Thursday 27 October 2011

Cloudy skies

Yesterday was Deepavali here in Singapore and so a public holiday.

The kids all went their separate ways and so I had some time to myself to try my hand at some fabric painting.

I had been wanting to try this for a while but got more than a little distracted by fabric postcards....anyway, ages ago I had bought some cloud fabric and now I am running out.  So I dyed some light blue fabric and thought I would try painting my own clouds......
I think they are a little dark and look more light a storm is brewing!

It's just as well that I have 3 more corners to practice on!

Watch this space!

Today I also had a good clean up in the sewing room....well at least that was the plan until the bookshelf broke.  Now I have books/patterns strewn all over the floor.  I feel a trip to Ikea coming on!

Happy Quilting!

Tuesday 25 October 2011

British Club Quilt Challenge Singapore 2011

Today was the long awaited British Club Quilt Challenge 2011.
This is the one time of year that all the quilters from the various quilting groups in Singapore come together and have a quilt challenge/luncheon.

The quilts were absolutely beautiful and really showcased the quilting talent here in Singapore.

There is a slideshow available by clicking on the link below:

British Club Quilt Challenge Singapore 2011

This year I didn't enter a quilt but I did have a stall selling my hand dyed fabrics, fabric postcards and christmas tree tags.  I sold several items and received plenty of positive feedback as well as making plenty of new friends!

Thank you especially to my friend Kim (left) who came and helped me today as well as helping me last week with the display!

Thank you also to all those that organised today's event!

see you again next year!

Monday 24 October 2011

1 sleep to go!...More Fabric Postcards

There is only 1 more sleep until the British Club Quilt Challenge and I have been busy making the last of the fabric postcards, christmas tree tags and hand dyed fabrics.
Here are some of the Singapore fabric postcards that I have made using photos taken by my friend Kim (with her permission of course!)

I also had some dye and a couple of fat quarters of fabric left over from last weeks dyeing session and so I dyed another couple of pieces of fabric.
Multicoloured Hand-dyes

In total I now have:

137 Fat Quarters of hand dyed fabrics
3 x 1/2 yards of hand dyed fabrics
69 Fabric Postcards
43 Christmas Tree tags

All of this was made in between watching the World Cup Rugby games.

Congratulations to the "All Blacks" of New Zealand for winning the Rugby World Cup 2011!!!!!

Thursday 20 October 2011

5 sleeps to go!!!

Today my friend Kim came over to help me with the displaying of the hand dyed fabric and the fabric postcards that we will be selling at the British Club on Tuesday.  She sorted all the hand-dyed fabrics into complimentary bundles and we tied them with ribbon and priced them.
I had no idea I had so much dyed fabric!
She also sorted out how to display the postcards nicely into the cane baskets that I have borrowed with some nice gold fabric that I had.

I LOVE dyeing fabrics and making the fabric postcards but knowing how to display things for sale seems to have completely escaped me!

If you follow my blog you will know how bad some of  my photos are and it really is a skill that I will need to master if I want to be a successful seller.  Thankfully I have good friends who are patient enough to teach me.  Thanks Kim!

I did manage to make a couple more cards today and todays theme was....

Birthdays!




Happy quilting!

Wednesday 19 October 2011

6 sleeps to go!

Yes only 6 sleeps until the British Club Quilt challenge and I have been working really hard to get everything ready for the sales table.  Last count was 60 fabric postcards and 35 christmas tree tags.

Here are three that I made yesterday after the ANZA quilting group:




Today I have been busy dyeing some more fabrics.  Today I dyed 12  fat quarters of clear dark rainbow and 12 fat quarters of light muted rainbow.

Photos to follow tomorrow

Happy Quilting!

Monday 17 October 2011

7 sleeps to go!

It's hard to believe that the British Club Quilt Challenge is only a week away and I still have so many things to do before I have everything ready!

Today I concentrated on landscape cards and managed to do three.  This was a pretty good effort seeing I also went out to buy foam and reupholstered my sons computer chair!

Moonlight

River Mouth

Winterscape
Till next time!

Happy Quilting!

Thursday 13 October 2011

Hijacked by a snake!!!

I had big plans to achieve great things in the sewing room today ....

and then Gina found a snake in the garden!
A Paradise Tree snake
We called the pest control but by the time they came the snake was long gone.They tell me the paradise tree snake is only midly venomous.  Not that this really makes me feel any better about having a snake in my garden!

Anyway after lunch I did manage to get into the sewing room and make my chinese character christmas tree tags.

I have run out of fabric printer sheets so I thought I would try my hand at printing directly onto the fabric.

I ironed freezer paper to the back of the fabric and cut it to A4 size.  I then glued the top of the freezer paper to a piece of A4 printer paper to help the printer feed it through.  I checked for any loose threads and carefully pushed  the print button.  I was very happy with the results and here are the finished tags.

Thanks to my friend Jan who helped me with the translation.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Too busy sewing to blog!

I realise that it's been a couple of days since my last blog and that is because I have been so busy sewing and there just hasn't been enough time to blog about it.  On Monday I decided to tidy up the sewing room before starting sewing as it was just so messy that I couldn't find the things I needed.

I will be having a sales table at the upcoming Quilt Challenge held at the British Club on 25 October and I will be selling my postcards, christmas tree decorations and my hand dyed fabrics.

To date I have made 50 fabric postcards, 27 christmas tree ornaments and I still need to dye some more fabrics as I have sold most of the last batch I did.

These are the  christmas tree ornaments I made today:


There is also the rugby world cup on in New Zealand at the moment and so that has been busy with us having guests over to watch the games( funny how us being the only ones with the right cable channel suddenly makes you popular!)  We will be having more guests this weekend to watch the NZ vs Australia game.  Go New Zealand!!!!!

Yesterday was a break from the sewing machine and meet up with our ANZA quilting group.  My friend Ada from Canada was also there and she lent me the book she has written called "Crazy about Quilting - confessions of an average quilter" by Ada Moyle.

I really enjoying reading this book (so much so that we had to order pizza for dinner!)
This is a great book and sure to put a smile on any quilters face!
Today is also our 20th wedding anniversary and my husband and I are celebrating by going out for dinner.  I hope it stops raining before then.

Anyway thats all for now

Happy quilting!

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Designed by Master Luke, Age 10

Sometimes adults spend too much time thinking and not enough doing.  Today I was stumped as to what to do with some rocket ship motifs that I had collected and along comes my son Luke,

he draws me a design and......


 "hey presto" another fabric postcard. 

I made several others today too but I still think Luke's card was by far the best!


He was really excited when I wrote " Designed by Luke" on the back.

Happy Quilting!

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Quilting and great friends

This morning  I made some Japanese inspired postcards:


The thing I love about quilting (other than being able to "play" with fabric) is the fact that I meet lots of other lovely quilters from all around the world.

This morning I met up with my friend Ada from Canada and she came to our ANZA quilt group.  We met via our blogs two years ago (www.thelight-heartedquilter.blogspot.com) when she came to Singapore to visit her daughter and now she is back for the birth of a grandchild.

My friend Ada (standing) with some ladies from the ANZA Quilt Group
Ada also gave me two of her minature landscape quilts.
Aren't these just lovely!
It always nice catching up with quilting friends old and new, from close by or from far away.  Quilters are such a nice bunch!

Happy Quilting!