My Patch Fabrics Reopening!

As you may know I work a few days a week at an awesome shop in Milton in NSW, My Patch Fabrics. We have been open for just over a year in a gorgeous little shop in the main street. Well unfortunately we ran out of room and had so many ideas that we had to expand and move to a bigger shop. So today was our Grand reopening! This is our new home!

 Valerie Gautier is the owner of the shop and the best boss on the planet! Here she is just before we opened this morning putting the finishing touches together.

 One of the most exciting things about our move is that we are now selling sewing machines! Not just any machines, but my favourite machines ever, Husqvarna Vikings!
This is Lindsey the lovely Husqvarna Viking Rep, She taught us sooo much today! There is a new couching foot available for the Husqvarna Saphire Series machines and OMG I had an absolute ball with it!! I'll definately be playing a lot more with that one :)

 This is my favourite part of the shop, this bookshelf has all my favourite books (have I ever told you I'm a bookholic)

 And this stand has the most adorable vintage Bias tapes, buttons and lots more cute habby essentials.

 Of course the Softies shelf, I made all but 1 of these little cuties.

 Just one of our shelves of patterns, these shelves are mainly our favourite clothing designers Amy Butler and Make It Perfect.

 How good do these fabrics look! Total eye candy :)

 This is our entrance way. Our shop is a heritage listed house and used to be an art gallery. This makes our quilts look amazing hanging on the walls! They are lit up like art works, the way it should be!

 We have some amazing specials on our new range of Husqvarna Viking Machines, they are still available for a month, so send your hubby our way and we'll set you up for Mothers Day :)

 This is our back room which is still a little disorganised (we are waiting on new shelving, but check out the fireplace! There's another one in our classroom. Aren't they gorgeous!

I hope you've enjoyed a little tour of my second home. You can visit our online shop too if you can't make it in person, just click here

Hugs Paula

What a week!!

Last weekend I entered my first ever quilt show. The show was my local Agricultural show in Milton on the South Coast of NSW.

I was very very nervous being that I've only been quilting for 5 years, but I was excited too. I have worked so hard on my quilts and it was my first opportunity to have my quilts judged. So after finally finishing the hand quilting on one of my quilts the night before, I entered my quilts and waited patiently for Friday morning when I woke up bright and early and dragged my whole family up to Milton to see my quilts hanging.

As I entered the pavillion I was greeted by one of the white glove ladies who had recognised me from the shop I work at and was chatting away whilst trying to look at my quilt. I was in shock to see that my Tummy Time quilt was hanging right at the front next to the Best in Show Quilt! A stunning quilt with some perfect stars which was machine pieced to perfection!

I was still oblivious to the fact that there in front of my eyes was a certificate with the number 1 on it.  

I was looking right at this certificate and I didn't notice the number 1 until it was pointed out to me! I started giggling like a school girl :)

 I just can't seem to get a decent photo of this quilt. It really is so much cuter in person.

Anyway, then we went searching for my 2nd quilt and guess what, I got another certificate, this time a number 2 was on it :) 

I was so proud of this quilt and was a bit disappointed when I saw it hanging. It looked like it needed a good iron, but I was rapt to receive a second place ribbon.

 This quilt, called 'Reflections' was made in a class with Sheena Chapman. The circles were made with out pins and was totally free formed. I then traponto'd (no idea how to spell that tehe) the circles and then hand quilted circles all over the quilt. Its the most unique quilt I've ever made and probably the most fun I've ever had too.

Anyway, something else pretty big happened this week. My gorgeous baby Niece finally made her appearance into the world! Of my 4 Nieces and Nephews, this is the first time I have ever seen one of them when they were so little. I have always lived so far away, they are usually walking before I get to meet them. Here is the gorgeous Miss Heidi.

 This is my 2 neices together, Leah and Heidi. Aren't they just adorable!

I made a special project for this gorgous girl and as soon as I get my cover version finished I will show you some pics :) But for now I'm going to cuddle my gorgeous girl, who just seems to have grown so big, practically overnight!

I hope you had a good week too!

Hugs Paula

Sheena Chapman Quilt Show

 I had the most fantastic day yesterday. My Patch Fabrics was once again holding a workshop with the awseome Sheena Chapman.

Sheena has a really fantastic style and so I thought I would take some pictures so I could share a mini quilt show with you.

We had 8 girls in the class. This is a 3 part workshop with 1 class being held each month for the next 3 months. If you would like to see the pictures bigger just click on the pictures.

 We made a heap of string piecing and will then cut them up. Every quilt will be different and will combine Sheenas style and techniques and the makers own ideas mixed in.

Here is Sheenas Argyle Cut quilt. I'm sorry but I have forgotten most of the names of Sheenas Quilts, but they sure are eye candy :)

 And a close up of some of the details.

 This circle quilt is the inspiration for my quilt which I did in Sheenas last class. My quilt is nearly finished and I'm hoping to enter it in my local quilt show next weekend, so I need to get busy and finish it :)

 A few of the girls were also working on the circle quilt. This is a really fun technique where you make curves and circles without pins!

 Dianne was a part of the 'My Patch Sarah Fielke Workshop' a few months ago and she brought along the quilt that was inspired by that workshop. I think its gorgeous!

 This is the design wall that Dianne and Sheena put together at the end of the day. Dianne had this beautiful fabric that was made for Japanese Obe's... Just gorgeous!!!

 Heres another of my favourite Sheena quilts. This one is called Fandango. Isn't the use of a good solid fabric just stunning!

 This is Sheenas Ferris Wheel Quilt. She started with the purple ferris wheel fabric and designed her quilt around that.

It is really fascinating to me that the really busy cream spot fabric actually reads as a neutral in this quilt, so cool!!

Heres another quilt that is mainly based on string piecing. Just lovely!

This is quite a soft quilt for Sheena, but I love it!

Again more pin free curves, so much fun and really quite easy when you see it demonstrated.

Sheena uses Grey as a neutral alot too. A girl after my own heart... I just LOVE grey!

This quilt is one of my favourites! It has amazing details everywhere you look. The tulips are my favourite.

Heres a close up of the tulips. Again pieced in the same way as the pin free curves, they are just gorgeous!

Heres a simple tumbler block made special by the use of light and dark tones.

So cute!

And last but not least my absolute favourite! This is a wallhanging and is totally free piecing. No templates or pins, just a bit of string piecing and an idea. I am definatey going to recreate this one!

Sheenas hand quilting is just so inspiring!

I hope you enjoyed a look at the amazing work of Sheena Chapman. A truely gifted quilter and teacher!

I'll be back in a few days to share my version of Sheenas circle quilt, (just as soon as I finish the hand quilting)

Hugs Paula

My New Pattern - The Charm Square Bed Quilt

I'm so excited to have another new pattern being released this week! This time its another quilt that is really beginner friendly.

The idea behind this quilt is to give you one pattern that will suit every bed in your house.

Basically this pattern includes instructions to make every size quilt you will ever need from a cot size quilt right up to a King!

This quilt can be made even easier by using precut 5" Charm square packs.

 Heres my Chloe being a supermodel :)

 My girls had so much fun tickling each other so they could keep smiling while Mummy took a thousand pictures hehehe.

So here it is the cover of my new pattern. Remember to ask your local Patchwork shop to order it in for you from Pattern Press or visit one of my retail stockists on the left side of this page.

I hope you like it!

Hugs Paula

Score!!!

Wow 2 blog posts in 2 days, I'm on a roll :)

When I started work at My Patch Fabrics in Milton Val had these gorgeous chairs that she had recovered. I just loved them and was devestated when they sold a few weeks ago.

But when they sold it inspiredme to go searching for a restoration project of my own. So we packed the babys into the car and went for a drive out to the local rubbish dump Shop, I had never heard of the tip having a shop, but boy was I glad I took that drive!

Apart from the interesting smell that wafted through every now and then, I had an absolute ball looking through all the stuff that had been salvaged from the land fill.

I spotted these awesome chairs and apart from needing a good sand they are in excellent shape!

 There was 6 dining chairs and I knew I had to have them before I even got a close look at them. I asked the guy how much they would be and guess what they were $2 each!!!! So for $12 I have a beautiful set of 6 dining chairs that I absolutely LOVE!

 Can you imagine, a bit of a sand, a coat of white paint some super cute cushions! I'm so excited about them :)

Heres the detail on the backs of the chairs. So gorgeous! I can't wait to get started!

Hugs Paula

My Creative Space

I just discovered that this is my first blog post since Christmas Eve, wow I didn't think it was that long, but I am really trying to think of interesting things that I can tell you about more often, so I'm trying to get back here I promise.

Anyway I thought I would start by showing you a few little areas in my Sewing Room. Have you seen the Quilting Gallerys website? Pat Sloan has started a Learning Centre over there and is doing a feature on Organising your creative space.

This inspired me so I got busy last month and started organising. I wanted one of those peg boards you can get at the hardware, but I saw this shelving system at Aldi and thought that it would do nicely, oh and I wouldn't have to rely on hubby the build a frame ;)

Its fantastic, I have a place for my scissors, Stencils, Headphones (great for blocking out screaming kids hehehe, and of course all the little bits and pieces like basting pins, screw drivers, Marking pens and everything else that I have collected.

Heres just a few of my scissors and rotary cutters that fit perfectly in the screw driver rack.

Over the other side of the room is these super cute tins that I got for half price.. Score!

The purple tin on my storage rack is perfect for my Pearle 8 quilting threads.

And the tidy section of my Fat Quarter collection ;)

People laugh at me when I say I have a massive basket for my scraps, but here it is, all of these pieces are a lot smaller than a fat quarter, tehehe I have trouble throwing fabric away. Can you tell?

This is my design wall. The Cathedral window blocks are a cheats technique I've been working on for years and then I discover that someone else has just published a book using the same technique (google the 10 minute block to see what I mean), ohh well I guess no idea is a new idea :) I'm still going to teach some workshops using this technique.
The other projects are a portrait of my eldest daughter that I started about 3 or 4 years ago, a christmas stocking that I embroidered on some ticking and a little garden embroidery.

My design wall is a product from Floriani, it is tacki on both sides of a batting type material and is supposed to stick to the wall and then your projects are supposed to just stick to it. I had to actually staple it to my wall because it just wouldn't stay up, but my projects seem to stay up ok, as long as they have a wadding on the back of them.

Oops heres a pic I meant to put up the top of this post, but it is basically all my Sewline pens, fabric pens and basically all my pens for using on fabric in one side, then all my normal pens, pencils, erasers and sharpeners in the other.

I thought I throw this in to show that my sewing room is still a work in progress with big piles of stuff everywhere hehehe. Oh well its a start at least :) See the Blue vase, In made that years ago when I was in my Pottery phase :) Actually those vases I painted on it would work on a block I think. Oh dear there I go again wanting to start a new project when I already have 20 on the go.

I haven't shown my table yet as there was secret stuff on there when I took these pics, but I will show you soon I promise.

Whats you best organisation tip?

Hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs Paula