Adelaide (part two of the quilting/alcohol/food escapade)

I arrived in sunny Adelaide on Thursday afternoon.  Just before I caught the flight, Shay sent me this.

How awesome is that! I had a good chuckle in the gate lounge.  However I had an attack of the worries on the plane, so as soon as I landed I sent a text to Shay to tell her what I was wearing in case she didn't recognise me!
I didn't need to worry.
We recognised each other immediately and there wasn't a single awkward moment the whole time I was there. We got on so well, it's as if we had known each other our whole lives. It probably does help that we keep on saying we're twins separated at birth, we have so much in common.

Shay was the most perfect host, it was such a pleasure to stay with her and boy did we have some fun. She is just as funny and crazy as I expected.  I got to see all her renovations and restorations in person, and they are even more fabulous than the photos, she is one very clever and capable person (except for maybe sewing raw edge applique, hmm, snort and doing teeny tiny shapes in free motion quilting) other than that she is a rock star at making stuff.  I also had a snoop around her sewing room and saw her quilts in person, it's amazing how much more gorgeous they look compared to the pics, and I had thought they were pretty fabulous from the photos.

Enough of the love fest.

Now down to the nitty gritty.

This was also waiting for me when I arrived at Casa Pyjamas, the menu for whilst I was in residence. Note there are some vegetables on there, lol.
However I was very disappointed to find that Slack Tea Thursday wasn't resurrected for this truly special occasion.
Shay Shay Shay.

I'm still not sure how much I can divulge of our exploits, but I don't think I'll be able to show my face in Adelaide for some time, and as much as Shay is trying to convince me to move, I really don't think I want to spend my time behind bars in South Australia, Shay is going to have to come here to visit.

I have been asked if I could give my version of events, I think some people may think that Shay is prone to exaggerating and poetic licence, unfortunately, not so much!  I will however state for the record I did not dance on any tables, I couldn't get up on one even if I tried. Shay, however..............that girl can move! I'll also say for the record that the cops were very nice.........................................................!

Now on to the quilty side of things.
It was the perfect opportunity to do a quilting class together, little did I know I would be branded for life.
It didn't bode well when we walked in to the class and wanted to sit together and had to boot somebody off a table so that we could. I'm sure there was a collective sigh of relief later on Saturday when people realised the enormity of the possibility of sitting at our table. I think there would have been people madly trying to swap places later so that they could get away from us.
So we were now in the naughty corner, very appropriate too, I might add. It was quite a good place to sit, although close enough that I'm sure the snorts and swearing were overheard by a few people. That may explain the distance people kept from us, other than a few brave souls who ventured to talk to us at lunch. At least neither of us swore then.  Speaking of which, the lunch on both days was lovely and there was more than enough to go round, Hettie's Patch did a stellar job.

We found another thing in common we don't do well with quilty stuff under pressure!

Now Shay did have a little bit of trouble getting the raw edge thing down pat, but at least her applique pieces stayed on, she is a legend at cutting out,  getting them on to her backing and getting them to stay there, mine on the other hand left a trail fluttering behind me as I walked away from the ironing board.
I need to do ironing applique 101 before I go any further with raw edge applique.
I didn't know the pieces had fallen off, the most embarrassing part was when Kellie found some of them on the floor and knew who they belonged to, shame shame shame!

Mine - minus the ladybirds, the bird's beak, a number of leaves and the centre of a flower.

So we both fell behind on Saturday and we were getting a tad worried that we were going to be the only ones that didn't finish the project by Sunday afternoon,  however it was nothing a stiff drink or twenty didn't fix on Saturday night.
Despite the drink or twenty on Saturday night we showed up again to cause more havoc and mayhem on Sunday.  Shay was right when she said she almost cried, I was pretty sure she was going to cry at one point and I don't blame her as she was having trouble with her machine, and the foot we both had was very very difficult to work with. The open toe plastic darning foot on the Janome is crap for quilting small shapes. I was just lucky I had a  great machine in the Janome Jem. I didn't quite get to the crying stage but a lot more swear words were heard. I spent part of the afternoon cutting out more leaves, a beak and ladybirds to replace the ones that fell off on Saturday. Even then I still managed to iron the backing of the steam a seam onto the steam a seam instead of taking it off before ironing on to the fabric!

We both learnt quite a lot from the class.  I love raw edge applique, Shay not so much.  I need to leave the iron on it longer to make sure the damn pieces stick to the background. We learnt lots of tips to help make applique easier and quicker, I need a little more help than most. We both now know the ins and outs of free motion quilting and should be able to (with a lot of practice) turn out some pretty good quilting. I learnt what Trapunto is and now I can do it. Well actually I think I can do it, I haven't got to that bit yet, I did say we fell behind, but at least I know how to do it, when I want to do it!
My vocabulary expanded as I learnt a whole lot of new swear words in multiple languages. I also know for sure it is impossible to do a quilting course at a beautiful quilting shop without buying fabric.
Hettie's Patch is a gorgeous store, the women who work there are lovely and so helpful and it has a huge range of fabric. It was impossible not to make some purchases.

More to add to the stash, by this time there was no rhyme or reason to the purchases, I just bought what I liked, and hadn't seen or had sold out in other stores.

I love all of them but my absolute favourite is the script at the bottom of this pic, sorry I don't know what it is other than it is a Moda fabric.

I have been looking at 1930's repros for ages and every time I decide to buy some I can't make up my mind, but as soon as I saw this bundle I just HAD to have them, 18 fat eighths.
Shay had to hold me back from rolling in amongst the bolts, I was in heaven. If I hadn't already bought out half of Melbourne I would have bought a lot more.

I've spent today, unpacking, doing loads of washing and then trying to find somewhere to fit all my fabric purchases. I think I need to build an extension to house all my fabric or buy a bigger house, lol!

French Roses

On Monday I spent the day at Patchwork Angel doing a class on the quilt pattern "French Roses" by Heather French.

The class was run by the lovely and very patient Jenny. She showed us how to make it as a quilt as you go quilt.  We had a great time, there were only 4 of us in the class which was good, as we all spread out, some of us more than others (not me of course, ahem cough cough). It certainly made me see how messy I am when I'm playing around with fabrics and auditioning them. I also kept on losing my freezer paper templates. I had to cut out the leaves twice. My cut flower pieces kept on hiding on me too. I really created a great impression.

I took along a fat quarter bundle and a couple of half yard pieces of Flower Sugar 2 and some extra yardage for the background and backing. I originally decided to have the background as off white and the backing in a Flower Sugar print, but when I was putting it together, Jenny and I decided to go a little bit out there and swap the backing and background around. 

This is the result. We only made 4 blocks on the day. They won't be staying in this order, but it was just enough to get a feel for making them. Because I swapped the background, the print I'd chosen to use as the binding didn't look good so we searched the shop for an alternative and came up with the pre made bias in blue and white. It doesn't show in the photos, but it brings out the blue in the floral prints, and I think it ties it all together. I think it's going to have a shabby chic feel. 

One thing I've learned from this experience, I think I've had enough of using all the one fabric line in a project. It looks pretty, but I was dying to add in other fabrics.  I ended up getting a couple of pieces of co-ordinating prints from other designers, as again, with swapping the background it meant I needed a couple more green and red prints.

The only other issue I had was as I used the plain off white for the backing, it was very very very very obvious if my batting wasn't placed absolutely perfectly, and of course it wasn't, so I am going to have to re-think the fabric I'm using for the backing. 

OK so it doesn't look quite so obvious in this photo, but believe me, it looks pretty awful in real life.

This will mean I'll have to purchase some more fabric as I don't have enough yardage of anything that will look good with this in my stash, lol!  As I've already made 4 blocks and there are 25 blocks in this quilt. I think I'll make one more block with the off white so I'll have one row with off white backing. For the rest I'll use a multi coloured backing. Then I'm going to try to do something really amazing and wonderful with the 5 off white blocks to try and hide the "gaps". I have no idea what amazing and wonderful entails but I'll keep you posted. 

Here are pics of what everyone else made on the day, I love the way they are all very different.

Therese used Flower Sugar 2 as well, but also added some other prints and went with the white backing and yellow binding for a very pretty result.

Christine used lovely muted colours including some Martinique, and this is her first ever quilt!

Bev chose 30's repros, don't they look good in this design.

This was a finished quilt that was on display.

I loved the use of scraps in the last one and the colour scheme was gorgeous, I just wish I had taken a couple more photos.

Now I have another WIP to add to my growing pile. I'm going to have to put this one aside for the time being while I try to catch up with all the other projects and the crochet tutorial.