The Shed

Hello !

Today I finished up a quilt and photographed it in The Shed before sending it to its new temporary home - you should get to see that particular quilt in Sept? obviously as soon as its in print I'll be telling you :)

anyway I liked my little set up in my studio so much that I got out some old quilts and re photographed them 

below is the Owl Quilt and the grey and yellow Text strip quilt

I LOVE Chalk paint & I love black

Thats it for now

Xx Siobhan 

before market - market - after market :)

HELLO!

I've been home for 2 weeks!

It feels substantially longer.... but nope only two weeks.

My Trip to quilt market in Portland was great - overwhelming but great.

Lets go back to a few days before I left ....

Looking at the image below :( Ms 6.

It wasn't fractured - thank goodness - but a very bad sprain :( 

I felt a bit bad leaving behind an injured child.

Anyway on the plane I hopped and 24hrs later arrived in Portland Oregon

a few funny incidents along the way

(only funny now)

One was getting a touch of Gastro :( and spending the first day in my hotel room unable to move - think pain agony & fever. I've never had anything like it.

The other involved my toilet being blocked (happened before I got there) and being handed a plunger by the front desk ..... I at that stage have never ever in my life used a plunger. I had to google it and text my husband. Which gave everyone (except me) great entertainment - even the guys on the front desk, especially when I had to go and tell them I had no idea what I was doing!? and it wasn't working......

between jet lag and my bug it took me a few days to get into it all.

Luckily I had a few people guiding me through and inviting me places - otherwise I would have been completely lost!

Thank you

Sarah :)

Laura Jane

Brioni

Clare

and heaps more!

It was great to meet so many people I had read about or chatted with or been instagram friends with

Like

Monica (lovely Monica Xx)

John

Heather

Amber

seriously this list could go forever!

anyway - usually on my travels I take a million photos.... Not this trip :(

a few snaps and thats it!

It just goes to show how unwell I felt.

Below are some of my favourites from Market

these are the few pictures I took

Carrie Bloomston from Such Designs

I LOVE this range called Collage with Windham - Its awesome! and all the quilts in the booth were amazing. To top it all off Carrie was really nice. 

and yes thats Alissa Haight Carlton & Jacquie Gering talking to Carrie 

and also in the Windham family was Heather Ross's Briar Rose collection. 

An equally fantastic range and Heather was extremely fun and lovely. I told her I was feeling a little BLAH and she gave me a signed copy of Crafty Chloe for the kids and a million other bits including some goggly eyes because as we all know they make everything better!

here I am below pictured with Heather (feeling a little grey and jet lagged)

The other range I loved and will be hanging out for is By Violet Craft Water Front Park with Michael Miller Fabrics - Great colours and designs

as I said I've been home for 2 weeks and that two weeks has included 

two family birthdays,a 9 yr old party, teaching 3 patchwork classes, starting and finishing a quilt for Spotlight, lots of winter kids sports,some secret projects and doing some school art for my children's school.....

as well as the millions of everyday things!

I'm not complaining - I actually like being this busy :)

It means everything is going well :)

of course we need cake pictures

The top one is a two layer chocolate cake with fresh cream,strawberries and chocolate icing for my husbands birthday.

The cake below is Mr 9's birthday cake which was a triple layer red velvet cake with Vanilla cream frosting! 

and in that time I also emailed the winner of the Craftsy giveaway that I had on a previous blog post

Thank you to all that entered and congratulations to Stephanie in Northern Ireland :) 

I'm off I need to do some work!

Take care

Xx Siobhan 

pretty cushy

Hello!

Something that comes in very very handy at our house is the giant floor cushions we have.

The kids LOVE them plus they are fun and easy to make.

I've made a few here on the blog and in the recent Australian Quilters Companion May/June 2013 I have three versions for you to make.

I buy my cushion inserts online in Australia with Innergreen, if they don't have the standard size I'm after I get one made to measure.

One more week till I go to Portland for spring market!

cant wait to see what everyone is up to and go to all the meet ups :) 

and before I go don't forget to enter the Craftsy Comp to win a quilting class competition closes 18th May

Xx Siobhan 

Quilting Class Give away

Hi!

I've been offered a giveaway by the lovely people at Craftsy for my blog readers :) 

I'm not big on giveaways usually but this seemed like something you guys might actually want?!

Its a precision piecing class taught by Norah McMeeking

You are taught how to do Amish Pinwheels, Stained glass Windows and Emerald rings. All templates are included in the course.

So - all you have to do is follow the link

HERE

which will take you to the BeaSpoke Quilts giveaway page and fill out your details

too EASY!

The end date for the comp will be two weeks 18th May 2013 - I will then pick a random number and Craftsy will email you the link to the class! 

Can't go wrong 

In other news I'm getting ready to go to Portland for Spring Market 

and I'm trying to finish a few quilts before I go away 

If your on Instagram or Twitter I'm @BeaSpokeQuilts

I'll most likely be taking a million pictures on my trip :)

and just because I cant have a post without a picture - here is an oldie

My Lone Star Quilt

Have a great weekend :)

Xx Siobhan 

What started it all

Its getting colder in Sydney the Autumn has well and truly set in, I'm getting out all the quilts and blankets.

This quilt caught my eye today - my youngest daughter claimed it for her bed. She has no idea of its significance or its history.

This is the quilt that started my love of fabric and quilting.

When I was 5 my Grandmother took a quilting class and had to make a sampler quilt, I ohhed and arghed over the fabric and pattern - It was love at first sight and being a child I insisted it would be mine. 

Luckily Nana agreed.

I happily watched the process - each week checking after her class that progress had been made and then like lots of nearly finished projects it was folded up and put in the cupboard.... all forgotten

fast forward to me being pregnant with my eldest child, Nana reorganising her house and the finished quilt top resurfaced! 

I remembered it and still loved it so Nana finished it and gave it to my eldest when he was born (he is now 13yrs) 

It's still in perfect condition and very used and incredibly loved.

I hope some of my quilts end up with my grandchildren one day. 

Xx Siobhan 

New Sewing Machine :) & Autumn

Hello!

This week on Instagram (@beaspokequilts) I was saying that Autumn is my most favourite time of year.

The light is perfect

Its not to hot

or to cold

Things start to slow down

I see more family & friends

Its Perfect cooking weather......

my list could go forever

but most importantly its lovely in The Shed this time of year and I'm getting lots of stuff done :)

I'm trying out a new sewing machine at the moment and instead of finishing off the last bits of two quilts I'm working on 

I have given myself a challenge to make a jelly roll quilt.

I rant on a lot about consistency in my patchwork classes 

- If you make a mistake - make the same mistake through the whole quilt

- try to use the same sewing machine for a whole quilt

- use the same rulers or at least check that the cutting mat at class matches the one at home

Things can be out by a few millimetres from manufacturer to manufacturer and it can mean the difference between blocks joining or not joining.

anyway - Thats why I started a new quilt

To try out the new Bernina 7 series machine (this is not a sponsored post)

My Long arm quilter friend Kim is a Bernina Dealer and she has kindly let me use her machine to see if I like it :)

Whats not to like ??!!? 

I will eventually probably write a blog about the machine. I currently have a Janome, Pfaff and now a Bernina in my studio and they all have their own merits.

any way back to the jelly roll quilt

Often in my classes I am asked "what can you make with a jelly roll" or "how many jelly rolls to make a quilt"

so I bought five Moda jelly rolls - all different designer collections and I am making a Trip around the world quilt

Here is a little math

5 X Jelly Rolls = 33 X 6 strips

Each set of 6 strip = 2 X Blocks

5 X Jelly Rolls = 66 Blocks 

Each block measures 12 inch finished

If I use 8 X 8 Block configuration

= 64 Blocks

This will make a king sized quilt

96 X 96 Inches

I was making around 8 blocks a day

and with a bit of procrastination it was taking me 3hrs.

I've had two days of no sewing so I'm behind on my schedule....

Friday I was being social and hosting a lunch and today (Saturday) was our kids sports day.

Hopefully next week I can finish it off!

Although it is School holidays....

In other news I popped into Calico & Ivy Balmain, Sydney store

They are closing down early May 2013

and have a most things reduced in store.

Its worth a look if you are in the Sydney area

I picked up some Liberty of London fabrics so I can make some more Leather bags and have liberty as the lining.

How cute are the Tea Cups?! 

and last Thursday I dropped into NSW Leather at Waterloo,Sydney again and picked up some more sheep skins - Its so lovely and soft.

I now have some teflon feet to try out(Thank you Christine Mitchell from Hobby Sew Top Ryde) for sewing leather with the Bernina 7 series machine - Fingers crossed it makes it easier than with the standard foot. 

I had some lovely emails and comments from my last blog post about sewing with leather - THANK YOU!

I stupidly deleted them in my half asleep state and couldn't retrieve them.

I usually reply.... so - sorry I didn't reply and thank you very much for writing to me :)

I've also had some emails about pattern errors - which is unfortunate.

 Sometimes its a mistake in the editing process and sometimes its diagrams being taken out because the pattern is too long for the amount of pages allocated to my story... etc etc

Either way it reflects badly on me.

It happens alot to everyone - when students bring other peoples patterns from magazines to class they do tend to have errors...

It pays to read the pattern all the way through and double check fabric requirements / block / finished sized - I can usually pick up a mistake or at least correct it for a student so we avert any disasters when I'm teaching.

In the future I will try to get a read through before patterns go to publication - but things go through so quickly its hard for magazines to do.... I'm not sure what the answer is?

I like sharing my patterns and having my quilts published but I don't want a bad name.

If you ever have any issues with my patterns please don't hesitate to email me

Anyway I best be off!

The Girls have soccer tomorrow morning and I need to make sure all their gear is ready - Otherwise it will be mayhem.

Xx Siobhan  

All in the bag

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter long weekend - It was beautiful Autumn weather in Sydney, perfect for eating :) 

I've been making bags again.....

I'm waiting on the go ahead on some quilts and happily making myself some smaller projects and testing out some skills in the mean time.

I loved the green corduroy bag I made in my previous post and whilst admiring it I was wishing it was leather...

Then thought to myself - how cool would a leather version be with Liberty lining!

and so a week later here we have it

a leather bag with Liberty of London lining made by me - I'm a little bit over excited about this project!

I used the Amy Butler Nappy bag pattern again.

and sourced my leather from 

NSW Leather Co in Sydney, Australia

with their advice I bought some really soft sheep skins ($25 each) - I needed two to complete this bag. I went for a nubuck feel with a ostrich finish effect.

The Nappy bag pattern is cut in two whole pieces and the strap is included, If you wanted you could have more cuts/ joins to use less material. 

I was a bit impatient and dove straight into my leather sewing - I did buy a leather needle and upholstery thread. The needle was great but the thicker thread kept getting gobbled up by my machine so I switched to a polyester sewing thread instead. 

I used my standard plastic foot on my machine which seemed to work fine (although did struggle at times) and had my walking foot engaged.I own a PFAFF Expression 4, which has a built in walking foot.If you own a different type of machine it might be worth using a walking foot?

I read somewhere that a teflon foot is good for sewing leather? If I make another bag I'll look into that a little more.

I had to adjust my stitch length all the way up to 6 - I usually sew on 2.5 for piecing and around 3.5/ 4 for quilting.

Make sure you do a few practice runs on the leather off cuts first.

The lining is Liberty of London Tana Lawn - the red Liberty Fabric was bought last October 2012 in London at the Liberty store its from the seasonal Tana Lawn range.

For the inside pockets and the outside pocket I used the off cuts of Liberty Tana Lawn that I had used in the Green Corduroy bag from the last post.

Leather and Liberty!

I LOVE it :)

Have you ever sewn with Leather?

Any advice or links to your projects?

I'd love to hear from you and see what you made

Xx Siobhan 

Corduroy and Liberty

I'm on a roll!

Today I whipped together another one of Amy Butler's Nappy bag pattern (no I don't need nappy bags anymore or ever again  - I just like the pattern)

Its actually a really good camera bag and holds my SLR nicely when I'm out and about.

I used a green corduroy for the outside bought from Purl Soho and the feature fabric on the outside is a Liberty of London Tana Lawn.

I looked everywhere locally for corduroy fabric (I was actually after an olive type colour) but couldn't find any!

I also wanted the wider more heavy corduroy but this stuff worked out nicely.Its very fine, thin and soft.

The lining on the inside is two prints of Liberty of London Tana Lawn and a little bit of the green corduroy.

below you can see a picture of the bag turned inside out and the liberty fabric as the lining and the pockets.

The bag is completely reversible so I could have it any way I wanted - really it doesn't matter.

I used wadding as a lining for the pockets to help stiffen it up

 Very happy with my new bag!

I bought a few more colours of corduroy and I might make a few more variations...

Xx Siobhan