SPRING MARKET COUNT DOWN - SIX WEEKS TO GO!

It is precisely six weeks until Spring Market in Salt Lake City, Utah. My flight is booked so I have just six weeks to get my self organised and ready. I would have had a lot longer had I not 'fip-flopped' on the decision to go but there again the decision would have been easier to make had I not had overseas visitors staying with me for seven weeks (it's OK, it was my folks so plenty of coffee and procrastinating occurred) as well as crappy pain in my lower back from a bulging disc leaving me in a state of hideously constant pain. Also there has been the looming departure of my 16 year old daughter heading to France and the UK on an exchange visit for a month.

The visitors have now gone, I have had a big fat needle in my lower back so my machine pedal foot is back in working order & Lucy has safely arrived with a very lovely French family so, I am now America bound.

Arghhhhh!

I have an awful lot to do!

Fortunately, I thrive on short deadlines so, not unlike an army of other designers heading to market, I am going to be sewing my little butt off!

. . . . So the dream is I am going to exhibit at the worlds biggest trade fair in a booth space of my own, I will have an astonishing amount of awesome new quilts, I'll get to meet or at least stalk some of my uber favourite and inspiring designers, I'll get to hang out with the creative talent on the Creative Abundance stand space & I'll be well, rested and calm and totally living in the moment of pure bliss.

. . . . The reality is more likely to be that I arrive knackered, with maybe one new quilt & I'll be totally overwhelmed by the the whole experience.

Either way, I have decided that I have nothing to loose and only lots to gain.

So here goes . . . . this is my list of what needs to be done

IN A PERFECT WORLD TO-DO-LIST!

1.  Make a time plan of the next month (taking into account it is school holidays for two of them!)

2.  Make quilts! . . . obviously!!! I have four, actually no five designed and ready to go (hahahahaha)

3. Chase fabric for quilts as that would be helpful!!

4.  Plan stand space and how I am going to hang the quilts (In my previously life I was an exhibition stand designer so you'd think that this one would be a cinch)

5.  Get made quilts photographed.

6.  Write patterns and get them checked by at least three good peeps

7.  Drop five kilos (again, hahahahahaha)

8.  Confirm hotels

9. Organise Visa, and money

10. Keep on top of house work, feed family nutritious food and stay a nice person

Hang on to your hats people . . . the next six weeks might be a bumpy ride x x 

Bear Buddie Cushion

Missing bears in our house are a regular fixture - it is part of our nightly ritual to find 'bear' . . . and it drives me just a little bit bonkers!!

So when Melanie from Melly and Me fame sent me sampling of her new range of fabric for Riley Blake fabrics, 'Teddy Bears Picnic' I had a little notion . . .

ta dah! . . . Bear now has a bear buddie cushion to tuck neatly into for his 'rest period' during the day! 

It might be a little too much to hope that my evenings will now be free from the frantic search for 'bear' and I will instead be able to have a calm and peaceful night time ritual putting my eight year old to bed, but one can hope! (& at least the cushions look very cute in her room)

Bear buddie cushion has a foundation pieced pocket to the front in which to tuck a soft toy. I also appliqued 'Hello Bear' above the pocket but you could applique a child's name or some fun shapes.

 

I seem to be designing in pairs at the moment so the pocket cushion is matched with a bear applique - I love this one as I used some very cool linens for his face and a patch of soft brown velvet for his nose.

My Bear buddie cushions are available as a PDF pattern in my Etsy store and sold wholesale through Creative Abundance so you can ask your local patchwork shop to get them in stock.

Happy stitching x x Claire

Teddy Bears Picnic will be available in stores from April 2016

A Quilt for Summer

My latest commision for Australian Homespun magazine appears in Januray's edition. The brief was to bring a taste of summer that incorporated beach umbrellas and beach balls & as we spend most of our summer weekends at the beach I didn't think it was going to be too tricky!

As you can probably tell, I love colour & the brighter the better. My collection of Kaffe fabric was attacked as it was perfect for the design & I put together a series of bird eye view umbrellas that I blanket stitched and foundation paper pieced. With a bit of extra wadding behind each one and a very cool tight quilt pattern I was really happy with the way each brolly 'popped'.

Beach ball borders.

Appliqued and machine blanket stitched brolly.

foundation paper pieced brolly.

how cool is this quilting!!

Check out Australian Homespun if you would like to make a version for yourself.

happy stitching x x 

Claire

KITTY CATS

This summer I headed into the school holidays armed with good intentions and a wish list of projects to be done. however, my dreams of idyllic mornings at the beach and leisurely afternoons in my sewing room isn't quite what was acheived! My mornings at the beach turned into afternoons at the beach and my sewing room saw very little action.

It wasn't all fun and frivolity though as I did manage to sneak a little time to get my teeth into my stack of Cats Pyjamas fabric from Jodie Carleton and the team at Ella Blue fabrics. Admittedly it did start out as a quilt (thats now coming later!!), and I did make a few disastrous cuts at the wrong dimensions as someone was yelling at me but never the less I managed to pull together a cushion trio as per my original design idea.

The pattern includes three different designs, two for an 18" cushions & one slightly smaller or a 16" cushion. I teamed the Cats Pyjamas with some reds, black and text from Ella Blues basics range as I loved the way they made the border fabric sing.

The smaller cushion uses some cute fussy cut 3" squares.

Ridiculously cute feature fabric from the range with yes . . . those are tooth brushes!

You can head over to Jodies Blog to catch up with all her madness HERE

The pattern is available wholesale through Creative Abundance HERE

& is in my Etsy store HERE

Happy Stitching

x x Claire

UNICORNIA QUILT

Finally after holding onto this design for quite a while it is done . . . phew!

When I was sent a layer cake of Leciens modern L's fabric in all those delicious array of colours the design unleashed its self and it gave me a chance to attack my stack of liberty fabric too.

I'm always quite exhausted once a quilt is finished - the pattern writing, photography, checking, tieing all the quilting thread ends in leaves me a bit brain dead so I am just going to leave you with the photos of the finished quilt . . . 

. . . i rather love it x x

FABRIC CREDITS

Backgrounds - I used a pastel rainbow fat 1/4 pack of Michael Miller Cotton Couture Fat Quarter Bundle of 12 - Spring Rainbow Sampler from Polka Dot Tea

The castles and unicorns I used Leciens Modern L's basics in cool and warm packs. All the unicorns tails and manes as well as the triangles and sashing are Liberty fabrics bought at Materialise in Perth.

Quilting was expertly done as usual by the wonderful Julia Punlar at Beachside quilting x x 

Sweet Mariposa

A fresh new pattern for spring. My hubby and I have spent a rigorous few weekends in the garden making it a restful place to be in the on coming summer months rather then the bomb site it usually is. For those that know me you'll all know that this is HUGE for us as our back yard is usually a total junk yard and there is usually an array of rusty tools, kitchen sinks (just don't ask!!) & quite honestly junk spread everywhere! but no more . . . . it is now clean and tidy, weeded, The chooks have a nice new home & I have some nice cosy corners to sit in and escape the noise of the family.

. . . and now i have some gorgeous new cushions for all those cosy corners!

Reverse applique butterflies. The shapes were cut away from the centre of each fabric block

Applique butterflies that I laid down to make a heart shape . . . 

my fabric inspiration came from Rosalie Dekkers Flower Child range of fabrics available from 

Ella Blue fabrics

The pattern is available wholesale through Creative Abundance. it is also available at many patchwork stores as well as my Etsy store HERE

Happy Stitching

x Claire

ANIMAL CIRCUS

A while ago I received a bundle of very good stuff from Ella Blue Fabrics by the glorious ms Jodie Carleton at RicRac. I always have a backlog of ideas stored away in the depths of my noodle and it just so happened I had the sprinkling of idea that exploded when I got my hands on some of her new fabric range Backyard Circus.

. . . quite yummy isn't it!

Well, after what seems like an age my quilt is at last finished! A happy parade of circus animals sandwiched between an lot of log cabin blocks!

The charge is of course led by the elephant who only emits sounds of love . . . and he is closely followed by a bemused lion and a pair of very clever circus poodles.

. . . closely followed by the dancing bear and the circus pony!

. . . lots of fab log cabins using all the colours from the fabric range & featuring the Pom pom dots on the outer borders

I experimented with adding some little rows of folded bunting across the applique block - it looks very sweet and adds a nice level of dimension . . . it wasn't the easiest thing to sew I must say, but the end result looks great . . . you could always applique it down if you don't want to be fiddling around with tiny bits of bias tape!

Animal circus will be available as a pattern at the end of September and as always it is compatible with a Brother Scan and Cut machine

Patterns are sold wholesale by Creative Abundance worldwide and will hopefully be stocked in lots of fancy shops.

the fabrics used are Backyard Circus by Jodie Carleton and Ella basics, all by by Ella Blue Fabrics 

happy stitching x x