Life is Good

I am slowly settling into retirement but I still seem to be busy.

There is still a lot of stuff left from the shop so I have started selling some fabric, books and kits on line.

Also  Natasha, Charlotte and I had a stand at Stitch in Pakenham earlier this month which is run by Craft Alive and we had a fabulous weekend. It is a beautiful venue and it was really nice to catch up with lots of customers.

Plus I have been invited by several guilds to come to one of their meetings as well.  I am slowly selling off the fabric. I always intended to continue selling my patterns to my original designs and maybe even doing a bit of teaching too so even though my husband has some ongoing health issues "Life is Good".

So till next time,

Happy stitching from Therese

Inspiration

Inspiration is everywhere. This sound proof fencing along a freeway in Melbourne has always ticked all my boxes and now that I have retired I want to explore why it appeals to me so much. I'm not sure if it is the colors or the geometric so I am collecting my fabrics and getting ready to play.

So till next time 

Happy stitching from Therese.

Back on line

I am back on line. The shop is now closed and I am in the process of setting up my work space at home. Actually it is Natasha who is doing the physical moving and organizing of the furniture, fabric and office stuff.

 The things I am really going to miss are teaching and the interaction with other quilters and of course the extra time I got to spend with my daughter and grandaughter.

My husband and I were thrown a real "googly" just before the shops final days.  He ended up in hospital for 8 days with heart problems and is still undergoing tests to find out exactly what is happening and why and what the treatments are going to be.  We had hoped to go away for a couple of weeks as soon as we closed but that isn't possible yet so we just have to be patient until he is stable and the doctors give us the go ahead to travel.

In the meantime I have been stitching some small quilts to donate to the 'Quilts of Love' program. I can stitch them by hand and as they are simple designs  they are great carry around projects especially for doctor's waiting rooms.

So until next time
Happy stitching,
 Therese

Home Stretch

We had our last Christmas Club class today and the star pupil Raelene had most of her rows finished ready to quilt each row before putting it all together. She has done a brilliant job and I think she is going to be over the moon with her quilt when it is done.

We have one more week of trading in the shop. It feels really weird to think that in another week I won't have that morning routine of "get up, get dressed, breakfast, collect anything I need for the day, out the door at a particular time so that I can open the shop door, switch on the lights, make a coffee ready to face whatever the day might bring". I have so many things to do at home I don't know where to start. So my plan is to write myself a timetable of tasks that I want to achieve in a certain time frame. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it. I intend to start my retirement in a positive way and a big part of it will be finishing started projects. I seem to have one or two of those!

 So until next time,

Happy stitching from Therese

New Designs

I am very happy with my latest finished design. It is in lots of shades of greys and taupes so is quite muted and restful.  It is a busy design with lots of applique and even some hand piecing. The pattern is half done and should be ready by the end of
August.  I have called it "Shades of Grey".

I have also been designing a new quilt for nearly a year and I am working on the final border which I decided needed to be hexagons! Why, you ask? Well, because it just needed to be. There is still a lot of work to do on it because there are two plain borders that are going to be appliquéd and embroidered before it is done.  I am using softer and prettier colors this time and aiming for a really feminine look.

So until next time 

Happy stitching

from Therese

New Shoes

Don't you just love new shoes. I purchased these to wear to my daughter's wedding. They are Hush Puppies so are really comfortable. There is nothing like a bit of retail therapy is there.

Now that the wedding is over I can wear them whenever I want. I love the color which I am finding matches lots of my outfits.  I just need to find a bag to go with them but as I have lots of taupe fabrics I am thinking of  simply making one.

I have several books written by Yoko Saito so I am hope to have some time over the weekend to have a browse through them and play with my Japanese Taupe fabrics. I am really looking forward to some creative time in my sewing room.

so until next time,

Happy stitching from Therese.

Ch- ch- c h - changes.

After 15 years I am making some major changes in my life and that includes closing the shop and just selling on line like so many other businesses. This will allow my husband and I to finally start the travelling we want to do. It will give me lots more free time to do the part that I love in this industry - designing new quilts.

The  things I will miss are my students and my wonderful customers who have supported me over the years and inspired me to push my boundaries way beyond anything I thought myself capable of doing.

So from Monday we will be starting our closing down sale.

I will still be selling my patterns and be available for trunk shows and to teach workshops so even though I am very sad to be closing the shop I am looking forward to the lifestyle changes ahead for me.

So until next time,

Happy stitching from Therese.

Huswifs

Sorry for not posting for so long but life can send us many challenges at times. Health wise and family wise!

While I have been away from Blogland, I have not been idle.  If  I don't do any sewing for more than a day, I actually get twitchy.  I always have some hand sewing next to  chair in the lounge room to make needle books or "huswifs" and I have just finished four with another three half done.  I sell them in the shop for $10 and they are one of those impulse buys that my customers never seem to regret purchasing. I use up leftover scraps from what ever project I have been working on at any given time so they are always different.

To me it is one method of  reducing the amount of scraps I have. However I could make several thousand and it probably wouldn't make a lot of difference.
But I can till enjoy feeling virtuous for a while.

So until next time,

Happy stitching,

Therese.

I love Christmas Club class. I love watching and sharing the process of choosing fabrics for the next bits of our row by row .

I have been encouraging these students to immerse themselves in the design and creative process as well as the construction of their rows.


It has been a real challenge for them and a step outside their comfort zone which is a good thing for all of us at times.

So until next time,

Happy stitching,

Therese

More Favorite Things

Flower Garden was made because I love hand work and this quilt is pieced and appliqued by hand.
 While I was waiting for hip surgery in 2012, I got to the stage where I couldn't even sit at my sewing machine for more than a couple minutes so hand piecing and appliqueing this quilt was my sanity.
 I gave it to my son and daughter-in-law for Christmas but they had to wait for six months because I wanted to enter it in Showcase.  I am so excited because it was photographed hanging in show by Quiltmania magazine and is pictured in the latest issue.
It actually hung flat which was a miracle because I had put an extra apple core in one corner and it isn't a perfect square.

Next is A Pieceful Garden which is one of my favorite quilts, not just because it is brown but for me it was a creative leap.  I didn't have enough of one brown fabric to do all  the background and while I was "what iffing" I thought "I'll just use different browns" and then I thought "what if I  pieced the backgrounds". While I was sewing I was just about hyperventilating because I was so happy with the effect I was achieving. It was a real "step outside the square" for me.

Country Album was meant to  be a "baltimore meets country".  I wanted to combine some really traditional Baltimore blocks with some country style pieced blocks and really just have a bit of fun.






So until next time

Happy stitching

from Therese.

Busy, busy, busy.

Even though I haven't been posting for a while I have been sewing.  I have had some personal health issues to deal with plus a good helping  Winter Lurgies which is why I have been a bit quiet here.  I did finish a quilt I started about two years ago out of my leftover strings and strips and triangles from bindings down the sides. It is hand quilted and bound now.  All I have to do is the label.








I quilted it vertically in all the strings and it looks great. sometimes the simple quilting is the most effective.

















We have been running some classes this year encouraging our students to actually use some  their stash, especially bits left over from other quilts. I called it Ginger Beer quilts. Does anyone else remember homemade ginger beer and you halved the "plant" each time to make  that batch but added stuff to the original and left it to ferment till the next time. Very much like Sour Dough bread.
The Pennsylvania Log Cabin quilt was one of the classes and is a great way to use 1 1/2" and
 2 1/2" strips.  I made a queen size quilt from stuff left over from other projects. The only problem I have is that it hasn't made a dent in my stash.







So until next time

Happy stitching

from Therese.

p.s. I will be making a big effort to post more often.

Giving Back with a Friendship Medallion

I just love it when people send me photos of finished quilts made from my designs. It gives me so much satisfaction to know that someone else likes what I do especially this particular quilt.  It was an exercise in frugality for me initially that I shared with my friendship group and then in the shop with my customers and from there to the blog and over the internet with complete strangers.

There have been so many finished quilts and every one is different.

I am a great believer in the "pay it forward" philosophy and this was a way of saying THANK YOU to the amazing quilting sisterhood.

Until next time

Happy Stitching

from Therese.

It's Judy"s Fault

One of our customers showed me a picture of a quilt that she liked and asked if I knew how to make the block.  I knew I had it in one of my reference books so I told her I would dig it out while she was away as she was off on an overseas trip a few days later so I knew there was no rush.  But it is autumn after all ----- so when I got home I started flicking through my books, found the pattern, got out the graph paper and worked out how it was constructed.  Then the following Sunday I thought "I should make a block so I can show Judy how to make it when she gets home".
I have been organizing my scraps a la Bonnie Hunter for several years so it was a simple matter of going through the drawers with the right size strips and picking out autumn toned fabrics.  I had a lovely afternoon playing with colours and trying to decide on brown, orange, gold, beige or red.  Then I thought "what the heck, I'll just make one in each colour".

By the end of the day I had five blocks cut out and had drawn up the diagram for a table runner and cut out the borders as well.  That night I appliqued the stems and the next day I pieced the blocks and stitched the border piano keys together.  By the end of the week the runner was together and I had it pinned ready to quilt.  With simple straight line quilting, by the end of the following week it was bound and finished and when three customers asked for the pattern, I wrote it up, typed it out and am in the process of making up the pattern.  So it's all Judy's fault because she made me do it.

I forget sometimes how effective traditional pieced blocks can be for simple items to decorate your home especially to celebrate the changing seasons and holiday times.

Until next time

Happy stitching

from Therese.

Old Favourites

These quilts are some of my favourite old designs. "Pretty 'n' Pink" was the first in pretty fabrics.  Then one day I realised that pink wouldn't suit everyone so I needed to consider other colours. 

That led me to create "Lavender Hill" using any fabric print in the shop that had the slightest bit of purple or mauve in it. I also put a lot more stitching in this quilt too.

 Next came "My Blue Heaven" (see my post from December 18th last year) and then "Peaches and Cream".  I still love these type of quilts with that combination of traditional pieced blocks, pretty applique and simple stitching.  I hope they are as fun for other people to sew as they were for me to design.

The patterns are still available for all of these quilts and just keep selling all the time which is nice for me too.

So until next time,

Happy stitching from Therese.

Shades of Grey

Yes I have been "missing in action" but when the creative bug strikes I can't ignore it. I have been very busy designing a new quilt and have been beavering away stitching in a frenzy while the juices are flowing.
There is still a lot of what I call the "donkey work" to do but I can see the finished quilt in my mind. It may need a bit of tweaking as I put it together which often happens as part of the design process.










  It is in very muted and greyish colours, which I am very drawn to at the moment.  I have incorporated some quite challenging pieced blocks and of course lots of applique and some stitching

It will be a queen size quilt and I hoping to have the top together in another three weeks.

So if I am a bit quiet with posts, please forgive me because I will be head down, bum up, madly stitching.



So until next time,

Happy Stitching from Therese

Old Friend

About 15 years ago I made myself a Needle Book with pockets to hold scissors, thimble and threads as well as pins and needles. It had a very cute Teddy bear on the front and in my mind I called her "Honey".
She has been my hand sewing companion ever since. Over the years of constant use Honey has become a little shabby (as in VERY shabby). I decided it was time to retire my old friend to live by my lounge room chair and stitch a new travelling buddy.

So meet "Hexie".  May we have as much fun and share as many adventures together as Honey and I did.

Happy stitching,

from Therese.

Pattern writing

I love the creative buzz of finishing a new design. BUT! The next step is Writing the Pattern. I always have my rough notes with ideas scribbled everywhere including diagrams and drawings that only I can understand. So eventually I just have to say to myself  "suck it up Princess" and force myself to sit down, focus and just start.  Of course, then I wonder why I procrastinated for so long because once I get started it flows so easily. In about a week this

              becomes this

 plus a bonus Pin Cushion pattern.

I was under the pump because these notes were for our "Summer Sampler" which we started in January and most of the girls are close to finished with 2 weeks of summer still to go.


Sorry for the gap in posting but there were technical changes to Blogger and it has taken me a couple of weeks to work them out.

So Happy stitching,

from Therese.

Our Country Home

Country Hearts was  the first Block of the Month that I designed so it has a very special place in my heart.  It was in 2003 and the fact that it was very successful gave me the courage to continue the journey on my own.  The prairie girls in the first row and the love birds in row 5 still make me smile.

 

 

The second country quilt I designed had an Australian flavour with the outback style house and barbed wire fence in the bottom row.

 

 I chose a block from this quilt to make into a wall hanging, showing how to use elements of a pattern to create something new.

Then I decided to try my hand at a pretty, feminine quilt with easy piecing and some sweet applique and stitching so Bluebird Cottage was created.  We sold it as a pattern and kit very successfully for many years.  It is still available as a pattern now because pretty floral fabrics NEVER go out of fashion, do they.



I am really enjoying my walks down memory lane and re-visiting some of my first quilts for Patchwork Pumpkin.


Happy Stitching till next time

from Therese.

Summer Sampler

I know I have posted about this quilt before but it is now finished and the classes are starting tomorrow. The class format is eight 2 hour sessions and can be done anytime between now and the end of summer.

 It is summer here in Australia and lots of people have their annual holidays.  There doesn't seem to be much available for those people who are so busy during the year, they can't get to a regular class.


 I had a lot of fun making this quilt because it had to be small, it had to be easy but with lots of different techniques to learn.  I wanted a quilt that a real beginner could make but would still offer something to an intermediate quilter too.









I am passionate about hand quilting and I have used different techniques in the blocks to demonstrate how quilting changes everything.  Even by just changing the thread. Click on the photos to see what I mean.

So Happy Stitching,

from Therese

Tasha's Medallion

 At the moment Tasha is one busy lady and has limited time to sew.  She has been working on this medallion for a few months now and is starting to see the results of putting in some sewing time whenever she can, even just doing the cutting.








There are five more parts to this pattern so she is nearly half way.

I am very proud of her because her accuracy is amazing.  (Better than mine actually.)







I really love the colours and prints she is using. They are so "girly" and pretty and looking gorgeous with the white backgrounds.

The response to this free pattern has been amazing with the instructions being sent to every state in Australia and all over the world.  Quilting truly makes us one family.


Happy stitching
from Therese and Tasha.