A finish, a workshop & a new project

Hooray! I have finished my baby sister's birthday present. Frogs are her thing and so I decided to create Fergus the Frog from Homespun Vol 13 No 8 for her. Here he is ...

Fergus the Frog

And here he is all dressed up, sitting with some of Miss M's friends after being proudly shown off at the WA Quilter's Assoc. sewing day...

All dressed up and ready to party!

The pattern for Fergus was designed by Anthea Christian of Angel Lea Designs.  It was a very easy pattern and instructions to follow and I only had 1 major hiccup - the pattern for his pants was printed upside down in Homespun. This did not matter for people who used a non-directional fabric but for me it meant that all the bugs on my fabric were upside down! This necessitated a mad dash to Quintessential Quilts to try and find more fabric. Luckily I was able to find 1 lonely fat quarter and had just enough scraps left over to make 2 pant legs between the 2 bits of fabric. He is not a toy for babies or small children as he is stuffed with a combination of toy fill and rice to make him sit nicely on a shelf. I am very happy with the result and hope my sister likes him as much as I do. I may even have to make one for me :).

 Now, I promised to tell you about a workshop I did during the week of the May craft fair. The WA Quilter's Association brought Amanda Daly to WA to help judge the QuiltWest exhibition at the fair. While she was here she ran 2 workshops for us. I went to the first one, The Art Quilt Process, and it was absolutely fantastic! She is a wonderful teacher and we had so much fun.

 

 Amanda showing how she highlighted some of her work with Inktense pencils

Amanda showing us how to use Shiva Sticks

Not only did we learn about the process Amanda uses to help her design some of her amazing art quilts but she allowed us to try out and experiment with a range of products that we otherwise might not have tried. We had fun with Tyvek, Inktense pencils, Shiva sticks, Angelina fibre, Solvy, foil, acrylic paint, fusible web, wire mesh & florist's wire. We also had a go at raw edge machine applique & reverse applique, and designing our own design & inspirations journal cover.

Some of the samples that Amanda brought to show us

Miss M joined us for the 2nd day and also enjoyed herself. And who knew that some chocolate wrappers react to heat just like Tyvek?!

 Miss M's on the move

 A great excuse to eat more chocolate!

All in all we had a fantastic 2 days & I would like to thank Amanda for her tuition and inspiration. You can see more of Amanda's projects and workshop info on her website here.

And so, to my next project...I am making a birthday present for my other wonderful little sister who has a BIG birthday this year. Her birthday is in August but her present is quite a bit more involved than Fergus was so I am going to need every little bit of that time to get it completed. Here is the fabric selection...

I will keep you posted on my progress. I hope you all get the chance to do a little stitching this weekend.

Happy stitching,

Tracy xx