Craft Classes May - August 2011

Here is a list of the craft classes I will be running from May to August 2011

Tote Bag Sunday June 12th 9:30am - 2pm  #28
Dianne designed this fabric tote bag to carry all those things you need to 'tote' around. You can make it shorter than hers, it can be made from various fabrics. Make it for a child or yourself. Easy construction.
Has pockets at each end which can be zippered or open.

Accidental Landscapes Saturday 11 June 1:30pm - 4:30pm $25 + pattern $10
Karen Eckmeier has given me permission to teach her classes. This wonderfully easy method of layered topstitch means you can create a fabulous landscape in a short period of time. Choose from Beaches, Farms and Fields, Ski Slopes, Meadows & Mountains, Lakes and Coastlines. This one is beaches.

Fun With Citra-Solv & National Geographic pages Tuesday 14 June 2011 7-9pm $15 + $5 materials fee
Overseas they have Citra-Solv, in NZ we have D-Limonene, it is the main ingredient in Citra - Solv. What can you do with it - have fun, of course. Using old National Geographic magazine pages we apply the D-Limonene and wait for the magic to happen. The cirtus based solvent dissolves the inks in the magazine and makes them  create wonderful patterns. You can use the pages then for collage and creative mixed media work, card making and scrap booking. See the wonderful page below - doesn't it look stunning.

Why not come along and have fun playing with this to see what you can create.

Circle Quilt Sunday 19th June 2011 9:30 - 4pm NZ$45
Dianne will show you how to applique these circles by hand or machine and how to sew inset circles so quick and easy that you won't believe you didn't think of it before. Lots of varations on how to layout these blocks once you have sewn them as well.

Happy Villages Quilt Thursdays 16th & 23rd June 2011 7-9pm NZ$28
Dianne has Karen Eckmeier's permission to teach her classes. The Happy Villages is a fun class that uses squares that you cut and place to make these wonderful villages, complete with windows, doors and stairs - whether they be realistic or fantasy you'll have fun creating them

Harvest Quilt Sunday July 10th 2011 9:30-4pm  $40
Dianne designed this quilt using 2 1/2" strips and squares so you can use a Jelly Roll to make this. A single colour at the end of each strip makes it less scrappy but still very effective. The applique creates the harvest feel along with the autumn colours. You, of course, can use nay colour combination you like, could be brights, children, oriental etc. We can adapt the applique to suit your fabrics.

Collage Landscapes with Sue Wademan Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd August 2011
Sue Wademan is a well known contemporary fibre artist in New Zealand. She will be coming to Palmerston North early August to teach fabric collage landscapes - a design class with textiles. Enjoy the fun of leaving the raw edges out. Can be taken by beginners through to advanced, although having a knowledge of free motion stitching would be an advantage. This is a design focused workshop in which you will create a fabulous collage landscape from a variety of fabrics including lots of sheers (silk organza, georgette, chiffon etc). Wanting to try something different with fabric then this is the class for you!
It is a class designed to develop intuitive use of a variety of textiles.
You will learn 3 techniques of collage - lines, layering and scrunching, working on a sample piece to learn Sue's "linear collage' technique. Whilst making this sample you will learn about the 5 elements of design - line, shape, tone, texture and glorious colour.
On the second day you'll bring a landscape picture and learn how to interpret it in textiles, incorporating lots of sheers for layering and scrunching. You will be encouraged to work on your own individual landscape and to extend your creative processes with lots of help from the tutor. The 5 elements of design will once again be discussed relating it to your indicidual landscapes including many different fabric manipulation techniques to achieve your landscape design.
The goal for this class is for each student to gain confidence in "using fabric like paint" to create your own fabulous and individual landscape colage.

Limited spaces available, book in quick. I am very lucky to have Sue come to teach as she doesn't teach  much now and may be moving overseas. Contact me now regarding your place in this wonderful class!!
Contact me for any further information you require, to book in or call in and see the samples in the 'flesh' so to speak.
Dianne

New Quilting Books

Post Symposium Rose City Quilters in Palmerston North invited UK tutor Yvonne Brown to be their guest speaker at Tote & Gloat and teach 2 classes. Yvonne was a wonderful sharing tutor and speaker who entertained us all at Tote & Gloat, despite being drowned out a couple of times by extremely heavy rain. Yvonne taught her Creative Machine Trapunto on the Sunday after T&G and Celtic Cutwork on the Monday.
I have Yvonne's latest book for sale "Tex-tiles and other Treasures", Using Medieval tiles and stonework NZ$23 a very good price
Yvonne creates beautiful fabric art inspired by the arts and crafts of the medieval period. This is the first in a series describing just how she produces the fabric art and embroideries that have made her well-known around the world.
This book teaches you about transfer painting onto Kunin felt, stitching your design and cutting back using a soldering iron and how to create the stonework effect with Kunin felt, gesso and heat guns.

The next book is Lunchbags NZ$32.50
This book features 25 bags, totes and wraps which are quick and easy with basic sewing techniques. Full colour photos and easy to follow instructions on how to create your own fun totes and bags.

Quilting with Precuts and Shortcuts NZ$50.50
With simple sewing methods, bright fabrics & terrific tips, this intriguing collection ofers something for everyone - even beginners. Use tried and true techniques in creative ways for strip piecing, fusible applique and sewing with precut fabrics.

Whilst readin Mark Lipinski's Fabric Trends magazine (sorry it has sold out) the other day I discovered that the hottest colour trend for this year is white on white on white, for home decorating and patchwork. It certainly does make your work look frresh and clear. Here are 2 new fabrics, one white on cream on the left and the other white on white on the right, but it doesn't look like that on my computer. It is a white on white fern type pattern. Both are NZ$23.90 per metre

Come in and see me or contact me for orders.
Dianne

Quilt magazines

I have once again been very remiss in writing regularly, I must learn to do this more often, I am just so not used to doing this :).
Anyway we have had some lovely new quilt magazines in store - check them out.
The latest Quilt Life magazine June 2011 is out NZ$17.50
This always has very interesting articles to read and think about, along with a recipe from both Alex and Ricky.

The latest Down Under Textiles Issue #4 NZ$11.95
I love this magazine, it always has some very interesting techniques in it to try out. From felting to stamping and painting, using tyvek or Lutradur, there are lots of mixed media projects to play with.

I am now getting the Quilter's World magazine from the USA. The latest issue out is April 2011 NZ$16.50
I also have a couple of back issues at NZ$8 if you'd like to have a look at them. This has more traditional style quilt patterns and various articles about quilting.

Also the latest American Quilter magazine is out March 2011 NZ$15
This is the official magazine of the American Quilt Society and has lots of very interesting articles and some patterns

The next blog will have some of the latest books in store.
Dianne

Symposium Quilts

What a busy few weeks it has been. Sorry no time to post a new blog and as I am just back from Queenstown where I went to be a merchant at the Remarkable Quilt Symposium I thought I had better let you know what has been going on. Getting things ready for my stall in the merchant mall took quite a while, preparing kits, packs of fabrics and patterns. My wonderful friend Sheryl was helping me at the Symposium so I went to stay at her place on Friday night and then we drove down to Wellington to catch the ferry on Saturday 16th April. Just outside of Wellington at Paekakariki we came across a bus broadside onto the road, it had obviously stopped suddenly and slid around to block the road. Luckily there was a little gap that the cars could pass around it so we weren't late for the ferry. A very calm sailing, thank goodness. Neither of us like sailing. It was very full tho' with 1600 passengers. Embarking at Picton we stopped for lunch and a look around, unfortunately there was very fine drizzle the whole time. Headed off and just outside Blenheim on a winding hill stretch we came across another bus in trouble, this one had gone over the shoulder of the road, luckily on the hill side and was tilted at a strange angle. We drove carefully past this and headed for Kaikoura, all the time there was this fine drizzly rain. Outside of Kaikoura, headed up the Hunderlea hills we saw a camper van on the opposite side of the road stop and put its hazzard lights on and the occupants run back along the road, so I asked if there was trouble. They said a car had just gone down the bank so we pulled over to help. Luckily no injuries but I had trouble telling the 111 service where we were as it was all new area to us, then some more cars stopped and we were able to give them a better idea of where they were needed. After 3 accidents we travelled very carefully, thinking we should get a Lotto ticket. We were heading for Christchurch and arrived there after the 5.1 earthquake they had Saturday night, so someone was looking over us. There was a 3.5 shock whilst we were there but it wasn't much. Driving across Christchurch we saw many instances of peoples homes damaged and roads which were no longer straight and even. One house had a corner wall fallen down and a bed on the second floor was hanging over this edge. We feel very sorry for the residents.Slept reasonably okay and then got up early to drive to Queenstown. We came across no more accidents thankfully so a much better day for driving. The colours passing through the area were striking with many trees having turned golden yellow or red. We arrived safely in Queenstown mid afternoon and went to the school to set up. We got most of the stand set up and then left for the night, arriving again at 8am Monday morning to finish as we opened the merchant mall at 1pm. It had snowed on the ranges overnight and it was a lovely sight to see, just a little on the cold side though.There were some very eager quilters in Queenstown for the week who couldn't wait to check out what was on offer in the mall. There were about 30 shops in a very 'cosy' area. We had a lovely and busy week and thank all the quilters who visited us.A big thank you to the girls who looked after us in the merchant mall, it was much appreciated.
I had entered 2 quilts which I can now share with you.
This first one was using up my scraps. I hate throwing anything out so I keep all usable sizes in a basket and delved into this for the New York Beauty blocks and the border triangles. I used a white fabric as my background which I think gives the fabrics a fresh look. (Somehow the photo looks blue but it is fresh white with bright colours) The whole quilt is 50cm square and each NYB block is 10cm. I was really pleased with my quilting too, quite traditional for me. I called this quilt Fiesta. I foundation pieced this on lightweight sew-in vilene.

The next quilt was inspired by the works of Alphonse Mucha. I love his work and was so pleased to see that it came out of copyright January of this year. I used raw edge applique and fancy stitches to apply the appliques. The face was hand painted by me first and then appliqued into place. The shot for the face detail is below. I am really pleased with the way the face came out, using textile paint, Prismacolour pencils and Pigma pens. The daisies are broderie perse style flowers printed on fabric and then I painted them to change the colour to suit as they were too white.

Here is the face detail on flesh coloured fabric. After painting/drawing I appliqued this onto the quilt background then added hair etc.

Unfortunately I did not win anything in the exhibition but I am pleased my quilts were accepted and that they looked good in the exhibition.
Thanks for visiting,
Dianne

More New Extra Wide Fabrics

I have unpacked some more extra wide 100% cotton fabrics in the last week. These are great for quilt backings as you do not need to join them. They are a very reasonable price and the quality is good.

This first one is a dark red with black dots. It is 2.8 metres wide and is NZ$25 per metre.
This next one is dark green with black dots.

These next 2 are 2.4 metres wide and NZ$20.80 per metre.

This one is dark brown with black and tan overprinted branches.
The next one is hot pink, very bright yet quite lovely.

Now for some new print fabrics - one for the KIDS. This fabric has Glow In The Dark features, a little colour on the bugs shows up in the dark. There is the border print and then an allover print. They are NZ$ 24.70 per metre.

Then we have a couple of Mary Lou Wiedman basics at NZ$25.60 per metre These are lovely bright cheerful fabrics.

AND

The last fabric to show you in this post is a gorgeous poppy fabric. NZ$25.90 per metre

Isn't it rich and lovely. Full of beautiful poppies that you could use in a block, sashing, borders etc.
If you are interested in anything you see please contact me or drop in and see me to view the fabrics in real life. Thanks for dropping by.
Dianne

Advert Challenge Quilts & Wanganui Quilt Show

Last weekend I was a merchant at the Wanganui Quilt Show. What a lovely weekend it was, with beautiful weather and lots of people about. As part of the exhibition Cotton On Quilters had an Open Challenge to anyone in NZ for a quilt "Inspired by a Magazine Advert". I made 2 entries as I found this a fun challenge. As long as the advert was not from a quilting magazine it was acceptable. The quilts could not be square or rectangular. I went through the NZ House and Garden magazine and found heaps of ideas. I made one quilt, didn't like it so started another and then had an idea to finish the first one, so ended up sending both. I didn't win but it was fun to enter.
Here are my entries -
This first one entitle "Elements" was based on an advert which had coloured ovals inside ovals, so I had a play with it. I machine quilted the entire background first and then fused the appliqued ovals over this. I decided to machine satin stitch in black around each one to define the colours and add a little punch. It didn't quite work so I put aside, did the other and then thought about adding the fabric beads for embellishment which I feel it needed. The fabric beads are strips of fabric about 1" wide by 3" long which are rolled around a wooden satay stick and sealed with a strip of Vliesofix fused into place.

Here is the next one -
This is based on an advert for the Rhododendron Festival in New Plymouth. The ad had a lovely lime green backrground and flowers over it. I decided to put all my lime green fabrics in a pile and cut and stitch randomly. I did not rotary cut these or measure them, I scissor cut and sewed together and then joined the blocks, eyeballing sizes. I only used the rotary cutter when I got to the inner black and white border. This was a very relaxing (and freeing) way to sew. I drafted all the flowers to shapes I like and fused them into place then free motion quilted and appliqued through all 3 layers to attach them just using a straight stitch, as if in a drawing.

Here are some shots of my stall

Thanks Cotton On Quilters for inviting me to be a merchant and share your exhibiton with you. I had a lovely time, sold lots and met lots of people.
Dianne

More New Fabrics and Magazines

I have just seen that it was a month since I last blogged. I am so sorry for the delay but lots of things have happened, in particular the earthquake in Christchurch. As secretary for Rose City Quilters I, and the committee, have been preparing kits and quilts to make and send down for distribution. Members are so generous, with both their time and supplies so we will have lots of quilts going down.
I have finished my entries for Remarkable Symposium and both were accepted (yay) but cannot show you until after Symposium. I will post pictures of both straight after, end of April.
On the "What's New" front - well we have had some lovely fabrics and some more magazines in - check out below -
These first 2 fabrics are a new range for me and they are a fantastic price - only NZ$15 per metre. The fabric has a lovely soft feel to it as well. Great marble/tonal shading in these. More colours to arrive.

Then there are the following , these black and cream geometric designs are very interesting. NZ$22 per metre. Slightly different from black and whites, a little more toned down with the cream in them.

Do you know that I carry some extra wide backing fabrics and very reasonable prices. The following are all 2.4m - 2.5m wide and are only NZ$20.80 per metre. Means you don't have to join your backing and they look great on the back. The print designs means it can hide your quilting, if you are not happy with it.

Here are some of the colours - a pinky beige, a brown, a blue, a green and a cream on cream for those lighter coloured quilts

I have been waiting for this lovely book - Cloth Doll Workshop

The new issues of Yarn and Embellish have arrived in from Australia. My favourite is the Embellish magazine as it has so many different and interesting articles covering lots of subjects - felting, embellishing, dyeing, stamping on fabric etc. At only NZ$15 this is a good read.

We'd love to hear from you or see you at the shop. I am at the Wanganui Cotton On Quilters exhibition this weekend 19/20 March at the Racecourse in Wanganui in the merchant Mall but the shop will still be open on Saturday morning. If you are coming to Wanganui an added attraction is the Wanganui Artists are having an Open Studio weekend, check it out as well.
Dianne