Travelling

Well Hello !

I am just back from the US - I was at Minneapolis Quilt Market to do some school house speaking and book signings.

I also did a radio interview with Pat Sloan! I'll keep you posted about when that interview is available and post links.

Quilt Market was great - I caught up with lots of great industry people and found some wonderful inspiration with fabrics, art and patterns.

I then took a little side trip to New York (as you do)

Check out my instagram pics for a look at what I was up to.

Whilst I was away 

Sew mama sew had a tutorial on this quilt and a give away of my book, check it out 

My book seems to be in stock in the US. 

Australia is getting stock any moment now, the Australian distributors are just waiting on the shipment to arrive. 

Fingers crossed the books will come soon as I am booked to do some book signings at the Craft and Quilt fair in Sydney on the 17th June and I cant do a book signing if we don't have books in Australia!

I do still have a few copies available in my online shop

I'm off to catch up on a million emails and prepare for my classes this week at Hobby Sew Top Ryde

Xx Siobhan R

Quiet always means real work is going on

This is a little snap shot of what my week has looked like

I've been head down sewing - attempting to finish some big tricky quilts

I cant show you the quilt - But I can show you the colours! (bit cheeky)

This grouping of fabrics below is for the next quilt. I like to prep one quilt as I'm working on one.

 It keeps my mind working and interested - I'm going back to some more subtle fabrics Liberty/ Linen/ text after working with the extra brights above.

The text fabric is my own and available on Spoonflower or I have a few Fat Quarters available in my ETSY shop

I've been looking at some posts/ blogs about Quilt Con that was held recently in Austin USA

The conference looked fantastic - Its made me want to make one of Denyse Schmidt's wonky scrap quilts, and I think my scrap basket is screaming to be used!

After these two/ three quilts are made for "work" purposes I plan on making either another trip around the world quilt or a Wonky improve quilt .... and a messenger bag! I'm desperate to make a bag

In all my cutting of late I have cemented in my mind forever more that 1 Fat Quarter of fabric gives you 30 X 3.5 inch squares 

Handy to know.... 

I still haven't gotten around to photographing my "Bella" quilt that is on the cover of Down Under Quilts #156

I've had lots of emails about sourcing fabrics for the quilt - I had a look and found these

I noticed that Purl Bee's online shop has most of the range

 

http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/8819-Windham-Fabrics-Bella

 

and so does

 

Fabric Worm

 

http://www.fabricworm.com/loja.html

 

and 

The Fat Quarter shop

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Bella-Lotta-Jansdotter-Windham-Fabrics.asp

 

even though the fabric line "Bella" only came out at the end-ish of last year it seems to have sold quickly?!

The Quilt was long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley in a funky fans pattern

Down Under Quilts by Practical Publishing

In other news I'm going to Spring Quilt Market in May!

its going to be held in Portland, Oregon USA

I've never been before and happy for any hints!

anyway

I best be off

We have a big weekend of Kid focused activities and hopefully some sewing :)

Xx Siobhan 

Windham Fabrics Houston Quilt Market 2012

I'm home plodding along - working on some new quilt patterns and the usual family stuff. Whilst a whole bunch of other people in the Quilting Community are over in Houston at the Trade show - Quilt Market!

Whilst I'm not in Houston one of my quilts is :)

Going back a month or so....

When I was in New York I popped over to Jersey City to Vist Windham Fabrics, I had been doing some quilt design work for them and thought it would be nice to put names to people and have a look around.

I also picked up some fabric to make a quilt for the Houston Quilt Market which is currently in full swing!

This range is called "Phoebe". The full range has 13 print and 5 solid fabrics. I added in the yellow as the backing.

When you don't have yardage it can be tricky to piece together a quilt. I was given mostly samples and cuttings - I went with a random large piecing to try and show off all of the new line

I really like the purples with grey and white.

I nearly added a bright red backing which looked great too - but yellow won out in the end, It reminded me of a painting I saw at the MOMA when sight seeing.

Artist Joan Mitchell from The MOMA New York 

I would have liked to use more of the light colour prints as binding - it looks lovely and fresh, 

the only reason I didn't do all the binding in the light print was because I ran out :(

Below are some pics of Windham Fabrics Head Quarters 

 Me with wonderful Lara!

I wish I had more time to hang out - everyone was so nice & fun.

If your interested in stocking or using the "Phoebe" range give them a yell
and if your at the Houston Quilt market right now then go check out the Windham Fabrics booth :) tell them I said hello!

 here are some other fabrics I took home with me :)

I was looking through my other picture, one week is no way near enough time to see everything - Hopefully I'll be back again soon 

 Xx Siobhan