New Patterns are making me itch to Sew!

Yesterday Jim and I did a rush trip around the Australian Quilt Market (wholesale trade show), and we found some great new products.  The only problem now is that I need to find time to make some samples.  I think I will start with some of the toy's because they are sooooooo cute.
What do you all think of these great ones?

I think I will love the clothes patterns too.  The designer has allowed for a fuller bust size (D cup) and that will be absolutely brilliant.  So it is time to get off the computer and into the fabric stash, to at least get something cut out today!

Embroidery Bliss

I adore having uninterrupted time to sew!  I guess everyone does, and it is amazing how much more you can get done when the phone isn't ringing and there are no appointments to keep.

This picture is of a quilt called "Friends of Baltimore" which is simply beautiful.  Two years ago I started a group of embroidery digitisers who wanted to digitise the quilt so it could be sewn in their Embroidery Machines.  The group of 16 quickly dwindled, and now 2 years later just 4 of us are still on the journey.  All of us are up to the finally phase, of actually stitching out our designs and each one has taken a different direction.  One of the group has made her blocks true to size, and colour of the original version and it is beautiful.  Another shrunk her blocks, but otherwise stuck to similar colours and it too is beautiful.  The third member of our group took a totally different view and has gone to great pains to digitise her version as a white on white, relying on texture to create interest.  The blocks we have seen are truly remarkable.  Which brings me to me.  My quilt is a smaller scale, and is stitched on black homespun.  I've added bling and the blocks are looking very different from the original.

This block was one of the quickest to stitch, and to digitise.

At the last minute I realised I wanted to digitise these large birds using a technique that allows for the use of variegated thread, the resulting movement in the feathers is lovely in real life.

This was one of the first that I digitised and it took forever to stitch out, but has just this moment come off the machine so I will photograph it again.  I love it because I was able to have fun with gradient fills for some of the fruit.

I'm taking a pause in the blocks for a day or so while I test stitch the first block of a different quilt, and will also share these pictures really soon.

Sorry I've been missing for a while!

I can't believe how much time has gone since I last blogged!

In the shop it has been a whirl wind of activity with convention, then the launch of 6D and other products!  And now I look at the calendar and see that it is only about 4-5 weeks until Christmas.  Goodness there aren't enough hours in the day to get all my work done let alone remember to blog!

I am finding time to be creative though, and have recently purchased a new Pen Tablet.  My intention was to use it for creating my own digital artwork, but I have also come to love it for digitising, which was an unexpected bonus.  I paid a small fortune for mine, but have found some with the same specs that are a more reasonable price, and which I will be adding to my website as an item customers can purchase.  

The biggest project I have on right now is the Digitising Retreat in 2014.  I have only three months to write and test all the lessons, so I'd really like to get at least two of these done before Christmas.  It sounds like it should be easy until you see my calendar and the huge "To Do" list Jim has given me.  On Monday he went off to the "Think Big, Shop Small" business owners seminar and came back home totally fired up and full of ideas and enthusiasm.  The shop has picked up, sales wise and we are finding ourselves short staffed a lot of the time which is a great thing after the past few years I can tell you.

So I'm busy digitising, and writing lessons, and stitching out a big embroidered quilt, and making samples for the shop, and working on the Fabric Frolic (another quilt to make and instructions to write) and working on all the e-commerce stuff ... so I'm pretty busy.

I have made a new video which you might like.  The video is about how to make the bag (picture above) using a pattern template from the Pfaff website. We had a free workshop at Ringwood Sewing Centre for customers to make the bag on the new Pfaff Passport 2.0 sewing machine, and the girls were so impressed with this little rocket of a machine that they HAD to take one home!

On a personal note, by dam car brakes failed completely last week.  In a flustered state I phoned Jim to tell him that I'd had a near death experience only to have him not answer his mobile (cell) phone.  I made quite a number of attempts to reach him, and then ended up texting him.  Still no reply.
My next text "Ring me.  Serious Accident.  In hospital" should have been enough to get a response, but no another 3/4 of an hour elapsed.  Then the home phone rang. 
"Honey, are you ok?  How bad are you hurt?  What hospital are you at?" reels off a frantic Jim.
Errrr....
"I'm on the HOME phone!".

I hope you are as busy as I am ... if you want to be!

Michelle

ps the brakes are now fixed, and we are looking for a replacement car!