I purchased this Amy Butler pattern and it says to use 2 and a half metres of fabric – I used this beautiful fabric

And after I laid out the pattern I discovered that 1.5 metres was more than ample fabric for this pattern this was using directional fabric – so if you were using a fabric that was not directional you would not need even 1.5 metres – as you can see I have

plenty of fabric to spare – to use on lovely things like

pin cushions etc. Will post a pic once I have completed the

top – don’t hold your breath!

Well my foray into blogging has been sporadic, at best! So here is an update on what I have been doing lately:
I am working my way through Kelly Rae Roberts’ Book “Take Flight” and am doing the little projects in it – here is what I have done so far.

It is from the first chapter in which D J Pettitt’s work is featured. Not totally happy with it – but it is a start, the bits that are influenced by DJ Pettitt are not actually shown in this picture -they are little tags but not quite finished yet. Some of the projects from the book I will make as pages and tie them all together as a finished peice with the little tags.

This next piece is from the second chapter with Laurie Mika . Kelly Rae uses the contributing artists techniques rather than styles as elements in her own art. With Laurie Mika she used polymer clay. My adaptation of it is a little different – here it is

It is on a small 10x10cm canvas – on the side it says “Yes, I am a princess, can’t you see my crown”. And here is another one, on the side of this one it says “Queens Rule”

Here are the pictures from the Quilt Exhibition I helped to Judge. There was meant to be a first, second and third, but we could not just leave it at three prizes so we gave a merit prize to this quilt “Enter the Dragon”

The Second workshop I did at Conference was Ailie Snow’s “PhanTasy”. My theme was “Queens and Princesses” here are three of the six pages I did, these pictures are works in progress. Ailie uses Batik Flannel as her background and she supplied us with these. Have a look at her website her work is very inspiring. She was a lovely tutor although our class members were a bit ho hum and the way the seating was arranged was not conducive to chatting and interacting with others. There were a few ladies who, had we rearranged the class to be more interactive would have been very entertaining.

We met some wonderful ladies at the Conference and are looking forward to the next one in Hamilton in 2010.

I have been away from home for ten days and although I took my laptop – the motel where I was staying were charging an arm and a leg for internet access so I just didn’t do any blogging or surfing – only checking business emails … boring.

So onto more interesting things – the ANZEG (Association of New Zealand Embroiderers Guild) Conference. (Their website is a shocker but they are updating it in August and changing providers). The Queenstown Branch of the ANZEG sent two of us to, in Hastings, New Zealand (not UK). We travelled to Hastings via Christchurch (where our name was paged over the PA system – opps) we didn’t realise we had so little time to change planes. Then to Wellington where we shopped and stayed overnight, notice I said stayed and not slept – we had some drunk men trying to get into our room – hmmm not really what you would expect staying at one of the more upmarket hotels there. We left the next morning in a very very small plane to arrive in Napier. We were collected from the airport by a lovely Guild member there and taken by car to Hastings (20 minute drive). We spent the afternoon and following day exploring Hastings and Havelock North. We really enjoyed Havelock, a little village with boutique shops – just lovely. We had two days of Conference. A presentation by a member who had received a study grant and travelled to the Royal School of Needlework in the UK. The key note speaker was Carol Naylor – a machine embroiderer from the UK – she was a very entertaining speaker and had a power point presentation of her work.

Look what we woke up to on Saturday morning. Beautiful eh.

My Studio is an absolute tip – a definate non-creativity zone. So over the next few months (thats how long I anticipate it will take) I plan to sort, tidy and sift through the “stuff” and purge what I don’t need. I started with my beads. Here is a before and after shot.

A friend and I travelled down to Invercargill at the end of last week to visit a “Quilt Shop” called Kitz and Thingz here are some photos of the “Shop”. It was a house on a diary farm in the middle of nowhere. But what an Aladdan’s cave. I didn’t get a picture of Bedroom 1 (sorry, was initially too overwhelmed to think about photos). All rooms had lovely book cases loaded with fabrics. The children’s room looks small in the photo – this would only be a quarter of what is in there. These pictures only show the tip of the iceberg. There were four Bedrooms containing:

Bedroom 1: The largest range of Flannels I have seen, Batiks and Asian fabrics.

Bedroom 2: Amy Butler, Valorie Wells, a huge selection of Black and Whites, numerous wide fabrics for backings, patterns, jelly rolls, charm packs, and a massive selection of bright and colourful fabrics.

Bedroom 3: Jinny Beyer, Country fabrics, patterns, jelly rolls, etc.

Bedroom 4: Childrens Fabrics including flannels and a selection of lovely toys.

The Hallway: near the entrance – Christsmas Fabrics, down the hallway further Fabric Panels.

The Lounge: Quilting Supplies, other bits and pieces

The Dining Room: Filled with bolts of fabric at half price!!

Needless to say we boosted their bank balance at the expense of our own…… now to find time to get to the machine and turn the purchases into something. Don’t go to this shop with your husbands – unless of course they are willing to part company with their $$$, and be prepared to spend some time. We were there for 3 hours!!!

We also went to a little shop in St Andrews Street, Invercargill – of which I cannot remember the name. It was something like “New Vintage” It was tiny and very “Amy Butler“. Quite lovely. I purchased some lovely linen to make a skirt – and I go the new Amy Butler book.

Here is a copy of the cover of the High School Production’s Programme. It is a copy of one of Hayley’s pieces from last years NCEA 2 Design Panel. That is actually her in the background. There was no credit anywhere on the programme to say it was her work!!