Friday, June 8, 2012

Winter is here!

It certainly is cold enough here in South Australia…my wood fire is going non stop thankfully & the guys are all on the tractors planting our crops for this year. Rain has been good when it finally came the day I got home from the USA!

I had a great time in Kansas City in May. Many thanks to all my wonderful students in my 5 classes at Machine Quilters Showcase. You were all amazing & I’m sure will be quilting up a storm with all the inspiration, classes & shopping that was available at this show vbg. The buzz was fantastic & everyone was having a great time. The organisers of this show are to be commended & a very special thanks to all the volunteers that really do make a show work the best that it can.

I did find some wonderful new products that are finding their way home to me in the next couple of months – so stay tuned for all the new releases as they arrive.

The first few items that should be arriving in the next 10 days are the amazing DVD’s by Jamie Wallen.

Threadfusion by Jamie Wallen

Threadfusion

Jamie's long-awaited Threadfusion 1 DVD is here!

This is a 3-Day Intensive Workshop featured on 4-DVDs. There are over 6-hours of step-by-step instructions featuring many of Jamie's beautiful Threadfusion designs for blocks and borders including his beautiful Dragonflies. Jamie will take you through each design beginning at the drawing board and then move over to the machine as he stitches each design for you. You will enjoy the up close views that these DVDs offer. As he stitches you will feel as though you are in the "driver's seat". You will enjoy the bonus section where Jamie demonstrates the beautiful Threadfusion designs featured on the "Jamie's Messenger Bag" DVD. Also included in the Workshop is a CD Data Disc, which includes PDF files of all the templates you will need including many more design examples.

Price: $AU90-00 plus postage

Mystical CottonTracks Workshop 1

Mystical CottonTracks Workshop 1

Mystical CottonTracks Workshop 1 by Jamie Wallen

Whether you are a longarm, domestic machine, midarm or hand quilter - this 2 day, classic and award winning DVD set, will take your surface quilting to the next level. Learn swirl, leaf and feather designs from the "Father of the Flurry Feather"!

This 2-day workshop on DVD has been re-released as a 3-Disc Set. You will receive the original 2-DVD Set along with a CD. The CD contains the PDF files for you to print the original Mystical Cottontracks Workbook along with the accompanying sliders.

Price: $AU75.00 plus postage

The Care & Feeding of your A-1 Quilting Machine

The Care & Feeding of your A-1 Quilting Machine

Product Information

The Care & Feeding of your A-1 Quilting Machine by Jamie Wallen

This is a comprehensive 4-DVD Set which covers over 60 Topics to help you keep your A-1 running at optimum performance. Jamie covers Daily Maintenance, Quarterly Spa Treatments, Needle & Hopping Foot Bar Maintenance, Timing, Motor Belt Adjustment & Replacement, Behind the Back Cover Care, Behind the Faceplate Care, Machine Operation, Loading a Quilt, A-1 Table Breakdown & Setup, Straightening Leaders, Tension and more.

Price: $AU90.00

Mystical Feathers 1

Mystical Feathers 1

Product Information

Mystical Feathers 1 Digital Book by Jamie Wallen

Mystical Feathers 1 covers many different ways to use the classic and new style feather fronds. No matter what form of surface art, quilting, pyrography, card arts, human ink and all of the other forms, this book is a valuable addition to your instructional and visual inspirational library.

This digital book contains the entire printed book in PDF format. Additional sliders are on the disc for practicing. The sliders can be printed on your printer. Adobe Acrobat reader is required to view these files. Acrobat is a free download at www.get.adobe.com/reader/

Price: $AU25.00

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At the moment I’m pondering designs for a couple of quilts that I would really like to make!

I’m going to challenge everyone to get on board & join me in this challenge. We don’t have a lot of time as this challenge has been open since last year BUT as usual I’ve left it to the last minute to get started.

Alzheimer’s Benefit Quilt Challenge

Quilt Challenge Theme “Memory”

Alzheimers quilt challenge fabric kit 001 Fabric kit of 6 x fat 1/16’s

Let your imagination run wild and think of a special memory that you have and then transfer that vision into fabric. A memory that is special to you, a childhood memory of a ride on a carousel, a place that you’ve visited, a person that holds special memories, a favourite quilt block the list is endless and remember how blessed we are to have our memories and be able to participate in this initiative.

Each entry is to be accompanied by a story of the memory no longer than 250 words.

All quilts are to be donated and auctioned with full proceeds going to the Alzheimer’s Association. The top thirty finalists will be selected for display at AMQ Festival 2012 with the top 10 being auctioned at the Banquet dinner at Festival. The remaining 20 quilts will be up for silent auction at Festival; all others will be auctioned online within 30 days.

A printable copy of the rules & application form can be found here.

Online application form

The beauty of this challenge is that there is NO MINIMUM size! Only a maximum size of 1m x 1m. This means we can experiment & create works of art that are as small as A4 if we want? I’m thinking of at least a couple of A3 sizes and you can add any other fabrics to this that you want. As long as you use a recognisable piece of each of the 6 challenge fabrics in your quilt then it will be judged.

There are some cool prizes to. I’m not eligible to win the prizes but that is not why I want to enter this. It is way more important to me to be able to play around with an achievable sized quilt & feel good to be donating it to a most worthy cause!

I took a class whilst I was in Kansas City from the amazing Sue Patten from Canada on thread painting using variegated threads. I came home with at least 1 1/2 suitcases of thread (for me only vbg) so I really need to use some of it now don’t I?

So the challenge is now made. Do you think you can order the kit & come up with a quilt by the end of this month? (We may be able to extend the deadline by a week or so if we know that more quilts are coming.) Even after that we will welcome more challenge quilts to assist in raising more funds for the Alzheimer’s Association. The deadline is to enable judging to take place and advise winners of the prizes in advance of festival so that the winners can take advantage of the classes on offer.

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Last of all I did promise a SALE upon my return from the USA!

So for this long weekend only – finishing midnight on Monday 11th June Australian Central Standard time (SA time) there will be 10% off all products in the online store & a total of 15% off of any longarm rulers. (Excludes A1 quilting machines, Intelliquilter & postage costs)

So enjoy your long weekend wherever you may be & have fun shopping in your pajamas.

Until next time…

Tracey

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