TOO BUSY TO POST!

good intentions and all that . . . .

dreadfully lacking in Market updates on this blog but its not because I have been idle - absolutely not, nor is it because the wheels very nearly fell off, which they did!

but . . . 

I have five new quilts made . . . and seven new cushions . . . fancy new cards are at the printers & even fancier bunting for the booth is just about finished.

There has been a LOT of late nights, a lot of egg on toast for tea, a lot of threads on the floor, a bit of unpicking, a bit of replanning, a few surpises (like my passport expired!), lots of encouragement from my fabulous family & despite the crazy state of exhaustion I'm in, I have actually enjoyed the journey and am really pleased with the results - fingers crossed everyone at Market likes my efforts too!

Anyhooo . . .  I am going to showcase all the new designs in the next week on my Facebook and Instagram pages . . . probably won't blog about them until after market when I am back to being a real living human person again!

wish me luck x x 

Spring Market - 5 weeks to go

So I am one week in and all going pretty well. Things are getting ticked of the list, the sewing machine has been humming along nicely, my back is being looked after by a team of very handy professionals, all is well with daughter number 1 in France (in fact, so well I don't think she is missing me at all which is a tiny bit upsetting!!) I have fabric arriving every day & team of enthusiastic sewing helpers all lined up and raring to go.

I had a plan of what I was going to take to Market. I have been sitting on a pile of new designs for a while and have been waiting for just the right fabric to come along and inspire me to take the designs from paper to actually being something real and then this happened . . .

Liberty fabrics new Garden of Dreams print fell into my lap!

Sometimes something sparks an idea and you just have to run with it. I raided my Liberty stash and found a 'few' prints that worked well with it & an idea was born! . . . Hens!

I worked on a couple of cushion ideas, then it turned into a mini quilt and then morphed into a huge quilt. I currently have 26 stitched hens up on my design wall with a few more details to be added before you get to see it. I love it. . . it makes me smile!

Here's a sneak peak . . .

There is of course a very magnificent rooster which daughter number 3 helped with - you know, the kind of help that is not very helpful!!!

Things are also getting a bit posh - fancy new labels arrived!

There has also been a bit of planning and sewing for Sew-Along, the collaborative venture I do with Jemima of Tied with a Ribbon. New designs for christmas working with Leciens really lovely Sugar Flower Holday as well as some revamping of some existing patterns ready for market.

A little bit more Liberty fabric crept into my stash! Then there is a whole load of other stuff but its top secret & I cant share . . . yet!

. . . off to fill in the forms for my visa.

Au revoir for now

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