The Last Piece

Beginning of Birmingham

I promised you Birmingham, and Birmingham you shall receive. The pics of the winners quilts are all up on Sewn for you to look at right now - there are a few amazing Aussies in there! Well done to my friend Lisa and all the others as well. I will point out before I have any emails regarding this posting, that we were supplied with the disk of the winners quilts by the organisers of the show, and given permission as media to publish the quilts. If you have made one of the quilts and have an issue with your quilt being on the site, please contact me at Sewn and I will remove it for you.

Phew. That aside, let's start sharing about the goodies I saw! 

First up, I just love this idea. Worn and Washed is a company in the UK that supplies reclaimed fabrics (and only reclaimed fabrics!) for quilting and crafting. Each pack contains pre-washed, vintage fabrics ranging from 2" to 24" in length and width from 2" up to 6 1/2". The packs are sold by weight. 

They had a lovely stall at the show with lots of deliciously soft quilts hanging at the back. 

Their stock changes constantly, because once something is gone, they can't ever get it back! I was entranced by the idea, and once you've touched the lovely, soft fabrics and worn feeling quilts, you just can't leave without a little bit to take home.

So I didn't. Ahem.

One of the things I loved most about the Festival of Quilts is all the little exhibitions of different quilts in between the stands. There were such an amazing array of different quilts and textiles from all over the world. I will be showing you lots of things that caught my eye, but for now I have this wonderful piece for you:

This quilt is called Round Forest, and was designed by Gyongyi Varadi and made by members of the Hungarian Quilt Guild. I think this is fantastic!

I love the pieced background, and the layered applique. All those luscious greens! The Guild also had another quilt in the exhibition, which unfortunately I couldn't get in front of properly to photograph, but is equally as wonderful.

Such inspiration. For more inspiration you might like to go over to Sewn tomorrow and have a look at Mr Fassett himself, appearing on Dutch TV recently. Dear Brandon thought you may all like to see it, and he was right :) You get to see Kaffe, and also a litle sneak peek into his house and studio!

** Apologies for the delay on the Kaffe interview - there is a problem with the link we were supplied and we are working on getting it going - as we had it, you could only see his lovely face and not hear anything he said! Stay tuned....****

More on the Festival of Quilts tomorrow. Sarah Fielke, Material Obsession, Material Obsession 2

In Which I Get Eggs in the Mail and Decide to Learn German.

Oh I'm SUCH a lucky girl. I recently admired the beautiful crocheted eggs that Monica has been learning to make on her blog, and guess what was in my mail box this morning???

Three of the lovely eggs all the way from the Happy Zombie herself. Plus a super cute card with a sewing machine on!! These are not just any eggs though - they are eggs from a TV star! Monica, Pam and Elizabeth have all been appearing on Alex Anderson's new internet show in the last weeks, go have a look at their blogs and check out all the famous blog lady action.

Thank you SO much Monica, you are very sweet. Look out in your mailbox for a treat from Australia - although it might take a week or so to get posted, I am binding a few due projects madly before I can do anything else.

One of the things I'm binding is the Year 6 fundraising quilt. Remember the one I did with Year 4/5? When they are both done I will show you pics of the finished product.

In between making metres and metres of binding today, I was also looking intenty at the next book I am going to review for SEWN. This one is a little unusual....

in that it is written in German. And not available in English. Don't let that deter you though - I discovered these great books while I was in the Netherlands, and they are really lovely. The instructions are pretty clear if you know how to sew, so the German doesn't matter too much. 

Cute, huh? I will write some more about them in the book review, which should be posted on Monday with some new Favourites, a photo album of all of the winning quilts from the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, and an interview and free pattern from the extremely talented Squirrel Momma, among other things!

Lastly, I have to prove to all the incredulous people asking about how I managed to quilt on the plane, that I did, indeed, quilt on the plane. Here I am:

I have sewed and quilted on planes all over the world. Even since the tightened security, I have never been refused taking needles or pins onto the plane, just (obviously) scissors. I have a little pair of plastic scissors that are approved for taking on planes. They are really little (about 2 inches long) and only have small blades and I have taken them all over the place. As I understand it, you can take any pair of kids blunt-ended, plastic scissors. Alternatively you an take a Clover Thread Cuttter, which is fine for normal sewing thread but not so good for Perle cottons. 

So there you go! Go forth, travel and sew.... :)

** OK, so since posting this it has been brought to my attention that these books are in Dutch not German - I don't suppose you can fault me for not recognising a language that I don't speak?? Had it been French, Italian or Spanish I might have been a little better off! I guess I had better enrol for Dutch lessons instead. I do want to say though that I have googled the Tilda books and I can't find these particular two in English at all - not even on Amazon, although several of Tone's other books are available in English. If you know where to get them in English please let me know so I can tell everyone. Thanks! **

Colours of the Netherlands

Following a deafening silence! Sorry about that, I've been busy.

I chose this pic to start my post about The Netherlands because this is what I have seen since I arrived - beautiful, lush green! Everywhere I look there are green fields and beautiful trees and picturesque houses. This is such a beautiful and friendly country.  

I have been in The Netherlands for the Rhinetex Open House in Andelst. Twice a year our friend Maarten, the owner of the largest patchwork distribution company in Europe, opens his warehouse for the shops to come in and see and buy what he has in stock. I was lucky enough that Maarten invited me to come to the Open House and give workshops to some of the shops who attended.

Just look at all those MO books! And believe it or not, that table was almost empty by the time the two days were up. That's a LOT of MO out there floating around.

Maarten had something in stock I had never even seen before - MO in Dutch!

He also had some colours here I know you will all drool to see.... looky here at all that Kaffe!

mmmm... Kaffe-a-licious.

There were a lot of shopping trolleys leaving the warehouse full of that!

The warehouse was hung all over with my quilts which was a buzz to see. Looking very spectacular hanging in the entrance was Fruit Tingles.

The board room where I taught the workshops was full of my quilts, and sported a lovely red wall which made everything look very zingy! Don't the colours in the quilts look great with that painting?

We had a wonderful time, all the women in the six workshops I taught were so friendly and interested, and told me lots of interesting things about quilting in Germany, Belguim, France and The Netherlands which I hope to share soon with you on SEWN. 

I know I havent blogged about the Festival of Quilts yet, and I do have some lovely pictures yet from The Netherlands, but I will tantalise you with that for a few days yet. The only pics left for today are some of the furry friends I have made on this trip! Not one, but TWO sets of bunnies, some of which were eating grass outside my hotel in Birmingham....

Bunnies! Outside the hotel!

And the others which have been amusing me at Maarten's lovely house where we stayed in The Netherlands. 

And my favourite friend of all, the most beautiful Britte (I hope I spelt that right!), who I would have liked to sneak into my suitcase and take home to Australia with me!

Thank you so much to Maarten and Irene and their children for welcoming us into their home, to the lovely Elise and the staff at Rhinetex for making us feel so comfortable and to all the friendly girls I met in my classes! We have had a great trip and all that's left now is to board that horrid 24 hour flight back home to see my boys. See you on the other side......

Sarah Fielke Material Obsession, Material Obsession 2

A Post for Mrs Schmenkman

This one's for Amy, my parallel shopping buddy on the other side of the globe. We seem to always manage to buy and love the same stuff. I promised her a pic of me with Kaffe's new book, but let's leave that for last. First, the other things that my eternally patient husband has been carrying around the show for me today.

These are delicious. I can't wait to cut them up!!

The most delicious scarf made of tiny little Suffolk Puffs. I am totally in love with this.

A lovely new Japanese patchwork book. There was a shop with so many Japanese books my head was spinning around in circles trying to look at them all before Mr Last Piece (as he is now known thanks to Stephanie's comment!) got bored with waiting. He likes to move on, that's my only complaint!

And here is what Amy asked for, a pic of me holding my new copy of Kaffe's latest book, which will not be officially released until October (please ignore the bags under my eyes, I have jetlag!)

But wait.... I don't think that's my copy. Who could THAT belong to??

!!!!! Didn't know that was going to happen did you? :)

But wait, there's more. If you are not Mrs Schmenkman and want to win your very own copy of Kaffe's new book, signed by the most delicious Kaffe himself, go now over to SEWN and follow the competition link from the front page. If you find the picture of me holding Kaffe's book and enter the page it is on into the competition, you could win the other copy that's coming home in my suitcase! Hurrah for giveaways....

OK, that's two posts in one day, you are all done. Have fun looking for the pic :)

Sarah Fielke, Material Obsession, Material Obsession 2

Victoria and Albert

I have always wanted to visit this incredible museum London and know what I was appreciating. My mum took me there when I was a little girl, but my enduring memory is of being bored and wanting to go home. That was not the case yesterday however! We flew in to London at 6am, hopped a train to Paddington, checked our suitcases into the locker and walked across Kensington Park Garden to the V&A. 

Having made sure that it REALLY didn't open until 10am, (waiting, waiting....)

....I allowed Damian to have some breakfast and my ever patient husband stoked himself up for a few hours of textile torture after a 24 hour flight. He's a good man.

Nothing like having four hours to appreciate what should take around 40, but we headed right for the texile section and I was in heaven. One of the many wonderful things about the V&A is that they allow photography of their permanent exhibitions, which many museums don't. I have taken so many pics that it's a bit bananas, so here's just a few of the things that tickled my fancy and I will put a gallery up on SEWN tonight when I get home from the show.

This is the first thing I saw when I walked into the Islamic section. I knew I was going to have a good morning. 

Most of the pics I took are of antique fabrics and embroidery. You will have to excuse the little bits of flash as they are all under glass and it's hard to get the right angle. I was initially worried about using the flash to take pictures of them but the guard said it was fine, so who am I to argue!

This is the collar section of a gown. I love this pattern, it makes me think of clamshell borders.

I love these birds, they are beautiful. This is a section of a tapestry.

Isn't this wonderful?? Look at the shapes in the pin wheel flowers and the little bird with the hearts in it's tail. And those horses!!! Whoopee!!

The simplicity of this embroidery is beautiful and elegant. I love the white on the linen background.

Doesn't this remind you of Kaffe's new Persian vase fabric? Hmmm.....

OK, that ought to tide you all over while I go off to the quilt show and find some more things to show you! Oh, the things I do for you........

Tee hee :)

Beautiful Things

Some Beautiful Things in my sewing room at the moment. Thought I'd share.

Delicious fabric delivered this morning from Nina at Swanky Swell.

Hand pieced blocks from my Green Tea and Sweet Beans block of the month club I am doing with Amitie.

Backstitch embroidery I just finished for a pillow front on my new couch in the renovation (they've knocked the back off the house people!! Yee ha) Currently picking something for the border and back. This design is by Kristen Doran.

Fabric designed by me and my sister in law. Just starting an applique using some. What do you think?

About to bind the quilt I'v been making with my Oscar and the kids in his class. I'll show you a better pic when it's finished, but aren't they amazing?

Yummy Laura Gunn fabric about to be sewn into something for Quilter's Companion! Chop, chop, chop...

This is the project I am taking to quilt on the plane, kindly basted in double quick time by the marvellous Florence.....merci my mad French friend x

And the MOTHERLOAD of new Kaffe Fassett fabrics that were wedged into my mailbox yesterday. Hyperventilation!! What do I play with first??

Sarah Fielke, Material Obsession, Material Obsession 2

Quilts With Wings!

My quilts are flying to the Netherlands! I am packing up quilts to ship to Rhinetex for their home fair next weekend. Charlotte Sometimes was worried she would be left behind, so she jumped into the box first.

 If you don't know what I'm talking about, Rhinetex is a HUGE distributor of patchwork fabrics and other goodies in Europe. They are having an open house and I am going to teach to the shop owners there and show some of my quilts.

Then the quilts are going somewhere even more exciting - to a three month long exhibition at De Naaidoos quilt shop in Neiuw Buinen. How very exciting.

There are 22 quilts in all... you might recognise some of these!

At the last moment (and heavens knows, I am the queen of the last moment), I realised that in order to HANG quilts, you need something to HANG them with... like a slip... and lots don't have any. Which resulted in this - 

Otherwise known as the rather large and scary quilt mountain which knows no slips or labels. Which resulted in a huge amount of this....

Damian says when I'm finished I'm allowed to go and have sushi, so I dunno what I'm doing here talking to you!! Bye.....

Bye Bye Birdie

We have had some very sad news in the last few days. Some lovely friends of ours had a little boy sixteen months ago. He is just a beautiful little guy, so cute! Now this dear little boy has been diagnosed with a rare condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). It is a fatal genetic condition, and at the present there is no cure.

In Australia the key support association for people with SMA and their families is the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Association of Australia Inc.  The association is involved in raising public awareness, fundraising to support families dealing with SMA and fundraising to support research for possible treatments.

This August is Awareness Month for SMA all over the world. Here in Australia there is a bike ride from Sydney to Brisbane to raise funds.

Damian and I will be sponsoring a rider recommended by our friend. His name is Peter Wright and he is another SMA parent who has been particularly helpful to our friends. 

If you feel you would like to help in the fundraising, you can go to the website and register an amount of money, any small amount will help. Please say that you have donated on behalf of Steve Parry, who is our friend, so they know which parent you are representing. 

I have been thinking about what I might do to raise some extra money for the cause. I thought I would hold an auction of one of my recent quilts, and donate the money to the bike ride. So I will be taking bids on Bye, Bye Birdie, which is a large cot size quilt or throw rug, my own original design, one of a kind and made by me, which was recently featured on the front cover of Down Under Quilts. The fabrics are all cotton and the wadding is cotton, and the quilt was professionally machine quilted by award winning quilter, Kim Bradley.

Here's the deal. You can send bids to me at [email protected] and I will take amounts up until September 30. I will update on the blog every now and then to how much we up to, so that if you have been gazumped you can put in another bid, like a silent auction or Ebay. Whoever has the highest bid at 4pm EST on September 30 will win the quilt, I will invoice you through PayPal and I will pay to ship to anywhere in the world. 

It would be great if any of you bloggers out there could blog about this and help get the word around! I would like to raise as much as I can for the quilt and the bike ride, and do something to help out our friends.

We are all praying for our friends the Parrys that Jack will stay strong and that a cure is found. In the meantime there is some hope with clinical trials of stem cell therapy starting soon in the US. There is also some positive research happening in Western Australia that Australian donations will go towards.

Thank you all so much for reading this, and for any help you might be able to give. I know what kind and caring hearts quilters and bloggers have! And who knows, you might end up with a Sarah Fielke original, so bid up everybody! x

PS. I should of course say that any bids made etc are confidential and I won't publish your names etc on the blog! Thanks

Birthday Boy and the Geese Fly South

My big boy turned 12 this weekend. I know that those of you with older children are thinking, "just you wait...", but for me that seems to be a huge number. It signals the start of so many things in his life that I just can't fathom happening to my little baby! Not just the obviously teenagey stuff but going to high school, riding the train on his own every morning and afternoon to get there... so many things in his life that I won't be a part of any more. It's all very scary for a mum.

Deciding that this was a very grown up birthday, Charlie thought that he would like a dinner party and sleepover at his grandpa's house at the beach. We picked up 5 kids, two boys and three girls, plus Charlie and headed off in two cars. I had the girls and Damian had the boys, which was a real experience for me - I am used to the back of my car being filled with talk about Nintendo and cool cars driving past, not Hanna Montana, hair clips and how lame songs on the radio are. I was quite jealous of the mums with girls until they all started giggling and screaming and I remember why I love having boys!

A run on the beach, and later I sent them all upstairs to have a shower and get ready for dinner. I had a little reality check of how young they really all are when they all came downstairs for their "dinner party" dressed in their pyjamas with wet hair! They are so sweet. We played games and had lovely dinner and it was generally all just wonderful. Charlie has proclaimed it "the best birthday ever".

When we got home yesterday I went straight to the sewing machine to finish the geese...... after the 528 in the centre I needed another 228 for the borders. Here they are in production......

And here is the finished top waiting for ironing..... the geese have finally flown South for the Winter after all the piecing! Sorry but it's only a sneaky bit, you will have to wait for the reveal. :)

For those of you who have asked, the Dresden Plate quilt is in Quilt Scene magazine in the USA, due out in October. This quilt will be in Quilter's Newsletter, I'm not quite sure of the issue date but I will let you know.

And now, off to the studio again. Applique-ing some borders today and also pondering what to do with these, and which one to cut into first!

Sarah Fielke, Material Obsession, Material Obsession 2

Polka Dots and a Lot of Geese

Yep, it's been a Polka Dot Swap at Polka Dot Daze. I just had to play along with this swap, being the Polka Dot Nutter that I am. And lucky me got Ms Polka Dot Daze as my swap partner! My little parcel of polka dot goodies arrived on Friday, and lookie here what I got!

Three pieces of lovely lovely fabrics. A delicious little felt applique zipper bag, a la Cath Kidson -

...lined with red and white spots, moi's fave! And a matching needlebook as well....

...with more spots inside! Did you ever see red spotty felt before? I know I never did.

How lucky can a girl get? All this lovely red spottiness made up for the fact that I could not afford to buy the heavenly red spotty clogs that the evil Amy emailed me about earlier this week.....ah, well, we compensate don't we.

I thought I would also give you a little peak at the quilt that broke the camel's back, or rather pushed the camel off the chair :) 528 flying geese and counting. This is only a section mind you!