Hugs from Helen

Colourque Tutorial and free pattern

woops, time has gotten away from me and I forgot to let you know that the Tutorial and pattern for the little Colourque peek I showed on Facebook is now up at The Wantobe a Quilter blog

Pop on over now to http://www.sewwequilt.com/  to see and download it – there are heaps of great prizes up for grabs also!

in fact the prize is the most gorgeous fabrics from Shabby Fabrics – just my style – I want!

Oh – and hello and welcome to all of you who are popping over here to say thanks – Its sew nice to meet you all

hugs

Helen

Inktensely quilted

The postman brought me an exciting package yesterday! three copies of this fantastic magazine all the way from the USA.

Vicki and I chatted about a mini tutorial at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival last year and this is the result. Six full pages of step by step instructions and photos to take you through the process of using Inktense pencils on a quilted design.

So if you bought that tin of inktense pencils and haven't used them yet grab a copy of this mag and have a go. It really is a lot of fun and some great and spectacular results can be achieved just by colouring in.

I’ll be teaching this Inktensely quilted class at the Home Machine Quilting Show in May – are you coming? love to see you and help create some new masterpieces..

hugs for today

Helen

back to school pencil sales

Just dropping in here between Aussie Spirit posts with a quick message -

To all who love to colour in, or who have taken any of my Colourque classes, as promised I am reminding you of the Back to school sale time.

This arrived in my mailbox today – yes from the Newspower chain

They are selling Derwent Artist pencils for much less than half the normal price–how- I don’t know, but now is the time to shop girls!!

it only happens once or twice a year..

 

happy pencil shopping

hugs, Helen

New friends, new colourquer’s

Have returned from a big week in Melbourne – partly to meet wonderful likeminded quilters at the Australian Quilters Symposium and partly to holiday with my children and visit family.

The results were wonderful and very impressive at Show ‘n tell at the end of the day. Its a wonderful relaxing class, colouring by numbers almost but its amazing how differently they all turn out with individual expression used.

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Ruth even managed with a broken hand – yes she is right handed and was really pleased to be able to get some therapy in – she hasn't been able to stitch but did manage to colour in!

Thankyou so much to Pam, the Convenor, Margaret and Peter, our wonderful hosts and the Australian Quilters Association for making my day wonderful.

Now its moving onto making kits for this same Mini Lace class next week at AMQF. (I think online registrations are closed but there maybe one or two spots left only to book at the show)

unpacking, packing, unpacking, packing but guess what? – one more sleep to go……

MissM comes home tomorrow – yes it has been four weeks – did it go quickly? mmm maybe for you….we hope to hear lots of inspirational stories, see lots of beautiful photos and hear about the wonderful experiences she has had…

til tomorrow hugs, Helen

no news is good news

Thankyou to all who commented and consoled on the departure of Molly. We did have some news in the two days after they left but as they are now trekking (supposedly) through the wilds of Africa haven't heard much more for several days now. But I guess that is good news – no broken legs, no leopard attacks, no baboon invasions – all must be good. At least they will be warmer than we are here with a minus 3 start to the day today. Bring on Spring!

Last post I promised some peeks of what I have been up to… colouring, colouring, colouring… too many things at once.

This quilt was stitched out by my sister on her IQ, some colouring added by me and now its gone home again for some more wonderful background quilting. We have done it to show my students at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in October some more ideas for adding colour to their wonderful quilting. There is still a couple of spots in my Mini Lace class, and some in the Victorian Virtuoso design class and Fun with Inktense class. These classes are not just for longarmers – I am a domestic quilter and can show you many ways to add colouring to your projects – it really is a lot of fun and very relaxing!

I’ll show you some new Inktense pics next post – still working on that one every night!

Of course Tilly couldn't miss out, she made this for her teacher whilst I was colouring the big one.

School holidays start tomorrow here and a trip to Melbourne next week to meet many of you at the Australian Quilters Symposium.

back to colouring now, hugs to all

Helen

Some new pattern goodness

I still have lots of new things that I had ready in a hurry to take to market (in May) which I have not yet shown you… I am very sorry, but its good to spread then out isn’t it? so you can choose to do them all if you want…

I REALLY enjoyed drawing the following three little designs as part of a new Pretty n Prim range. Simple stitchings that can be done in a day or two which are fun to do just for yourself or for a lovely gift. It was even more fun googling my names – stately homes from Jane Austins life…. I love Jane Austin books but haven’t read them for a long time so some jogging of the memory was needed.

They are each about 8” square and mine are framed in a lovely set. But of course you could use them in pillows, wallhangings, a journal cover and many other things. I’d love to see them done in redwork too- actually i have nothing ready to stitch right now, I might just start one tonight.

 

Hartfield

Norland

 

Pemberly

 

if you are a little more adventurous and really want to impress then you will love making this table runner – no its not time consuming fiddly appliqué – its just coloured in and stitched around like any stitchery.

Posy Etiquette

I used just three fabrics and my gluestick appliqué technique (all the instructions are in the pattern). I demonstrated this at Market in Minneapolis and again in Sydney  - think we’ll have a lot more people having a go at appliqué now. I promise I’ll get a tutorial up soon.

so that's enough for one post – but I guess that means a giveaway doesn't it?

just to make it a little different – the first person to send me a photo of one of the Pretty n Prims finished – in either redwork, or colourqued as I have done will win $100 worth of Hugs ‘n Kisses patterns  - yes thats right! I will bundle up an assortment of patterns and post them to the winner…. Some stores already have stock or you can order them here – be quick – i know we have some quick stitchers reading here…

to make up for international postage timings I will send an e-pattern to the next 6 photos sent in. Three of these will be for international entries only.

Right – so $100 patterns for first in

free epattern for next 3 Aussie entries

free epattern for the first 3 International entries.

bonus – if you are a winner AND you have mentioned this giveaway on your blog – you will get a bonus surprise also.

 

Hugs for today – happy stitching

Helen

PS, thanks for Jo and Lori for stitching the original samples shown above

with a little help from my friends

Friends are the most wonderful thing to have in times of need – and I am so lucky to have stitching friends very happy to help me out! I couldnt have done it without you..

Belinda- magnificent….. a new version of Life is Beautiful – it is just going to look so good in my booth – very pink – her stitching is just perfect..

Lori did all the hand stitching on this new project for me and did a great job despite her lack of confidence – in between putting in full time work days for me up until we leave… what a treasure..

Jo stitched these three for me for a new range called ‘Pretty n Prim’

 

Fee made a lovely new version of Santa’s Treasure Sack out of Rural Jardin fabrics – but its packed and i don’t have a photo so will show you that one later…but you can see it on Fee’s blog here – i just have to add the bells at the bottom..

I am releasing quite a few new patterns at market so I’ll promise I’ll show them all to you when I return and we’ll have a little giveaway. In the meantime don’t forget to put your QuiltAid entry in and tell all your friends about the competition..

As this goes to ‘print’ I will be somewhere in an airport or on a plane flying across the seas…hugs to you all and I will be back soon

Helen

Miles of Smiles

A peek at two of my projects for the Quilted Memories Gathering in South Dakota – I know some of my blog friends from here are going to be coming and I am so excited to be meeting you – we are going to have a great day and I’ll try really hard not to be too jet lagged – mmm chocolate may help!

I have drawn a lovely stitchery to mark the day – making friendships across the miles through this blog and through stitching together with the same passion. I have stitched two versions, one as redwork using a single colour of thread….

and one in my favourite Presencia 16 threads including some Colourque for you to try. I’ll also show you my glue stick appliqué technique I love to do the scallops.

One more project to come – its done – cos its not new but I am going to restitch it for you – yes thats right, 4 weeks til I leave and a lot of stitching and pattern writing still to be done, but I promise I’ll get there…. its going to be a great day!

hugs, Helen

Show n tell

thankyou to all of you who are sending in show n tell photos, I love seeing them, and sharing your great work here – a big pat on the back to you all!

Below are some projects that Linda Hungerford of the USA did after watching my DVD. She has used pencils to colourque® her stitcheries and is now working on a second one – under the sea. Linda has been out to Australia to visit her daughter in Sydney last year and is coming again this year, many of you may have met her and even been interviewed by her. She has a story coming out in the June/July issue of Quilters Newsletter magazine about her interviews with seven Aussie stitchers/quilters, talking about stitchery in Australia. She hopes to do the next article on adding Colourque to her stitcheries….watch out for it…

 

Ingrid from the Netherlands sent me some more pictures of how she has used the Life Is Beautiful blocks. wow – so nice to see how she has done it…. there are a lot more pics on the LIB Show n Tell page also.

hugs for today, off to do some stitching!

Helen

DVD Project giveaway

Remember last year when I made the DVD for Quilters Companion on Colourque?  I told you about it in this post.

Well I have to admit I have still never watched it! – I know, I’m a wimp but that promise of bubbles for courage never actually happened….one day.. anyway, I just stumbled upon this photo below on Chooky Blues blog and it reminded me that I have some spare DVD’s to give away… 

I guess I can’t ask you to send a picture of your finished runner (but I’d love to see one if you have it) because then you don’t need a DVD so…

send me a photo of any colourque’d project you have made and you’ll go in the draw for a DVD of your own. Sorry, but I don’t have the magazines, just the DVD’s.

By the way, I loooove your version Rebecca and I bet USA Kim also loved it to bits…

hugs, and happy snapping

Helen