Coorparoo Quilters Quilt Show 2011

Coorparoo Quilters have a quilt show every two years.  This year, we held it over the weekend of 4-5 June.  We had a Mug Bag Challenge (eg make a bag to put a mug into, to take to class).  The bag had to match the mug.  I had an idea to make a bag like a rose, to match a beautiful mug my sister Lee had given me a few years ago. 

Here are all the beautiful mug bags:

 

I dropped off my quilts and mug bag on the Friday afternoon.  We had an opening event on the Friday evening.  I was walking towards the mug bags with my friend Conny.  I said, 'Someone's put something purple in my mug".  Conny said, "They must have accidentally left something behind".  We went up close to it and it was a Winner blue ribbon!!  What a fabulous surprise.  There were so many fantastic mug bags there.  I didn't even realise that it was being judged that afternoon.   I also received a book and 8 fat quarters at our next quilt meeting, so I was very happy. 

When making the rose mug bag, I had thought about individual petals right through to the middle.  The middle petals were going to be long and kind of come together like the inside of the rose.   It didn't work out like that though.  I found this fabulous fabric in my stash that looks like the inside of a rose and so I made a tube with that for the inside.  The mug sits inside this tube, which has a drawstring at the top.  The fabric is drawn together, swirled and then tucked into the mug.  I also spray starched and curled the fabric petals.

 The is the trade table - many of our group made pretty things to sell.

Here I am with my reversible Sudoku quilt, finally finished!!

Conny is on the right, selling tickets in front of the amazing Raffle Quilt some of our group made.

This is the Joy of Christmas quilt I made from the blocks I won at our Christmas in July retreat last year.  I made the letter blocks.

My sewing room

Welcome to my Sewing Room!

We moved house in late 2010 and now I have a new sewing room.  It is a little wider than my sewing room at the old house, but it has windows on two walls and a built in wardrobe on another.  That meant that I had to do something different to get a design wall, as there was only one full wall in the room and my bookcases had to go there! :-)

One wall was painted bright royal blue.  As you can see, that is now painted a gorgeous deep purple called Chive Blossom.  My sewing desk has been with me since 1974 - the first 5 years, it was my high school study desk and it has been my sewing desk ever since.  My Horn cutting table fits very nicely under the high window - inside I keep the larger pieces of fabric and future projects in old shirt boxes.  I had new lighting installed above the table that is 3 spotlights with daylight bulbs.  In the corner is a nice little sewing chair that has my Ott light very handy.  The big wicker basket holds batting. Also under the cutting table is an old wooden tea trolley with many different boxes on it.  They all hold interesting bits and pieces.

There is a pile of pretty cardboard boxes next to the sewing desk which are full of fat quarters.

Here is my design wall - I covered the two doors of the built-in wardrobe with BlockButler.  Rather expensive but a very good use of what would have been otherwise unused space.  The BlockButler is thin enough that both doors slide past each other, even with blocks attached.  Though at the moment the quilt top I am working on is too big for one door, so it is attached to both. So I have to pin one side back to open the doors. 

Inside the wardrobe is rather full.  Lots of boxes with patterns, charm squares, fabric strips, fun stuff for art quilts, packets of pellon hanging, big boxes of fabric, a bag of batting off-cuts and much more....

Here are my lovely bookcases.  These replaced two smaller bookcases from the old house.  I was only going to have one in my sewing room, but we couldn't get the other to fit in the study, so now I have two.  And they are fabulous!  So much room for books and other knick knacks. :-)

In the corner, next to the bookcases, is a wooden 10-drawer CD cabinet - it is full of fat quarters - a different colour for each drawer.

And finally, here is my view from my sewing desk - trees in the distance - my local park.  (just as well you can't see the weeds directly in front of the window!!) :-)