Open over Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I cannot believe how hot and muggy it was in Palmerston North with 30 and 31 degrees Christmas and Boxing Days. It is so draining being muggy but it was wonderful to have such wonderful weather for Christmas. As we have not gone away I am open over the holiday period, if you come on a day I normally close then knock on the back door and I am happy to open up for you. That is the beauty of working from home.
I did not win the Bernina 7 Deadly Sins challenge but my friend Sonja did, so well done to her. It is fun creating things for challenges. Sometimesw it can be hard coming up with ideas to start but once you do it is great. Rose City Quilters have a challenge for club members for Tote & Gloat, our one day event in May. This year it is "inspired by a paper napkin/serviette". So far I have found 6 napkin's which could tempt me. I usually let them sit and 'ferment' to see what comes into my mind and then consider what I would like to make.
Off to open up now and will come back later with some pictures of what you can do to make your own fabric using fabric felt pens.
Dianne

7 Deadly Sins Quilts

I have made 2 entries for the Bernina 7 Deadly Sins Challenge and both are on Facebook for you to vote on.
I had fun creating these 2 quilts -
The first one I made was about shoes -after all we women love shoes and I could incorporate all 7 sins in this. It took me a while to come up with an idea for this challenge, but one night in bed (where my best ideas occur) I suddenly thought of shoes, as we women lust after them, envy them, are greedy for them, are gluttons in how many we have, wrathful if any get marked, have a lot of pride in how our shoes look and as for sloth - well we aren't into slothful ways when it comes to our shoes, are we? etc etc. Here is a photo -

Can you identify with some of those feelings? I certainly can. Shoes are lovely and so much fun these days. What choices we have. I drew a lot of designs of shoes I would love to have in my wardrobe and then decided on fabrics and appliqued them to a shiny fabric background. I added a few Swarovski crystals as well for bling.
And my other entry was of Marilyn Monroe. She was a woman men lusted after and women envied her and I am sure another couple of the sins could apply as well.
Here it is -

I 'drew' this picture with needle and thread based on her famous (or is it infamous) shot over the subway vent, so all free motion stitching. I added some more of the Swarovski crystals for bling around her name. I didn't want any binding to distract the eye so I made a faced binding and then stitched a lovely knitting yarn I had found a while ago along the edge. This yarn had little black sequins every so often which I though gave it a little bit of a different edge.
I hope you like my ideas and would like it if you could go to the website and vote on the one you like best www.facebook.com/welovetosew
Dianne

Japanese Sashiko fabric

We have just received in this new fabric from a designer in Australia. She is Japanese and has designed this panel to make it easier for people to try hand stitching sashiko designs. The lines are pirnted on the indigo blue fabric for you to try stitching over. You can make the panel as is or cut the blocks, frame them and make a larger bed quilt or wall hanging.

And here is a closer look at a couple of the designs

Why not give them a go. Sashiko thread available.
And there have been a few other Japanese fabrics arrive in store as well -

This beautiful piece runs selvedge to selvedge and is about 60cm wide before it repeats again. NZ$16 per panel
And this lovely fabric goes with it - shading from grey to brown across the fabric

This is the grey side

 

And here it is leading into the brown side. NZ$27.20 per metre
Another range new is is this gorgeous panel of birds - NZ$17.70 panel

and toning fabrics

These fabrics are NZ$26.50 per metre
Call in and have a look or email me for more info
Dianne