Tuesday's Folly

This is one of my quilts, designed on a Tuesday, when I stitch with my friend Ann (and we get into all sorts of trouble with EQ and talking about what we could make and how difficult could it be?). Anyway, I entered it into the 2010 world Quilt Competition and, to my surprise and great pleasure it was awarded the Best in Australia Award. I am thrilled, and have almost forgotten all the unpicking I did to get the tension sorted!

This show has entries from all over the world, with coordinators from each country getting their country's entries sorted, and then the collection is hung at several large quilt shows in the US and then finally comes back to me in December. There are pics of the winning quilts on the first site listed below and they are all stunning.

On a different note, it is raining here again, but my sheep Lizzie looks like she has turned a corner. No infection yet, fingers crossed.

See you later

Belinda

World Quilt Show - New England8/19/2010 - 8/22/2010Manchester, New Hampshire

Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVII9/16/2010 - 9/19/2010Greater Philadelphia Area

Pacific International Quilt Festival XIX10/14/2010 - 10/17/2010Santa Clara, California

World Quilt Show - Florida11/12/2010 - 11/14/2010West Palm Beach, Florida

Toby's quilt

This gorgeous quilt was made by Toby H and the photos don't really show how lovely the quilt actually is. The colours are very strong and contrasting, and the designs of the fabrics are stunning, especially the outside tree and bird border fabric and the red pompom designs. And the back is gorgeous too!

Anyway, it is quilted both freehand and on the statler using One Song Needle Arts designs.

On a sheep note my Lizzie is still going and is still eating although her front leg is very sore. They are forecasting more rain for this weekend, so I hope she is settled before that comes along.

See you later

Belinda

Not much quilting - other stuff instead

We have had an eventful few days here, starting with a pack of dogs getting into our small (only 8) flock of sheep and doing some nasty damage. To date we have lost 3 with another still injured but we are hoping she will recover. The injured one is my first poddy, named Lizzie, and she has lost both her ears and has a bite on one of her front legs. This attack happened during the day, when it was pouring with rain and blowing a gale. We had to retrieve 2 sheep from the dam where they had been chased into and that was a saga in itself involving wet weather gear, brush cutter, husband with broken arm and lots of mud. Anyway, one of those sheep has since died from bites, trauma and pneumonia. Needless to say, there have been lots of tears here and dire threats against any dog we see out of its yard and anywhere near the sheep.

Also my 10 year old son went off to a cub camp for the first time without his father, and by all accounts, had a great time. It is a big achievement for him to do this and we are very proud of him.

Winter Tulips

I quilted this masterpiece earlier this year for Lynne, and it has the most fabulous tulip fabric in the outside border. It is a design by Michelle Marvig of The Patchwork Heart in Penrith, and it has lots of little pointy bits and lots of open space for the quilting. It is quilted with a combination of freehand and computerised designs - the tulip baskets and the outside border are patterns by One Song Needlearts. The last picture is the back of the quilt - Lynne always has intricately pieced backs for her quilts so she can turn them over and have a new look for her bed.

At the moment it is raining here again and is COLD, so I'm off to find something else woolly to put on and get back to work. I have been messing around with trying to restore my beloved's ipad and am not having much success, and am getting cranky - it shouldn't be this hard!

See you later

Belinda

Waratah quilt

This beauty was made by Ruthie a couple of years ago and whenever I come across it in my photo album I still love the pattern and the fabrics. Ruthie was my saviour when Harry was little as she was my day care mum and I was still working as an ambo, and she sometimes had very long days if I couldn't get away from work on time.

Anyway, we managed to corrupt her into some patchwork and I hope she is still doing it even though she is busy doing other things, and still being the super day care mum.

The quilting designs on this quilt came from The Quilter's Quilter, and it was stitched on my statler - no freehand this time.

Is it any wonder....

............that the colours in my quilts tend to be bright? Look at the colour of that bougainvillea with the lipstick tree in the distant background in full autumn red. Every year the purples and reds inspire me and I have lots of close up pics of the autumn reds and the bright purples.

As we live outside of Orange in central west NSW the bougainvillea is not supposed to grow here, being a tropical plant, but we persevered for about 4 years, covering it every night during the winters. Now it loses its leaves in winter but comes back in the spring, and then at the end of summer and beginning of autumn it comes into the most beautiful flower.

The quilt is made from all Kaffe fabrics except for the small pink border. And, all bar the stripe serape fabric came from my stash. It is quilted with a floral all over and has a black and white daisy backing. I love it.

Lots of feathers

This masterpiece went home last week to Deidre, after having the living daylights quilted out of it! It is very heavily quilted with lots of feathers and background fill. The applique is all done by hand, and there little bits of ribbon and braid mixed in with the stems. Beautifully made and it was a pleasure to quilt. The patterns are from a book by Pat Andreatta called "Heirloom Applique", 1985 and it was taught in a class with Tita Leach.

Thank you to everyone who commented and emailed me, I'm glad you enjoyed the first post. And, to Fairlie - here is the second post you thought I wouldn't write!

See you soon

Belinda

Welcome to my new blog

Well, finally I have made the plunge and am going to attempt to write about some of the happenings in my home and work life - rather than just reading everyone else's blogs!

So, I hope you enjoy my ramblings...

I am a wife, mother (of one DS who is 10 going on 30), friend and longarm machine quilter. I have been patchworking for about 17 years and longarming for about 12 years now. I have a love of fabric, quilts and quilting and one of main things I love about quilting for others is being able to pat so many different designs of quilts and fabrics, which, then, of course, means that my stash is enhanced!

I have a long list of quilts in progress and in my head - not to mention the cross stitches that also need to be done.

I am going to make to effort to post some of the quilts that come through my studio (with permission of the owners) and that I make, as that is one of the things I enjoy about looking at other blogs.

The quilt in my header is called Paula 2: Lava Flow and I finished it last Christmas, after doing a class with Paula Nadelstern in 2008 in the US. I have always loved her work and when the opportunity came up to do a class I took the opportunity. It has 16 wedges in the star, and about 80-something pieces in each wedge, all fussy cut and machine pieces. It is quilted on my longarm.