Early One Saturday Morning

Well ... early yesterday morning at 4am I arose to send off my husband for a day of trout fishing (incidentally - he didn't catch one fish!)   So not wanting to go back to bed I decided to embark on a little project that I have wanted to do for a long time.

I made a needle keep.  Now this embroidery is my first time at this style ... I have done simple back stitcheries but nothing like this before - so be gentle with me - lol.

I used all DMC threads and a bit of silk ribbon that I had.  Those bullion flowers needed to be bigger and the leaves as well - but I am happy with my first attempts.

The whole picture!

The inside - I made it a bit different to the pattern as  I used 100% cotton batting for my needles rather than felt stitched onto the lining.

I also wound on a few skeins of DMC threads that I had sitting in a bag ....

Doesn't this look much better than a bag full of threads.   All neat and tidy.

And a little box for the varigated ones.

To keep it catty ... Jet lazing in the sunshine

Shadow waiting to go outside to play...

Merlin quite happy just being Merlin really.

And to add some quiltyness ... this beautiful big quilt is destined to be a raffle quilt to raise funds for a home that caters to Cancer patients in Hobart ... when I have more details I will post them here ... the raffle is expected to be drawn in April 2011.

These photos really don't do this quilt justice - it is beautiful and the colours are luscious.

Okay ...  a reminder that in 4.5 weeks I am teaching at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in Adelaide 1-4October .... they have added another class on Friday - so if you wanted to do my class but it clashed with something you were doing on Saturday - you can now do a Friday class - yay!

And then it is only another week and I am off to Massachusetts USA to do a class at the home of Zentangle with Rick and Maria - I can't wait for that either.

Happy quilting for now ... Hugs Jane x

Quilting meets Zentangle

Spearmint Twist ... A green table runner I made for my mother.

I did utilse the quilting space to showcase some background filler quilting and a few ideas I have for border treatment.


In October I will be teaching a class at the AMQF in Adelaide ... this is a machine quilting show that is open to both longarm and domestic quilters ... it is set to be a great show with fantastic teachers both Australian and International ... go and check out the web site and book in for a class.


Below are more pictures of this quilt so you can see the closeup of quilting.   I have used Zentangle patterns and modified them to be suitable for quilting.  Enjoy

This border pattern is based on the Zentangle pattern "Paradox"

I hope you enjoyed looking at these pics ... click on the picture to get a closer look.

Vist the AMQF website here to book classes in Adelaide.   I hope to see you there.

Happy Quilting for now ... Jane x

A little stitching

A beautifully green table runner for my mother ... I need to quilt and bind it before I can give it to her though.

The sun shining through this morning ... a beautiful day down here in Tasmania - we did have a very big frost this morning and now the sun is out - lovely.

This is a weeks worth of evening stitching ... making my paper pieced stars ... not too many to go now and I can start putting the quilt together.

I also did this little stitchery on the weekend ... I have had this lovely little pattern for quite some time ... sent to me from Iddy Biddy Designs in Qld as a little giftie ... it is very cute.

Two beautiful postcards came in the mail today from a swap I am in ... can you guess the theme - lol!

And a  couple of zentangles I have drawn last week - if you click on them you can see them better.  Don't forget ... if you want to learn how to draw these wonderful artworks I am teaching at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival 1-4October 2010 in Adelaide ... classes will book fast!

Another piece of eye candy ....  you can see more over at my zentangle blog ... janemonkstudio.blogspot.com


Now ... back out to the quilting room for me ... Happy quilting ...Jane

Fantastic News - AMQF October 2010

Fantastic News

I will be teaching at the AMQF (Australian Machine Quilting Festival) in Adelaide 1-4 October 2010. 

Do the Zentangle ® and create beautiful background fillers for your quilts - Basic starter class

You may have noticed that Zentangles are taking the world by storm. Zentangle® is an easy to learn method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns. It is a fascinating new art form that is fun and relaxing. It increases focus and creativity as well as improving your dexterity and pen control. Zentangle provides artistic satisfaction and an increased sense of personal well being, even if you thought you couldn’t draw ... you really can, one stroke at a time! I have taken Zentangles one step into my world of quilting where I use this method of drawing to discover new designs for background fillers. Inspiration is everywhere we look, even in the fabric we are quilting. So come along to this hands-on class where I will teach you how to draw simple, beautiful Zentangles and then how to adapt these patterns into background fillers for your quilting.

And for those of you who were wondering, I have the founders of Zentangle,  Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas’s blessings to go ahead with this – so a big thank you to them and their trust in my ability.   I will be flying off to the USA the following weekend to do a Certification Class with Rick and Maria in Massachusetts... so I will be one of the first people in Australia to be a CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher).  

Now my internet connection has been slowed do snail pace ... uploading pics is painfully slow.   I will post a few photos here by Tuesday (when my provider resets my connection speed) ... so come back and have a look – I’d love to hear any comments.  In the meantime – head on over to the AMQF and check out their classes – they are for both longarmers and domestic quilters ... it looks all set to be a great festival and I am sure happy I am going!

Happy Zentangling for now ... Jane

Working in the Quilt Room & Dinner

I have spent a lovely three day weekend at Quilt Retreat ... I didn't sew an awful lot but did put together 140 odd blocks for a quilt I am making for my brother ... green green and more green .   I need to lay it out now and sew the blocks up, I am very happy with it though.   The lovely Helen sewed up a table runner that I had cut the pieces out for ... she is quick ... she also made some lovely girly girl quilts herself and I will have to get her permission to show them here later.  So I am back in the quilt room now attached to my quilting machine.  Here are a couple of quilts I have to show you.

Rae made this lovely Ricky Timms Convergence Quilt and added the lovely flowers... I have stitched around each flower and then filled in the aqua coloured blocks with a simple background filler.  The borders are done with a freehand leaf vine with a repeat of the flowers in the corner blocks.   It is a very cute little quilt.

This is a lovely stitchery quilt that one of my customers made - she didn't want very much quilting in the stitcheries, and you can see that I haven't put a lot, just enough to anchor the blocks and my stitching follows the block and stitchery lines so as not to be obtrusive.

And last but not least, trout was on the menu last night.   My husband caught this up at Arthur's Lake in Central Tasmania on the weekend (we had two) ... it was very nice - wrapped in baking paper and then alfoil and cooked on the bbq, served with some lovely salad ... eaten before a photo could be taken - lol!

The quilting machine has a lovely drunkards path quilt on it at the moment ... another custom quilt that I am enjoying quilting...I have always wanted to make one of these ... one day!

Happy quilting for now ... Jane x