Hugs from Helen

Craftsy excitement!

Remember my whirlwind trip to Denver just before Christmas?

Well I'm excited to say now that it was to tape a Craftsy class!

What an experience. This was the most professional platform I’ve worked with before – but it was also a lot of fun. The whole team made me feel so welcome and the whole experience was wonderful.

To back up a bit, I had met the Craftsy girls at a party in Portland years ago – their first year at market, and was given a card and asked to submit proposals. Of course, it dropped down the list and it took me a few years to find the card, go through an extensive submission process and put a class in. They were immediately interested however I couldn’t make it to Houston to discuss it further and the opportunity disappeared. A whole year later I finally got around to submitting again, I spent a day putting the first technique submission in and planned to do three more the next day… however I woke up to an acceptance that morning – my class was accepted!  If I could fill a very short notice cancellation….  of course I said yes…

So now its official, by this time next week……

So after a lot of prep work, many hours of Skype calls in between dance concerts, end of year assemblies and Christmas parties, I hit the skies and headed to Denver.

Had hair and makeup done each day…..(thankfully!)

and the nails done before I left! – just as well, look how close they got?

and hopefully everyone will understand my Aussie accent and ‘foreign’ language.

now, if you’re not familiar with Craftsy – it is an online platform for education classes – In actual fact Craftsy is the fastest growing crafty community on the web with over 5 million members in over 200 countries worldwide.

With a Craftsy online class you can take it as many times as you want, whenever you want and access never expires.  Craftsy’s platform enables you to take virtual notes while watching a class and the HD quality video and audio make it easy to see exactly how the instructor is creating the craft, with close-ups of the different steps. Instructors and other students will answer your questions and give feedback. 

So now that I’ve told you my big news, I have more to tell…you can win a free class  - just click on this link and enter..

http://www.craftsy.com/ext/HelenStubbings_Giveaway

Of course I’ll be back to tell you more when the class goes live next week….

 

so don’t miss out – click to enter and

hugs for today

Helen

A promise is a promise

I did make a promise to you all to show you an idea for using up those cut off triangles from your Great Summer Holiday Mystery quilt! Well one can never make a promise, with time to kill waiting for late planes last week I had my sketch pad in hand and sketched lots of ideas for future projects. I came home and got started on this one first….

remember that red dot?

watch this space..

hugs, Helen

And still the postman smiles….

This week continues to bring lots of yummy surprises to my postbox…

I don't often enter blog competitions but I love Jeneans fabric and I haven't seen it here so I was lucky enough not to win the actual prize but a bonus prize from Jenean Morrison a Free Spirit designer. It is so lovely and soft in colour and I have a half yard of each to play with

Next came these delightful Robyn Pandolph fabrics for a very secret project I am working on in a hurry which of course I cannot tell you about…. yet

then of course there are these….

Its the Sachet Pot Pourri range (not yet released) – you may have seen these popping up on some other Aussie designer blogs lately – we are all working together on a project where just by stitching you can help other women not so fortunate.. watch this space – it will all be ready by June. mmm do I give you a peek?

Mail for Tilly has also arrived from Pauline Cook – mmm you know what a 4 year old likes!, Martha from Mississippi, Andrea in Buderim, Omajean, Ingrid from Batemans bay, Narelle from Tamworth, Heather from Minnesota, and this lovely fabric postcard from Karen of Hartford USA.

Matilda thanks you all and now gets quite upset when there is nothing for her in the box – I think I have started something here. Now I wonder if you have all finished your mystery quilt?

well, off to play and finish some projects so I can get started on these fabrics above!

hugs, Helen

2 sleeps to go..

As many of you have guessed I am off on a plane with Sarah and Jo to go to AQC for just a couple of days of indulgence… no I wont be buying fabric (thats what I am telling myself) but will be great to catch up with lots of people, chat, learn new things and revisit old ones. And I have a quilt here (hopefully if it arrived safely).

In the meantime as promised here is a pic of Matilda’s little dolly sent by Sharon in NZ courtesy of Cath of QLD.

isn't she just gorgeous?

Also from the mailbox are letters and goodie from

Julie Marchetti, Judy of Banora Point, Noela of Cedar Grove, Vickie of Humpty Doo, Amanda of Cloverdale,Alice from Perth (at present)Suz from Manchester USA, Nancy from St Louis USA, Julie from Mt Waverly, Omajean from Auburn AL USA, and there is another pile including a wonderful fabric postcard from the US – but I have to find her secret hiding spot so I can list them all.

Thankyou so much all of your for writing to Tilly ,she is still excited to go to the Post Box everyday…. wont it be disappointing when they stop?

I shall be back next week with some pics of Melbourne to share, if you are there hunt us down to say hi!

hugs, Helen

The Great Summer Holiday Mystery #10 – the final

The Summer Mystery has now finished and the instructions have been removed. However I have left the tutorial here for you as there are a lot of good tips and tricks in the last 10 posts – just use the category to find all posts. You can now download the full pattern as a working Quizzle from here.

Sarah wrote after my last post

‘Can you show a picture of your finished quilt?

WELL,  I was going to show you lots, I had taken full step by step photos of the quilting, trimming and binding process to put with this message BUT in my haste to get the post done I have somehow corrupted my memory card and cannot access any of the photos….arrrggggh I cant even get it to register so I can reformat it or show on my camera, so I think they are all gone.

I am not sure what I can do about it until I have to bind another quilt in the future – which probably wont be too far away… so for now I shall just give you the instructions and leave you to it…. if you have problems I will put a binding tutorial up next time I do some for you.

Press the long strip in half, with the wrong sides together. Align the raw edge of the binding to the raw edge of the quilt and sew with a ¼” seam, mitring the corners as you go. Trim the excess off the edges of the batting and backing to ½” from the seam line and turn the binding to the back.

To finish the quilt, slip stitch the binding to the back with a thread that matches the binding fabric.

Last, but most important, is to make a label for your quilt that includes your name, address, the date, the name of the quilt and any other relevant details. The best thing to use is a permanent pen to ensure the details don't wash away. Stitch this to your quilt so that future generations will know the creator!

luckily I did take the finished photos on another camera so here is my finished quilt. It is now in at the Quilted Crow if any locals want to see it up close and they have just received a shipment of the yummy Ava Rose fabrics  I used!

Well we have come to the end of our Summer holiday (actually a week or so ago) and our mystery quilt. I do hope you have all enjoyed following along with me and maybe picked up one or two more hints to make your quilting life easier. I have had fun doing it with you and love seeing the progress and colour choices on your blogs.

see some here – well done Vickie, here – just love those colours Sue, here – Messy Karen wasn't so messy with this, it looks perfect to me, here – very fresh colours Heather, here – I love blue and white quilts Kirsi, here – very pretty KJ, here – nice muted colours and I am so glad you got a surprise from an angel!

hugs to you all on a job well done, anyone else, send in your pics… I will leave all of the instalments up for one more week then the actual instructions will come down and you will have to go here to download the patterns… but hey, if you’ve enjoyed this one have a play over there with some of the others, they are all designed  in a similar fashion and you get to play with fabric choices first and there are heaps of step by step diagrams in all of the patterns so you will ALL be able to manage them..

Helen

The Great Summer Holiday Mystery Quilt #9

The Summer Mystery has now finished and the instructions have been removed. However I have left the tutorial here for you as there are a lot of good tips and tricks in the last 10 posts – just use the category to find all posts. You can now download the full pattern as a working Quizzle from here.

Tracey Browning of Constantine Quilts and designer of the pattern you have just made sent me the following notes for quilting the quilt

Quilting

Lay out the backing, wrong side up, and smooth to remove any wrinkles, working on a large flat surface such as the floor. Tape the backing to the floor with packing tape to carpet or masking tape to hard floors. I like to use the carpet as less damage is done to this than my hard floors.

Centre the wadding on top and smooth from the centre outwards.

Place the well pressed pieced top on top of the wadding and backing layers, and smooth out again.

Keeping the layers smooth at all times, pin-baste the quilt in a grid pattern starting from the centre and working towards the edges at a fist width or 4” intervals.

If you are planning to have your quilt machine quilted by a professional then please refer to your quilter for their requirements. Generally, we require a minimum of 3” extra backing and batting all the way around your quilt top to enable us to quilt your quilt on a frame system. You need to supply the top trimmed of all threads & well pressed, the batting & backing squared up/joined etc and then deliver these three pieces to your machine quilter NOT pinned together.

If you would like to quilt your mystery quilt similar to the original Rose Trellis then you will need to be confident with your free-motion machine quilting. I stitched in the ditch the skinny border and all the blocks with a walking foot to stabilize it first then using a free-motion foot quilt a leafy vine design in the outer border, a stylized flower & leafy triangle design in the setting triangles around the outer edge using the design in the fabric to mimic the flower & leaf in there. The centre ‘trellis’ has a ribbon stitched freehand in there as has the skinny border as well. Simply stitch a wavy line that undulates randomly along the fabric then echo back on this line and cross over it every time it changes direction to form a ribbon look.

The large feature fabric squares have been crosshatched 2” apart and the background behind these have a very large stipple – about 1 ½” big that I’ve also echoed back on to create the same ribbon effect. The centre of the stars have also got a flower in them that mimicked the flower in the feature fabric & the setting triangles.

You can see a close up of the quilting on http://quizzles.com.au/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/5-Rose-Trellis.jpg

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This is how I quilted my version on my Bernina.

I ditched all diagonal straight rows using a walking foot and cream thread.

I ditched both sides of the narrow border then stitched straight lines the width of my foot inside both sides.

I put on my hopping foot and did a freehand continuous rose design in each of the green spot squares and half squares.

I free machined a design around the outside border with matching roses in each corner and then just a vine and leaf design along the sides.

I marked with my ruler and blue washout pen a grid on the large floral squares – I quilted these with my free machine quilt so I didn't have to turn it repeatedly through my little domestic sewing machine. The I did a really large stipple on all of the blue background fabric.

tada…. all quilted. rinse out the blue pen and I will make one final post telling you about binding very soon…

a few other hints and tips from me -

• use a coloured thread that will blend with all your colours. You cant really change threads everytime you move across a different fabric so for me a cream blended quite nicely. Sometimes a mid grey or khaki colour works well or a colour from your fabrics which will contrast nicely with the others in the quilt top.
• I am not too fussy what type of thread I use – but use a quality one, be it 100%cotton, polycotton or even a poly or rayon embroidery thread.
• A patterned backing fabric is great for hiding any imperfections.
• You simply must use a walking foot for your straight line quilting to get a good result.
• I cannot go without my ‘Machingers’ gloves when quilting.
• put some good music on to quilt to and take regular breaks and stretch your shoulders.
• don’t trim your batting and backing fabric to the edge of your quilt top until after quilting when ready to attach the binding.

hugs, Helen

My baby has grown up!

Miss Tilly or ‘Matilda Tilly’ as she tells everyone started big school today. Actually its kindy down here for two days a week this year but she goes to her big sister’s school and wears the school uniform with pride…. She was so excited to go and up and ready before I had even gotten out of bed…She very proudly told the hairdresser on Tuesday that she was ‘having her hair cut into a bob for school so she wouldn't get nits or knots’ so as hard as it was to do all of her beautiful hair has gone.

very quiet here today…. they grow up just too quickly however I was blessed with another ‘first day of school’ when I never expected to go the third time..and this WILL be the last.

 

I have placed a Bushfire relief page onto the blog – you can see the link on the left where  I am listing all of the different ways you can help out. I was getting so confused with all the projects and offers happening that I needed to list them. So for everyone who has been asking how they can help, just check on there and I am sure there will be something that will suit. I will keep adding as I see them or as people let me know what they have organised. The Quilted Crow girls have a project in the planning stages so I will let you know when we have more details for the Hobart girls.

Cards are still arriving for Miss Matilda, thankyou to

Alice in WA (normaly FL), Narelle from Tamworth, Noela in Cedar Grove, Fiona in England, Amanda from Cloverdale, Vickie from Humpty Doo (she loved that name) and Sharon from NZ who had the most gorgeous doll sent from Cath in QLD (I will take a pic for you)

nearly time for kindy pickup and I want to hear all about it so

hugs for today,

Helen

The Great Summer Holiday Mystery Quilt#8

The Summer Mystery has now finished and the instructions have been removed. However I have left the tutorial here for you as there are a lot of good tips and tricks in the last 10 posts – just use the category to find all posts. You can now download the full pattern as a working Quizzle from here.

time for your final borders today!

 

 

 

Pin mark the ¼ , ½  and ¾  way points of both the 64 ½” long borders and the top and bottom of your quilt top. Pin together matching these points. Sew the borders on using a ¼” seam allowance. 

tada!!! - sorry I didn't have time to photoshop and improve this pic for you but here is what your quilt should look like!

now all that is left to do is to layer, quilt and bind the quilt.... I am not going to take you through the quilting lessons - this is another whole technique for which there are many experts, many methods, may rights and wrongs and many of your will have your own favourite methods to use. However I will show you my quilted quilt - when its done and tell you what I did. I will also ask my sister Tracey Browning - an international award winning quilter (and the other half of Quizzles by Wysistas, and the designer of this quilt pattern) to give you a few hints and tips. And if you have been receiving the Quizzles e-book you may already have lots of hints and tips on quilting from there.

For now though, if you intend to quilt your own quilt - and do give it a go then at the very least you will need to have a walking foot for your sewing machine, so hop to the store and order it now.

Give me a few days to get the quilting done and meet me back here!

hugs,Helen

First exciting trip to the post box!

Matilda was VERY excited yesterday to receive her first two letters in the mail. Thankyou to Dylina and Julie. I had to re read the notes to her several times as did Dad and her two sisters…. And thanks for the stickers, our house is now all stuck!

I finished the last stitch in the Mystery Quilt binding at 11.33pm last night so won’t be long and you too will all be finished.

Vickie has made some progress up to date with her first border – she says she is going to make another – go girl!

Its always so gratifying and exciting when people send me photos of their work using my designs… you always wonder how many actually get finished and how many end up in UFO boxes or filed as to do one day patterns?

But Verna this week sent me some photos and wrote this

‘Finished at last! It has taken me 12 weeks to do and I have enjoyed the challenge.I had quite a break between the top and the quilting, I just couldn't find the backing I wanted.I finally found this piece at Spotlight.I hope you like the photos I'm sending you, I'm proud of the finished job .’

And proud you should be Verna, this is a big quilt and a lot of stitching. 12 weeks is amazing and you should be proud of such a wonderful result.

This was my first Block of the month design ‘Fairy Kisses’ and there are still people stitching it the world over, I know my sister has just received the third quilt from ONE lady for quilting – now that is dedication – one for each grand daughter.

beautiful neat stitching

and she used my label included also, so often I don’t get around to finishing the label even though I tell all my stitchers to…

I’d love to see any photos of other Fairy Kisses quilts – please email if you have finished or even just your progress thus far…

hugs for today and happy stitching

Helen

The Great Summer Mystery Quilt #7

The Summer Mystery has now finished and the instructions have been removed. However I have left the tutorial here for you as there are a lot of good tips and tricks in the last 10 posts – just use the category to find all posts. You can now download the full pattern as a working Quizzle from here.

So you have a quilt top? Doesn't it look great and it wasn't too hard was it? the final steps to finishing the top are the borders.

Firstly you need to measure across the quilt in both directions. Its not that I don't trust you but you should always do this just to make sure so that you don't get wavy borders because they are too big or pulled in corners because they are too small. So you always measure across the middle of the quilt in both directions. If you were perfectly accurate your quilt top should measure 51 1/2" in both directions. If they are not then you need to take the average measurement (add the two and divide by 2) and cut the following borders to match. Mine are okay so we will continue as if they are 51 1/2".

 

you can chain piece again here to save thread when joining all of your strips together into one long strip. snip apart and press the seams in one direction. Then cut them into your four border strips using the measurements above.

Pin mark the ¼, ½  & ¾  way points of the 51 ½” long borders and the sides of your quilt top.

fold the strip in half and then half again. Place a pin at each fold (3 of them - at the ¼, ½  & ¾  way points)

do the same on the edge of your quilt top.

Why do we do this you ask? well you measured across the centre of your quilt but sometimes the edges are a different size due to inaccurate piecing, cutting or bias joins... so we need to distribute the excess or shortage of border strip evenly along the whole side of the quilt top.... you may want to just lay the strip at one end and happily sew along but what happens if you get to the end and you have 6" left over or even worse 6" not enough?

Pin together matching these points.

lay out your quilt top right side up and then place one of the shorter border strips right side down with the raw edges even. match where the pins are and then pin along the entire edge about 6" apart. Tip: place the pins with the heads extending from the edge of the quilt.

(note in this pic below my pin heads are inwards on the quilt - don't do it this way, turn them around - I did after taking this pic)

  Sew the borders on using a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam towards the Fabric C border.

When stitching have the quilt on top and the border strip underneath. This is so you can make sure that stitching line goes through your junction points for perfect points and also so that any excess border strip (if there was any) can be taken up by the feed dogs and distributed evenly.... now your pins are underneath but because those heads are poking out you can just remove them as you come to them. (note, if your quilt top edge was larger than the border I would probably do it the other way around) Ideally of course both are exactly the same length.

repeat the above with the opposite side of your quilt top. You now have a top and bottom border. Now we are going to do exactly the same thing with the two remaining sides of the quilt and the two remaining border strips.

Pin mark the ¼, ½  and ¾  way points of both the 54 ½” long borders and the top and bottom of your quilt top. Pin together matching these points. Sew the borders on using a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam towards the Fabric C border again.

There you go, one more border to go next instalment - you are so close now...

hugs, Helen