Elna Bethlehem Class

What a fun day we had yesterday at Dalien and Hennie's friendly Elna shop in Bethlehem.  They have a superb range of beautiful quilt cotton fabric and all the necessary extras that us quilters need for stitching and finishing our quilts including lovely threads for free motion quilting.  They also have knitting wool, embroidery threads and patterns, beads, silk ribbon and all manner of interesting haberdashery that caters for many different crafts.  Of course, the full range of Elna machines that they are very happy to demonstrate.  You can have your machine serviced there under Hennie's watchful eye while you are shopping for fabrics! 

It is one of my favourite venues for holding free motion quilting classes and yesterday's class was no exception.  Here we all are looking rather exhausted after a very busy day.

I think they look quite pleased!

The class in action

              

I like to give individual attention

 

Bertha helping with machine settings

Dalien admiring Sonia's work

Ai Stompie jy teken so mooi!

More of the class in action

Thank you Dalien for letting us disturb your busy shop for a day and for the lovely cookies you provided for tea.  We look forward to the Intermediate class next year!

Happy quilting everyone and to my lovely students - practice, practice, practice!!!

 

Whole Cloth Quilt

Well it's not exactly "tomorrow" but soon after anyway!

I am very excited to at last add my whole cloth quilt to my blog.  It is from a class I did with Issie Steenberg about a year ago and I've worked on it intermittently as my fmq teaching has allowed.  The 16 inch squares are divided diagonally and each one has a different pattern quilted within the diagonal lines.  It was a mammoth task trying to think of different fmq patterns to quilt in each quarter.  I think there is one repeat which I had obviously forgotten about having stitched it a few months previously.

Whole cloth King Size Quilt

 

The quilted squares were trimmed to 16 inches and joined together using the quilt-as-you-go method.
Here are a few more close-ups of some of the quilting.

I quilted loose feathers around the entire border and then joined it also with quilt-as-you-go after the 36 squares had been joined together.  There was a lot of hand stitching in the joining but the finish is far nicer than machine stitching.

I was delighted to see this quilt displayed at the Clarens Quilt Festival.  It drew quite a bit of attention and inspired many people to take my Free Motion Quilting class.  It is not a very good photo as there was a lot of light in the room.

Whole cloth quilt in Clarens

Thank you for visiting my blog once again.  I hope this has inspired you to start one of these whole cloth quilts.  It is so very rewarding once the quilt is finished!!

Happy quilting,

 

National Quilt Festival

So many months have passed since my last blog post; where does the time go!  There are surely not enough hours in the day to get everything done.  My free motion quilting classes have really kept me busy the past few months with a full program coming up in September and October which will now be involving me in a few road trips in South Africa.  But I am not complaining as I absolutely love teaching and sharing what I know and what I have done with so many people.

Back to what this blog is about - our National Quilt Festival held in July at Kearsney College near the beautiful Valley of a Thousand Hills in Natal.  I decided to enter my "Swoon" Quilt, a pattern from Camille Roskelley which I had been making for a few months and where I had free motion quilted in the negative spaces.  The fabrics I used were from Kaffe Fassett's collection and I used Aurifil thread to do the quilting. I was very happy with the result and really did not expect to win a 3rd place ribbon for my effort.  Here is a pic of the quilt hanging in the exhibition.

Swoon

 

And of course yours truly!













A few close-ups of the quilting.

My sister Barbara and I attended three classes at the festival.  Oh my word, I now have to find time to complete what we started in these classes but they will get done and I'll put them on my blog!

Here are a few photos in the beautiful grounds of Kearsney College in Botha's Hill, Kwa-Zulu Natal .
 

Lunch tables

Many vendors selling tasty treats

Barbara enjoying her Crunchie!

Thank you for visiting today.  Please come back tomorrow and see pics of my wholecloth quilt which I have now at last finished!

Happy quilting,

Classes at Cotton Tale

Well what a wonderful time we all had over the two days!  It was fun and exciting to see how the ladies managed and couldn't believe the difference in their stitching from the beginning of the classes and when we finished in the afternoon.  I'm not sure if it was quite what they were expecting but nevertheless every single lady very quickly managed to execute the different stitches, each in their own way and style.

Here are a few photos of our exciting days; the time went so quickly and I only managed three photos!

 A huge thank you goes to Judy and Chantal at Cotton Tale and for the delicious eats they served at tea time!

I look forward to sharing more of what I have learned of this fascinating art in the near future. We will hold follow-on classes with these ladies in a few months time.  I can't wait to see what they have achieved over the next few months!  Well done all of you!

Happy quilting,

Quilting Classes.

My free motion quilting classes have kept me extremely busy over the last few months and even a bit of traveling to out-lying areas.  What started off teaching friends how to piece a quilt, led to acquaintances hearing about it and wanting other classes organized, to complete strangers approaching me to learn this exciting hobby.  But my love and passion for free motion quilting steered me into many more opportunities and so life has become far more hectic.  Added to that, we have our National Quilt Festival coming up in July 2015 and I am trying to complete a quilt for the festival as well as making up samples for the classes.  Two classes at Cotton Tale on 16 and 17 March, Bethlehem on 26 March and I am teaching at Quilt in Clarens in July.

Here are some photos of my two dear friends Joan and Corrie who started off quilting classes in my little sewing room last year.  This was actually their third class where they are learning Paper Piecing. 

Busy concentrating!

And here they are with their finished blocks.  Aren't they beautiful, umm the blocks as well!

A finish!  Well done girls.

I have enjoyed the quilting classes and we have had a lot of fun and laughter, and not too many ripped out seams!!

One of my free motion quilting classes was held at Lalis, a lovely guest house in Harrismith.  We were so busy that this is the only photo I managed to take.  It doesn't look like it, but we had a lot of fun in this class!  I must have just captured the concentration!  Poor Emmie was really battling with her old Bernina which led to her buying a brand new Elna.  Way to go Emmie. 

Riana taking a break to check on the other ladies.

Helping the ladies

At about this time we had a visit from Issie Steenberg, a lovely lady from Bloemfontein who came to give us all a class on the "quilt as you go" method.  Fortunately the girls had all had a bit of practice with free motion quilting as Issie's class was not a beginners class.  Now six months later, two of the ladies have finished the quilts they started in the class.  Here they are, aren't they stunning!

Gerda's beautifully quilted quilt

Alta's lovely quilt

I have yet to finish mine but will post when it's done.  Too much to do; too little time!

Thank you for stopping by,