This weekend I attended the inaugural Aotearoa Quilters Tutors' Seminar in Wellington.

The three day course was full-on and packed with great information, networking with others from the quilting world and of course lots of fun. We also had the Aotearoa Quilters AGM and dinner on Saturday evening.

Bobby Duncan (organiser), Yvonne Roberts (tutor), Jared Murdoch (tutor), Louise Murdoch, Jenny Bacon (tutor), Natalie Murdoch (convenor)

We were divided into two groups - Green group and Blue group - reflecting the colours in the Aotearoa Quilters logo. My group was the Green group. With about fifteen members in each group there was an excellent attendance at the seminar and lots of people to bounce ideas off and to learn from their experiences.

The first day was spent with Jenny Bacon from Australia. Jenny is an internationally qualified Quilt judge. We learned about what judges look for, ways that work (and don't work!) for judging exhibition quilts, and we had a practice session a...

Last week we had some fun classes. On Wednesday we made 'Banana Bags' - these are not bags for putting bananas in, but a generous sized zip up bag designed by Wendy Williams that is great fun to make and looks fabulous. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of Lynda's finished bag yesterday.

On Saturday we had a full house for the Pop Stars class. Pop Stars is a quilt from the Material Obsession books.p This is one of my favourite classes as we get to relax and have fun while making beautiful blocks. I have posted more photos on Facebook (www.facebook.com/quilterslane) and Instagram (quilterslanesheila) but here is one of the stunning blocks:

One of the advantages of my job is that I get to go to lots of classes and workshops.  This weekend I am looking forward to attending the Aotearoa Quilters Tutors' Seminar in Wellington. This course is going to cover teaching patchwork and quilting, judging quilts and using social media. Hopefully I will learn lots that I will be able to p...

Last month we completed the 2014 Mystery with two amazing reveal days. I have put some photos below.

We have now launched the 2015 Mystery, to see the colourways please visit my  new website here

This will be my last typepad post, for more information on Quilters' Lane and my quilting please go to the Quilters' Lane website where you can find all sorts of information and purchase products.

If you are doing any of my classes at Symposium I look forward to seeing you in January. Please note I have now put all of the hand quilting products on the new website.

Happy Stitching

Sheila

August News

It’s been another great month of quilting. Joanne Farmery’s Inner City class was a highlight, I have put photos of the blocks made on my facebook page.
Welcome to Gill, Lisa, Lyn, Ruth, Carol and Glenys who started their beginners course last month, and congratulations to Carol, Kath, Annette and Eileen who completed their course.

CLASSES

The next six week beginners class will be on Tuesday evenings from 6pm to 8pm, starting on October 14th. To register, call in at Quilters’ Lane.

Petal Class – due to demand we are running another class on Weds 17th Sept 10-1 and Weds 24th Sept.
Date changes :
Free Motion Quilting now Sat Sept 13th 10am to 4pm
Sunburst block now Sat October 18th 10am to 4pm.
Please see our August Class List for a full list of what’s on.

MYSTERY 2014
Part Seven of our 2014 Mystery is now available at Quilters' Lane. We are now busy preparing for the Reveal Days – November 8th and 15th – when you can come and see the quilt and optionally stay and sew. The 8th is now ful...

Here are the photos to go with the August news post:

This is Joanne Farmery's Inner City quilt - it won best amateur traditional quilt at the Taupo Symposium last year. It is completely hand made - piecing and quilting, and created an amazing reaction when people came in to the shop.

Joanne taught the class recently at the shop

and these are the blocks that everyone created:

Don't they look great? Joanne taught hand piecing techniques including how to make those points meet perfectly. Hand stitching is getting very popular, being something you can do while on the move, or in the evening in front of the television.

Upcoming classes include a repeat of Vickye's Petals class on September 17th and 24th

And another chance to make my version of a Flat Mat Bag - very handy for carrying your quilting tools to class - turn up to Symposium in style! The class is on October 24th

I have been busy working on a quilt for Symposium, but did manage to f...

Joanne Farmery with 'Inner City'

Here is the latest news from Quilters' Lane:

CLASSES

Beginners Patchwork and Quilting starts on Friday July 25th from 10am to 12pm and runs for 6 weeks.

Inner City with Joanne Farmery - Saturday August 2nd 10am to 4pm. This class is perfect if you are looking for a travel project that you can carry with you as the quilt is all hand pieced. Also you will be using your scraps so there is no initial outlay on fabric for this quilt.
I am also updating the class list again and have added another Free Motion Class and Flat Mat Bag class. More classes will be added soon , please see our class list for details.

JULY SPECIALS
This month we have specials on our computer aided quilt design software. EQ7 is the package I use to design all of my Mystery and Shop Hop quilts. Normally $385, it is marked down to $299 for July only. Quilt Wizard is a simplified version of EQ and allows you to work out your block sizes, sashings, borders etc and to print out block instructions. Normally $59, reduced to $39 fo...

This year we have been to a lot of craft fairs and quilt exhibitions with the shop. Packing everything up and travelling all over the place is fun but very time consuming, and it uses up a lot of energy. So it was wonderful to spend a weekend at the Symposium in Ashburton as a tutor instead of being a merchant.

My hosts for the Braided Ribbons symposium were fabulous. Alison Bufton who was my hostess picked me up at the airport, drove me to the hotel and wherever I needed to go and generally looked after me all weekend. Paula Lawrence was a great organiser and the committee can be congratulated on a fantastic event all round.

Saturday saw my very first Symposium teaching engagement. Being a teacher in a previous life and teaching a lot in the shop I hadn't been getting too nervous, but when the moment came I was a little anxious and hoped I had remembered everything on the needs list and that my students would enjoy their day.

Twelve lovely ladies appeared in the classroom and we be...

Summer is moving along here in the Wairarapa. We have had stinking hot days and some pretty cold ones as well. I have been enjoying doing my hand pieced quilts but also getting in some sewing machine time.

The nice thing about having a lot of 'UFO's is that when you do pick one up it doesn't always take long to finish it. Some time back I started a quilt that was a version of a Lone Star, all with strip piecing. Having decided to teach the quilt as a class it was time to get the thing finished, so that was today's job (being Wellington Anniversary day). I had started with a cream fabric for the centre

I decided the cream wasn't working so tried out a couple of other ideas. Here is the blue Philip Jacobs coleus fabric:

I quite liked that but it wasn't working with the pink background, so I went back to the original idea which was to put the outside fabric in the centre also. And here is the finished block:

I;m pretty happy with the way it has turned out, a...

This weekend we have been launching the 2014 Mystery Quilt at the shop. I have been overwhelmed with the support for this quilt and it's great to know that people from far flung places will be all making the Mystery.

There are still some places left to do the Mystery quilt - you can participate in the shop or by post - we can send the blocks to you if you are not able to get here. These are some of the colourways that are still available:

There's rich autumn tones in Autumn Bounty:

Sedate greens with a bush theme:

Modern and fresh yellows and greys in Spring Fling:

Cute lions and monkeys in Jungle Fever:

(the little 'curl' is representative of the orangey fabric we are using, it hasn't arrived in yet)

Pink as anything elephants taking a shower:

Again , one more fabric to add

Cool blue, white and silvers in Winter Frost

And finally one for those who love their horses:

If you would like to know more, send me an email or leave a comment bel...