This month I have been visiting family in England, and while I am here I have been teaching my Triangle Block Party class.

My walk this time doesn't include a quilt, but look at these beautiful native bluebells that adorn many English woods at this time of year

When I was a child, we would gather armfuls of bluebells to enjoy, but these days it's not allowed, and really so much better to see them in swathes in their natural setting. My sister, great niece and I loved our adventure in the woods, and the added bonus was a beautifully built wooden playground.

After a bit of catch-up time, I was off on the train to Huddersfield. Nestled in the Peak district in the North of England, Huddersfield was at the heart of the wool trade in the nineteenth century, and many mills have now been converted for new purposes. Four trains from Bedford, I arrived in the village of Slaithwaite (pronounced 'Slawett'), and met Justine and Lisa, who run Simply Solids. It's a great shop stocking a fabulous...

This year I went to Quiltmarket in Houston for the first time ever. Wow, what an amazing event - there are so many designers, manufacturers, exciting stalls and new fabrics.. it was hard to know where to begin.

Quiltmarket is an event for shop owners, designers and people in the business of quilting. It goes on for three days (plus a day of 'schoolhouses' at the beginning), and then the whole area is cleared out to make way for Quilt Festival, which everyone can attend.

I was just in seventh heaven, going to presentations by designers I have become familiar with over the years of running the shop, seeing all the new designs and meeting lovely people.

One of the main reasons for attending this year was to meet Kim Moos, founder and CEO of Cotton Cuts. Kim and I have been talking for a while about taking my Mystery Quilt programme to the USA, and it was so much fun to meet up with her in person. Kim is doing a great job, working with a disabled workshop in St Louis to cut the fabrics...

Since the 2016 Mystery Reveal I have had a lovely break away, doing a little traveling around New Zealand.

You may have heard the news about the large earthquake that hit the South Island. There are lots of photos in the news of the damage to the roads and infrastructure there. Although we only felt relatively little shaking here in Masterton, a lot of damage happened on the other side of the mountain ranges in the Wellington area.

source: stuff.co.nz

This is the Queensgate mall  which was closed for a couple of weeks and is now only partially open. I travel past here when going to my Capital Quilters meetings, and when I went last Saturday it was eerily quiet - usually at this time of year it would take ages to drive through the town. Buildings are being demolished and there is a lot of work going on to get things back to normal.

Meanwhile back in Masterton, I am preparing lots of exciting things for next year.

MYSTERY 2017

We had so much fun making the 2016 Mystery quilt. I'm...

This morning we broadcast live on Facebook from the Mystery reveal. Follow this link to watch the video!

https://www.facebook.com/sheila.christensen.71/videos/10202207741552887/

Hi everyone

Here I am at Quiltmarket and feeling frustrated that I can't give you photos that are the right way round - I promise to post lots when I get back!

It has been an incredible few days and I have lots of news ahead, so stay tuned, and don't forget to look out for the Big Reveal of the 2016 Mystery this Saturday 5th November!

Our team standing in front of the finished quilt top.

This Saturday I went to Capital Quilters, one of the quilting groups that I belong to. In place of the usual meeting the committee had decided that we would spend the meeting making charity quilt tops, using Jelly Rolls. The idea was to make the event fun and have a bit of healthy competition thrown in. Seven teams of three worked on quilt tops and most completed them in the two hours. One team even came all dressed up in their PJs and mop caps!

A few of us drive over the Rimutaka Hill from the Wairarapa to Lower Hutt each month for the meeting, and on the way we usually stop for a bite of lunch. So it was over lunch that we firmed up our plans for our quilt top. Pam brought a notebook with some sketches in, and with great foresight she had brought along some fusible web, Lyn had remembered her cutter, mat and sewing supplies and I brought the machine and Sew Ezi table. We were all set and ready to compete!

Most of the teams...

Welcome to part four of my Binding 101 tutorial.

Joining the ends of my binding was always a bit of a hit and miss affair. I used to fold one end inside the other and hope for the best. This didn't look good as it produced a lumpy, straight join when all the others were mitred and nice and flat.

I tried using various binding gadgets but could never figure out from one quilt to the next what to do, and got frustrated when I cut too much off, or cut the wrong way round.

Then one day I decided the only thing to do was to try and figure it out for myself, and I eventually came up with this method which for me is more intuitive and I can now actually remember how to do it every time!

Get a beautiful join in your binding

Give it a try next time you join your binding...

Start by leaving yourself PLENTY of room to work with. I start sewing my binding 10-12" from the beginning of the strip, and leave a good 12" gap at the end. The orange pins in this photo show where I started and stopped...

Welcome to my new look blog!
Over the past few weeks I have been updating the blog and changing the look. I hope you like it!
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Computer Day is here again! On Mondays I try to catch up with my website maintenance, blog, newsletter and pattern writing. Today's job was completing the final assembly instructions for this year's Mystery Quilt. It's a great feeling to have them done and ready for testing. I feel like I am getting better at juggling the diagrams and text!

The sampler is done! Well, the quilt top anyway. It is now away being basted and hopefully I will get started on the quilting this weekend. We have been forecast some very chilly weather, so it might be the perfect time to sit in front of the sewing machine....