Freemotion Quilting workshop with Stephanie Newman

I had the best day yesterday! My Patch Fabrics in Milton brought Stephanie Newman over from Canberra for a 1 day workshop in Freemotion Quilting.

 

If you've followed my blog for a while you'll know that I'm a bit of a perfectionist and as hard as I have tried I just couldn't get the knack of freemotion. My new machine and a few handy tools have really made a difference lately, but actually having a teacher of Stephanies calibre looking over your shoulder and guiding you is such a huge help!

 

Here's a few pics of my practice, these are some of the first designs we practiced,

 We tried a few of Stephanies original designs.

 and lots of traditional ones too. I still can't master those persky swirls... but I love doing peebles :)

 I think my favourite though was the flowers. All of these designs were freehand with no marking at all.

 I even designed my own pattern, see those cute leaves, they are the leaves from my logo and they might just become a signature of mine I think. They are so fun to do and cute as!

 I really loved doing the flowers!

 I think though I was best at the wood grain design, but then this was the very last design of the day and I had been practicing for about 6 hours by then, so I think I could really become hooked :)

I had a really great day at the workshop and I'm so disappointed that I forgot my camera, but Val took some shots, so I will try and share those when she sends me a copy.

If you are interested in attending a workshop with Stephanie, we will definately be getting her back later in the year for more workshops, or why not talk your guild or local Patchwork shop into bring her to you, she really is a fantastic teacher. Just looking at her amazing award winning quilts is worth the price of admission!

Conatct My Patch Fabrics for more info on 02 4455 4087 or Stephanie can be contacted directly through her blog, just click here. Make sure you tell her I sent you :)

Stuff I've made :)

I've been a bit frustrated lately, mainly because I've got so many projects on the go and just haven't had any finishes lately... are you like that? I tend to get a bit depressed when I just seem to be slugging away and not having anything to show for it...

Anyway I thought I should get over it and show you some of the things that I have made in the last few months :)

I absolutely LOVE this top! It's made with Art Gallery fabrics using the School House Tunic pattern. This one is a sample for the shop, but I actually made one for myself as a work uniform in a Joel Dewberry Voile fabric, it wrinkles like crazy, but its sooo comfy :) (oh and check out all those donuts! we only have 1 left)

 Heres a cuter than cute Lazy Day Hat, made from the Make it Perfect Pattern. I love this pattern, I've actually made a few of them for my kids too, quick and easy and too too cute!

 I think I've shown you these before, but I'm sure you wouldn't mind looking again :) These are the Melly and Me pattern, I think its called Hootie and Tweet. Super Cute! I just love that strip, too bad we've run out...

 For some reason I just love taking pictures of these DMC Threads....

 Here's the Mushrooms from the Cinderberry Stitches book, I must admit I didn't actually make these, my mum did, but I liked the picture :)

 Here is another Make It Perfect pattern, the Downtown Boy, I love this Jacket! I've made stacks of them, This one is made with flannel both inside and out. I made one for my son this winter using Denim and orange thread for the top stitching, and lined with flannel,its so cute! I will have to get a good picture of it one of these days :) I just realised, all my kids have Make It Perfect Jackets this year, My eldest has a Sprout Jacket and my other 2 girls have the Uptown Girl Jacket and my Son's is obviously the Downtown Boy.

 This Jacket was one of my biggest challenges ever! Its a girls size 8 I think from an Oliver and S pattern, The pattern was very good and thorough, but we used a Velveteen fabric by Anna Maria Horner. The fabric is beautiful but it was the first time I'd used it and it fraid like crazy, we made a second one and we just overlocked (serged) all the pieces first and it was much better!

So I hope you've enjoyed looking at some of my finishes... even if they were 4 or 5 months ago hehehe

Hugs Paula

Free Owl Embroidery Designs

I have finally found a day to have a Huge revamp of my blog, I hope you like it :)

As a part of the revamp I have added some pages at the top of the blog, see them up there ^

So on the pages I added are a page full of my Paper Patterns that you can buy direct from me, my PDF patterns that I would email to you if you wish to buy one and a page of my free embroidery designs.

Theres are a few of the free designs!

 I love adding Quotes to my embroidery's but you don't need to, just leave them off...

You could turn them into something like this...

and as an added bonus I have decided to give you the instructions on how to make this design for free! So just click here for the PDF

As always my free tutorials are over on the right hand side, so why don't you stick around for awhile and explore :)

Hugs Paula

Finally some nice cushions!

OK, so I'll apologise first up for the quality of my pictures, but I left my good camera at work (I new there was something I forgot today).

But I was so excited about my new cushions that I had to share immediately :)

I've only made about 1000 cushions at work and so I decided it was time for me to have some at home.

My whole family are Parramatta Eels fans, I know thats not something to brag about ;) but there was no way I was going to buy a Parramatta bed spread so I compromised with blue and yellow cushions ;)

Perfect!

The yellow is Amy Butlers Lark and the blue cushions are a new linen we just got in at My Patch, not sure of the designer but if you need to know just email me and I will let you know :)

 On my bed I chose to use the Prints Charming Prints, this picture is terrible and the colours are all wrong, but I'm loving my bed!

Anyway,

 You may remember my Dad is suffering with Leukemia and he's been doing it tough the last few months with some complications so a visit with his grandkids was definately in order.

The day before we left Tocumwal there was a local market and an antique tractor/car parade. The first Tractor was a steam powered plow. My little man was totally mesmerised and was not interested in any of the other cars, he just wanted to follow the tractor up the street.

He was soooo excited when the owner said we could put him in the drivers seat for a picture! He was the only one who was allowed to get up there :)

 He even got to blow the whistle!! Every 4 year olds dream ;)

Ooh just remembered he's wearing the jacket I made him, its a Make It Perfect pattern and I lined it with flannel, very cosie and warm! The sun was shining but the mornings were -4 degrees, brrrrr

 You never know what your going to see in a little country town hahahaha so cute!

More pictures to come when I get my camera back ;)

Hugs Paula

My supermodel!

OK so this is extremely self indulgent, but my baby girl was a model yesterday for my sisters business and she was sooo amazing I just have to share some of the pictures :)

You may remember my Emma from this picture :)

In these pictures Emma was barely 6 months old and she was a perfect model! She sat and posed for ages and was still happy right till the end of the shoot :) I'm sure her gorgeous face on the cover of my Sit Me Up Donut pattern is the reason it has been so popular :)

Well that was nothing! Yesterday my nearly 2 year old Emma was a perfect model for Cutie Bum Nappies! She had at least 10 costume changes over about 4 hours and she was still smiling! She did exactly what we asked every time! She only required a few marshmellows and Chocolate! Chocolate, Chocolate!! at the end as payment ;)

 How cute are these shoes!!!

 She really does have a Cutie Bum!!!

She even started posing in the end hahaha what a superstar!!

 Anyway these are just a sneek peak from the amazing photographer Bianca at Bianca Dopson Photography. She is an award winner amazing photographer who is based in our little town on the South Coast of NSW. Thank you soooo much Bianca!

My sisters website is currently being constructed (which is what these pictures are for) but you can see all of Jo's gorgeous products on ebay, or keep up to date on her Facebook page.

Isn't my baby just adorable!!!

Hugs Paula

The amazing Hooterville by Quilter Wendy Williams!

The Amazing Wendy Williams has been a guest tutor at My Patch a few times now (and will be again in September). The last time was to teach her amazing Quilt called Hooterville. I must admit I've been meaning to do this post for months, but something else always got in the way... anyway, sit back and enjoy some pictures from the Hooterville workshop.

There was about 8 ladies and a few hangers on ( that would be me and Val, the owner of My Patch hehe)

On the first day of the workshop the ladies made the background of the quilt using Black and Grey linens. Wendy uses alot of Pearle 8 threads in her quilts.

On day 2 the ladies were making their embroidered and appliqued leaves and flowers.

  If you ever get to take a workshop with Wendy I highly recommend her! She is so inspirational, knowledgable and just a lovely person!

 Most of the applique shapes are made with wool felt and some have fabrics appliqued on top of the felt. There is a huge amount of embroidery included in the shapes with all the old fashion stitches, like fly stitch, whipped stitches etc etc.

 By the end of the weekend we put all the girls pieces that they had made, on one of the backgrounds and we had  an almost complete quilt.

 It was sooo soooo pretty! Oh how I wish I had time to make one of these quilts! When we had it hanging in the shop I just couldn't stop stareing at it! Everytime I looked I would see something different, from different embroidery stitches to different fussy cut fabrics, its just a stunning quilt!

Seriously who wouldn't love one of these quilts hanging in their home!

 Just to show you what an amazing talent Wendy is, she was awarded a 3rd place at the Sydney Quilt Show this week in the Professional Predominately Applique category for this quilt titled 'Growing Up'. Considering the Best of Show got the 1st place in this category, you can imagine how amazing this quilt is in person.

I hope you love Wendy's work as much as I do! You can visit her website here, you can see the award winning Sydney Quilt show Quilts here or you can buy Wendys patterns from My Patch Fabrics here.

The full shots of Hooterville and Growing Up were borrowed from Wendys website

On a personal note, If you have a weak stomach I suggest you don't look at the next picture.

 I've experienced the joy of raising a boy this week when my son Jack decided it would be a good idea to jump off the trampoline onto our concrete driveway... he didn't fall, there is a cage around the tramp. He decided he didn't want to get down on the step so he jumped. He smashed his head into the concrete and then as he got up he was so dazed he hit his head on the skip bin we have for our pre-move clean up. Needless to say we have spent the last 2 days at the hospital with a concussion and a suspected broken leg.

My poor little man is finding it very hard to sit still with his sore foot, so he's been crawling around the house hehehe.

I'm sure he'll be fine, but it was quite a shock at the time. Oh the joys of boys! Thank goodness I only have one boy, don't think I could cope with this too often ;)

I hope you have a great weekend.

Hugs Paula

PS. Don't forget to join me on Facebook to see my works in progress and more regular updates, the link is up there on the right hand side of my blog :)

Winners

I'm so happy every time I'm able to giveaway one of my new patterns and this time I'm especially happy because the winners have been really supportive of me for sometime!
First up was:

That was Judy who said:

Hi Paula,

Wow two terrific patterns to join your collection. Clever girl and oh so practical. This nanna reckons she might need to get stitching on on one of those Snuggle Mummys as grandchild #3 is on the way.

Katie-pilla is just ideal for our newest grand daughter, now ten weeks old.

The second winner was: 

Gorgeous new patterns as always!! You are so talented!! :)
Melissa Harris, Narrawallee

Thank you so much to those who entered! Judy and Melissa I will be in contact today :)

Have a great weekend! I'm working at My Patch tommorow while my Mum will also be there teaching a Quilt finishing workshop, so It's sure to be a great start to the weekend for me :)

Hugs Paula

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.