

'Fabulous'

A picture is worth a thousand words. And, for me, those many thousand words could be summed up in one word; fabulous. :-)

Despite the 40++C heat on the day, there was so much fun learning to make macarons with a French chef. I did get my hands dirty from the beginning to the end.

It was 'FAB'. ;-)

FRANCE: JUNE-JULY 2015

My Red and White Quilt at the Show

I left Australia for France on the first day of this year Sydney Quilt Show, so missed out on  seeing my own quilt hung at the Show. This is the second time that I missed the opportunity since I started entering my quilt to the Sydney Quilt Show in 2011. It won't be the last time, so I have to get used to the idea of me not always being around locally while the Show is on.! My drop-off lady, Kaye Graham, and my SYD-SCQuilter fellow, Marianne Roberts, kindly took a few photos of my 'Winter Star Quilt' while it was on display at the Show. I am very grateful for the photos taken by both Kaye and Marianne.

 

The Quilters' Guild of NSW has 'Red and White Online Gallery' in its August 2015 e-Newsletter. My 'Winter Star Quilt' is on page 5. 

Katie's Quilt

Katie's son was in the same class as mine when they started kindergarten 4 years ago. We have the same background for our professional training, and so are speaking the same kind of 'language', more or less. And of course, we get along well. Katie had a few attempts at getting this one quilt finished over a span of 10 years, but was unsuccessful. When she first showed it to me, it was partly quilted by a domestic machine. So, I encouraged her to keep going. I even lent to her more pins to pin the quilt.! And, off she went home with the quilt AND more pins.!! Not long after, I have had a think about the quilt a bit more and made an offer to quilt Katie's quilt on the condition that she unpicks all the quilting that was done, so far. A few months later, Katie brought the quilt back to me. I had it for a while before getting around to quilt it as I was keeping busy with quilting for my clients. Katie's quilt is now done and looking beautiful. There is substantial amount of negative space on the quilt top, so the quilting pattern shows up very nicely with darker colour thread. I chose the quilting pattern named 'rosebud_e2e' by Sharon Sweetland for the quilt. Katie's cutting and sewing skills were very good considering it's her first attempt at making a quilt as the quilt top was almost perfectly square [every longarm quilter knows that perfectly square quilt top is hard to come by because fabric does stretch, naturally]. So, quilting this quilt was a breeze for me (and my wonderful Gammill Statler). Katie is now handsewing down the binding, which I also attached for her. I'm pleased to hear that she is very happy to finally have the quilt to snuggle up with this winter.