Fabric acquisitions and giant pears

hmmm, fabric acquisitions, just a fancy term for buying more fabric?

Nope!

This gorgeous charm pack and tiny scissors was a present from my friend Stacy.

And this little bundle of reproduction prints was a present from my friend Lisa!  

I did buy the "muffin" packs (10 x fat 1/8s) from Threadbear at Castlemaine - because I don't really have any orange in my stash, let alone my reproduction stash.  But they look suspiciously gold in this photo.

Confession I did buy all these 30 cm cuts - also from our trip to Castlemaine!  I needed some bright yellow and strong greens.  The brick reds at the end were "just because" purchases ...a) I liked the print and b) they were on sale!  The soft green the other end wasn't on sale...but I had to have it!

And this my friends is my super sized home grown pear, all 742 grams of it - or for my American friends = 1 pound 10 oz!  My son took it to school for show and tell and it came home very bruised.  When I cut it up, it was all floury and not nice, which was disappointing as the rest of the crop has been lovely.

Happy quilting Sue.

Castlemaine applique quilt show - just a snippet

Over the Labour Day weekend I drove my mother and two friends to Castlemaine for their applique quilt show.

Lots of stunning quilts, loads of onlookers and a venue with wonderful natural light - but the latter two points made for limited room to take photos of the whole quilt and not so true colours in the photos. 

This beauty, "Phebe at Myrtle Bank" (pattern by Di Ford Hall) with all the tiny pieced borders was a marvel to enjoy, but one I will not be tackling any time soon!

 A close up of the centre, all hand appliqued.

The sign said it was hand and machine stitched by Dianne Rickard.  No mention of who quilted this one.

I still cannot image cutting all those little triangles and then getting the border to fit!!

 Corliss' Baskets, pattern by Corliss Searcey (proprietor of Threadbear), stitched by Sharon Ghalayini and machine quilted by Shirley Lokys.

The lovely basket blocks make up the centre on what is a very large quilt (rest of the quilt is folded underneath itself) .  As you know I love baskets, so this is on my one day list!

I lack courage to use different colours on each petal, but admire those who can and do, because it does work!  Sometimes I guess you just need to have faith.

I had to take a photo of the quilting pattern as I loved it so much. More importantly the pattern didn't distract from the applique but enhanced the overall quilt.

 A stunning red and white quilt, "Remembering Sarah", pattern inspired by Sue Gorman, sewn by Rose Piper and long arm quilted by Palm Beach Quilting.

 The applique was button hole stitched and I just loved the circle designs on the border,which was further enhanced by the change in quilting pattern.

 One day I might find the courage to make a feathered star.

 With sweet baskets appliqued on point

 and feathery plumes.

"Miss Porters Quilt" designed  and stitched by Di Ford Hall and machine quilted by Helen Hayes.

Happy quilting Sue.

Threadbare, Castlemaine

     Threadbear, the patchwork shop in the Central Victorian goldfields town of Castlemaine specialise in reproduction fabrics.  I didn't just love it, I wanted to live there!  Honestly the phase, "like a kid in a candy shop" applied to me the minute I walked into Threadbear.  I didn't know where to start or what to buy...eg cute muffin packs or yardage!

The second question people asked me, after finding out that I finally made it to Threadbear, was, what did your husband do while you were shopping!  Frankly that was important as this was not a shopping trip to be rushed.

Well normally he would be entertaining the kids, but gasp, we were on a weekend away without the kids!!!  

OMG yes we might have racked up a decade of marriage, so thought we were entitled to a weekend away to celebrate.  

 The general consensus was that I needed to buy a metre for every year we were married....a bolt per child was mentioned as well, but DH managed to avoid complete financial ruin!

 Yes we had a lovely anniversary weekend away.  I did ask DH if on a scale of one to ten, where he rated wandering through markets and patchwork shops, but I didn't get an answer!  Don't worry folks I also went BBQ shopping with him and we brought the Rolls Royce of BBQ's!  

The final fabulous touch to the weekend was visiting Buda, the historical house and gardens donated to the town of Castlemaine by the Leviny family.    I took this photo off their website.

It was well worth seeing as it showcased lots of lovely landscaping ideas and DH took lots of photos (sorry on his phone not my camera), because without me saying a word, he wanted to replicate them at our house too!

Happy quilting Sue.