Blogoversary Winner!

Thanks to everyone who participated in my 3rd Blogoversary giveaway. It looks like quite a few of you started blogging around the same time I did.

Here is what is in the prize...

2 gorgeous fat quarters and 35cm of a 3rd beautiful fabric, plus 2 lovely buttons. All purchased from the amazing Teddy Tree in Mt Hawthorne.

And our lucky winner chosen by the random number generator is...

Congratulations Bev C!!!   If you e-mail me your snail mail address tomorrow I will post it off to you on Tuesday.   Have a great week everyone!   Cheers, Tracy

3rd Blogoversary!

I missed it by 1 day but I couldn't let my Blogoversary go past unremembered for a 3rd time!

How time flies. It certainly doesn't feel like 3 years since I took the very scary step of starting my blog. So much has happened since then! We've had a baby, moved house, I've gone back to work twice, learned so much on the quilting front & met some fantastic bloggers (both virtually and in person).

This was the first picture I posted...

There were several projects I started back then that are still in the UFO basket too...

...but plenty more that have been completed.

Do you ever look back at your blog and see how far you've come? Do you still love the items you were making back then? Has your style changed dramatically? Walking down memory lane can be lots of fun.

To celebrate my 3rd Blogoversary I've decided to have a giveaway. I haven't picked the prize yet but I'm sure it will be something you'll love. If you would like a chance to win just leave me a comment below about your blogging journey. I will draw a winner on Sunday afternoon at 4pm.

photo credit: present 1 via photopin (license)

Hope you have a great week!

Cheers,
Tracy

Inspiration and FNSI

Hi Everyone,

Sorry that there are such big gaps between my blog posts at the moment. We are finally starting to settle into the new routine of full time work but are heading off on holiday shortly so things are quite frantic on the weekends at present. I hope you can forgive me.

I have managed to squeeze in a little time to watch a bit of 'TV'. I recently bought a workshop video produced by Kay Haerland, a very talented Australian quilt artist, called 'Textile Adventures with Kay D. Haerland'. I had been waiting for it to come out for a long time and it was definitely worth the wait!

I haven't watched all of the video yet but I was extremely inspired by what I have managed to watch. And now I can't wait to start painting fabric! I really want to learn how to create landscape and pictorial quilts and this is a great resource to learn from.

Kay has done some incredible work and won some major events. If you would like to see her work or order your own copy of the video you can check out her website here. I particularly like her pictorial quilt 'Under the Canopy' made in 2010. And no...I'm not receiving a commission :).

Another place to get inspiration is, of course, Friday Night Sew In (FNSI). Wendy is hosting this monthly virtual get-together again tomorrow night but unfortunately won't be joining us this month. If you would like to join in you can click on the link above or the picture below to go to the sign-up page. Then visit again over the weekend to see what everyone got up to.

I'm hoping not to be too tired to join in. We'll see how the day progresses.

Happy stitching everyone.

Cheers,
Tracy

The (Quilting and Blogging) Drought Has Broken

Finally! I have done absolutely no stitching since returning to full time work 5 weeks ago. Yes, it has been 5 weeks already. Unbelievable huh?

I have been desperately missing  doing something creative but have been so tired in the evenings, and had so much to do on weekends, that I just haven't had the time or energy to do anything.

That all changed today when I attended a 'Feathers and Fillers' free motion quilting workshop hosted by WAQA and facilitated by Sheila Pye. What a fantastic day! It was lots of fun and Sheila was soooo inspirational.

First we did a warm up ...

Don't look too closely. I didn't do a very good job here.

From there we progressed through the day trying different feather and filler patterns. I did get better over the course of the day but I still need a LOT of practice.

L-R: Hills and valleys, Wide feather stitch with circles, Feather stitch

A closed space filled with Feathers and Hills and Valleys

 

My pebbles got better as the day progressed

Stitching feathers around the outside of a shape was much more difficult

I quite liked the 'Puddle with Fish' design

Finally, by the last session of the day, I was feeling more relaxed and confident. We had a challenge to try and incorporate a range of things we had learned during the day. I was really happy with my end result, especially given I didn't follow a pattern.

I started with Hills and Valleys then let my imagination run wild.

It was a great day but quite exhausting. I admit to looking forward to going to bed shortly. Hopefully I will get a chance to do some more stitching tomorrow.

If you would like to see some of Sheila's work you can visit her blog, Pieces of Pye - A machine quilter's passion.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to participate in Friday Night With Friends this week but if you would like to see what everyone else got up to you can visit Cheryl's blog here.

Happy stitching,
Tracy