My new Baby! Sewing Machine that is ;)

I thought it was just me, I thought I just couldn't free motion quilt for the life of me!! I did try I really did, but I just couldn't get my projects to move smoothly under the needle and so my free motion was always jerky and the stitch sizes where wayyyy from even!

To be honest, I decided that I hated free motion and so I took up hand quilting instead.

That was of course until I found my new baby girl!

 I wasn't the only one who was excited to bring her home! Sorry about the poor photos, I was too excited about opening my new machine to stop and get my good camera out ;)

 I wasn't even allowed to take the plastic off without help :)

 And here she is! My new Husqvarna Vicking Sapphire 875!

What sold me on the Sapphire 875 was first of all the huge throat space and second was seeing the Yarn Couching foot and having a play with it. It is basically free motion quilting, but your stitches are hidden in the Yarn, so it doesn't matter if your stitches are even, because you don't even See them!

I made this cushion the night before the milton show. I used a quilting stencil and a chalk pounce to apply the design to a square of fabric, I then used the yarn couching foot and some 8 ply wool to free motion quilt the design onto the fabric. I also used some tear away on the back to stabalise the fabric.

I can't express how much fun this is to do :)

I also used the gathering foot to make the ruffle. The beauty of the gathering foot is that it both gathers and attatches the gathered fabric and whatever you want to attatch it to at the same time! Makes life much easier! No more basting and then pulling the threads to gather, its all done for you! Can you imagine how quick it would be to make a little gathered skirt!

 Anyway back to the free Motion... I guess my confidence was rising because I went looking for some free motion designs and of course my first stop was Day Style Designs. They have some amazing free motion designs and my favourite is the Flower Ball.

So I had a go and this was my first attempt at the it :)

It turns out that the fabric was sort of sticking to my old machine making it impossible to move it smoothly. The new machine is so much smoother and easier to free motion quilt on. So it wasn't just me and my lack of persistance! It was the throat of my old machine!

I was so extatic! So I got out the quilt I wanted to use this design on and got busy. I'm about a third of the way through it and I am just sooo happy with my machine!

I'm not the only one either :) My Mum sat down and saw how big the throat space is and she is very excited to be picking up her new 875 tommorow tehehe. So If your a quilter or just looking to upgrade your machine I highly recommend The Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 875!

I bought my Sapphire from My Patch Fabrics in Milton NSW Australia. The Sapphire is on special until the end of this week for $2299 and includes a Dual Feed walking foot and the quilting extension table.

I was not paid for this post in anyway. I'm just a very happy customer!

Hugs Paula

Some of these pictures were borrowed from the Husqvarna Viking website.

Milton Uladulla Quilt Show

If you've been following me on Facebook you know that this weekend was the Bi-annual Milton Ulladulla Quilt Show. This is not a judged show, but there is prizes for the peoples choice and a few other categories... Unfortunately I had to leave before the awards were handed out, but I did get the chance to take some pictures, so I thought I would share the pictures with you.

This was the raffle Quilt that welcomed us as we walked into the Ex-servos club. A stunning Quilt that was made by the Milton Quilters, I didn't win it unfortunately...

I got there super early this morning because yesterday we were so busy on our stand that I didn't even get to see the quilts, I was so early that the ladies hadn't even cracked open the bag of White gloves :)

 There was some beautiful Quilts!

This one featured a different take on the Jacobs Ladder block and some stunning hand embroidery.

 I was very taken with this lovely New York Beauty!

 There was a huge amount of Baltimore style quilts too, I loved the swag border on this quilt

 I was extremely impressed by this 1/2" hexy quilt! It's still in progress but wow there is a ton of hexagons in this insanity quilt!

I was totally taken with the quality of the needleturn in this quilt! The colours were just stunning to! It was one of my favourite quilts of the show.

 Here's a close up, just beautiful work!

 My Mum is working on a version of this quilt, its lovely.

 Another thing I noticed about the show was that there was a large amount of machine embroidery, this one was a wallhanging.

 Some really lovely work.

 Here was another of my favourites! Made by a really close friend of my Mums, Margaret made this quilt. It was designed by Aussie designer Libby Richardson.

 There was so much detail in this quilt and heaps of gorgeous buttons!

This quilt was Huge! at least a King Bed size.

 And my favourite Wallhanging was this stunning quilt. It was hand painted and some stunning quilting!

Heres a close up of the beautiful little fairy.

  A cute version of the bugs quilt, I just love the bright fabrics

 This quilt was so effective. It is a Quilt as you go, flip and stitch style quilt.

Heres another favourite, it combines a heap of 3D pieces and the New York beauty block.

 This lady made me laugh! I love the scissors in her hair hahaha

 Here have a closer look :)

 Here's a few of the things I made for our stand, did I tell you I bought a new sewing Machine? It is amazing!! I'm totally smitten with my new Husqvarna Viking Saphire 875, I used some of the fancy stitches on the machine to make this embroidered piece for the stool and I used the new Couching foot for the cushion and some leftover binding to add the ruffle using the ruffling foot. It took about half an hour from start to finish! The free motion couching is definately my favourite thing to do at the moment :)

 This is where I spent the weekend. I was demonstrating the Westalee Rulers and we sold out, it was a fantastic weekend!

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry, but this is our block of the month, a Wendy Williams Quilt. Also the start of my new quilt using the Dresden Plate rulers again from Westalee Designs.

I hope you had as great a weekend as I did!

Hugs Paula

2 new patterns and a giveaway :)

It's been a busy busy time in the Storm house lately! With 2 new patterns to release at Spring Market in America it has been a bit crazy :)

But we have finally got everything organised and so I would like to introduce you to my newest designs.

First up is the Snuggle Mummy - Baby feeding pillow. The Snuggle Mummy is designed to help Mums Breast Feed more easily.

Having had 4 kids of my own, I know how difficult it can be to master Breast Feeding. The two biggest problems I and most woman have when feeding are getting baby into the correct position, and leaning down to reach the baby which causes back ache. I designed this pillow with those main problems in mind. The Dolphin shape is perfect to help Mums feed because the Tail and Nose sections allow the baby to be held the traditional way or in the 'football' hold. This will also allow mums to feed twins at the same time.

One of the biggest tricks to breast feeding is getting baby close enough to your body. The wedge shape of the pillow automatically rolls baby in towards you. It also means you no longer have to lean over to reach the babys mouth, the wedge shape lifts babys head up to the right height automatically.

 The Snuggle Mummy also features a removeable cover! The inside is made using Quilters Muslin and the cover is removable to allow for washing. The Snugge Mummy is perfect for an intermediate sewer, however a confident beginner could easily make the Snuggle Mummy if they left off the piping.

Aren't my models gorgeous!!! They are my Big sister Jo and her new baby (the inspiration for the Snuggle Mummy) Heidi. Amanda of Hey Beautiful You Photography and I shared the job of taking pictures :)

I really like to use the Snuggle Mummy to prop myself up at night to read my books :)

My other new pattern is my new Softie, Katie-pilla.

Katie is a gorgeous little girl who loves cuddles!

She has stretchy elastic legs and her feet are the perfect shape for little hands to grab hold of. You could even put little rattles inside.

I hope you like my new designs! Katie and the Snuggle Mummy are both made using Helen from Hugs n Kisses new fabric range Life Is Beautiful which is going to be available very soon, so ask your local patchwork shop to get them both in ;)

Wholesale orders are available from Pattern Press

Thanks so much for your continued support! If you would like to win one of my new patterns, just leave a comment here and on Thursday the 14th I will draw a winner (1 of each new patterns) Tell all your friends!!

Hugs Paula

My Patch Fabrics Reopening!

As you may know I work a few days a week at an awesome shop in Milton in NSW, My Patch Fabrics. We have been open for just over a year in a gorgeous little shop in the main street. Well unfortunately we ran out of room and had so many ideas that we had to expand and move to a bigger shop. So today was our Grand reopening! This is our new home!

 Valerie Gautier is the owner of the shop and the best boss on the planet! Here she is just before we opened this morning putting the finishing touches together.

 One of the most exciting things about our move is that we are now selling sewing machines! Not just any machines, but my favourite machines ever, Husqvarna Vikings!
This is Lindsey the lovely Husqvarna Viking Rep, She taught us sooo much today! There is a new couching foot available for the Husqvarna Saphire Series machines and OMG I had an absolute ball with it!! I'll definately be playing a lot more with that one :)

 This is my favourite part of the shop, this bookshelf has all my favourite books (have I ever told you I'm a bookholic)

 And this stand has the most adorable vintage Bias tapes, buttons and lots more cute habby essentials.

 Of course the Softies shelf, I made all but 1 of these little cuties.

 Just one of our shelves of patterns, these shelves are mainly our favourite clothing designers Amy Butler and Make It Perfect.

 How good do these fabrics look! Total eye candy :)

 This is our entrance way. Our shop is a heritage listed house and used to be an art gallery. This makes our quilts look amazing hanging on the walls! They are lit up like art works, the way it should be!

 We have some amazing specials on our new range of Husqvarna Viking Machines, they are still available for a month, so send your hubby our way and we'll set you up for Mothers Day :)

 This is our back room which is still a little disorganised (we are waiting on new shelving, but check out the fireplace! There's another one in our classroom. Aren't they gorgeous!

I hope you've enjoyed a little tour of my second home. You can visit our online shop too if you can't make it in person, just click here

Hugs Paula