The Last Piece: September 2014

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September 2014

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Beyond Neutral Blog Hop

Well of COURSE I was going to say yes when JQA asked me to be on his book tour - especially since the date for my tour is actually his 40th birthday! Well, I'm kind of cheating a bit - my stop on the tour was actually September 23 and his birthday is September 24, but seeing as I'm writing this on the 24th in Australia and it's still the 23rd in the USA I'm still telling the truth. Right?

Anyway, on with the show... may I introduce to you BEYOND NEUTRAL, by my good friend, John Q Adams.

John's book sets out to showcase quilts that use the colours of nature as backgrounds, rather than white or cream. He calls them "natural neutrals". The book is divided into chapters by elements, such as Wind and Sky, Earth, Leaves and Grass. No surprise to me that my favourite chapter is Water - I love to be outside, but anywhere with water to look at, swim in, boat on or listen to is my favourite place to be.

Living near the Pacific then, no surprise that my favourite quilt in the book is the cover quilt, Pacific Crest.

I've had wonderous intention of making this quilt for my Oscar, who is a water boy too - however due to the usual dirty word (DEADLINE) I have no sewing life other than that for my next book so it will have to wait and be a treat for when I'm done!

I've also been pondering Canyonlands.... I think my dad would enjoy this one, in greys, purples and gold like the Sydney Harbour cliffs.

I guess what this brings me to is that although these simple, graphic quilts are a treat for anyone (and obviously can be made in pretty colours for girls, or whatever colours you like!!) this book is WONDERFUL for making quilts for men. I have two boys and a lot of special men in my life and I can say with conviction that there aren't a lot of great masculine patterns about - and something about the elements of nature, the directional patterns and the colour combinations make this such a fantastic book of quilts for men. Before you all jump up and down and scream about man quilters, I'm not being sexist!! It has NOTHING to do with the fact a man wrote the book - except of course that a man wrote the book, and perhaps it's his clever eye that gives the book it's own special character.

A truth universally acknowledged in the quilting world is that you won't find a nicer guy than Quiltdad. Rumors and online perceptions come and go but I can tell you first hand that this one is true! You would have to walk a long way to find a kinder, sweeter, funnier or truer friend than Big J, and if you're lucky enough to know him I'm sure you agree. And if you aren't, run out right now, say happy birthday to him on his blog and then buy his book, coz you won't regret it!

Posted at 09:44 AM in Books I'm Reading | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Little Quilts Book Tour!

The Little Quilts Book Tour Train rolls on... next stop Nedra at Cactus Needle! Nedra has a copy of the book to give away so pop over and see her.

I in the mean time am picking out some fabrics for my swap partner.... what do you think Partner?

Depending on which one of you it is, I think one of these selections is just completely perfect, but who is it? John? Katy? Pam? or Amy? Nedra? Lynn or Krista?? I wonder if you can guess...

PS if you are looking for the info on the public Little Quilts Swap please scroll down

Posted at 02:57 PM in Dolly Quilt information, My Books | Permalink | Comments (1)

Little Quilts Swap Info

Hi all, a few little items of house keeping!

Not all the emails have gone out yet. We are four very busy ladies with over 200 emails to send individually. We are doing our best. I will post here and on Instagram when they have all gone out. That should be by tomorrow morning. If you don't have an email and you think you should, please wait until I have said they are all sent and then contact me and we will try and sort it out.

When you do get your email, please read it very carefully, In particular please pay attention to the fact that this is a SECRET swap. That means you don't contact the person you are making for and tell them what you're making. That spoils the surprise and causes us to have to rearrange things! Also the person you are making for is NOT making for you, someone else secret is, so please don't contact the person you are making for and tell them what to make for you! (Phew!)

There has been a lot of concern over the fact that some swappers don't have Instagram accounts. While I realise that for those of us on Instagram the world revolves around it, there are those who don't have an account (poor souls!) That's why we have asked people to give their preferences so that you can still know what they will like when you make them something.

Some people have private accounts. It's not fair to ask them to make their accounts public, and so instead we will send out all the IG handles within each hive so that each hive can follow each other, the private accounts will know who is friending them and if we all friend each other then no one will know whose swap partner is whose. That will be done asap, with the proviso that we are four busy people who are doing our best.... etc.

If you are on Instagram don't forget that your partner may be stalking you. Post some pics of which quilts you like or fabrics or colour mosaics so they can see. Make sure to tag #littlequiltsswap and your hive (#hivesarah #hivejules #hivebelle #hiveamy) so that people following can see.

Ok that's it, those waiting for their emails hang in there it won't be long. Thanks

Posted at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Little Quilts Swap

Ok so the other day I thought it might be fun to join in with swap on Instagram. You know, something to distract me from the true MOUNTAIN of sewing I have to do for my book. So I asked for some fun swaps running.... and about 6 million people (OK maybe a few less than that) suggested that I myself run a swap. To which I responded no way honey, not on your nelly - I have WAY too much to do!

And then I thought, bugger it.

And so, I give you the Little Quilts Swap.

If you are going to participate, feel free to grab this button for your blog or Facebook or whatever! Here's the code for you if you are so inclined or just drag it off:

How does it work?

Right you swap virgins, the way the swap will work is this:

*There are 200 places, I think that will be waaaay to many but who knows!! If we have uneven numbers then I will do an extra swap to even up.

*You need to sign up using the Google form below so that we have all your details and preferences. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO STATE IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY TO SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. Sign ups will be open until September 21, or until all the places fill up!

*Once the signups close, you will receive an email within a few days telling you your swap partner's name, address and preferences.

*Once you have your partner and have stalked them a bit on social media or had an idea of what they might like, make their quilt and package it up maybe with a little extra surprise or two! Please have parcels in the mail by December 1. Some packages might get caught up in the horrible Christmas mail vortex and not arrive until January, but hopefully this gives most of them enough time to be a holiday surprise.

The rules! (BORING but needed...)

1. The quilt you make MUST be from the book, Little Quilts by Sarah Fielke and Amy Lobsiger. Please do not use other mini patterns or doll quilt patterns from my other books, this swap is just as a celebration for the release of the book. The book is widely available in bricks and mortar stores and online both here and in the USA and Europe, but if you would like to buy it from my website I will autograph it for you and it will come with a coupon for 50% off my Craftsy class. Please note that international shipping is not cheap - if you want to check how much it will be to your country, you can check the Australia Post website, the parcel weighs 560 grams. I am happy to combine shipping if friends want to order together or if there is something else you want from my shop.

2. Please don't join if you're not going to play. There's nothing more sad than to sign up to a swap and have your swap partner not follow through. If for some legitimate reason like illness you have to withdraw, please let me know ASAP at [email protected] so that we can assign your swap partner someone new and no one is left with out a package. But please try not to do that either. :)

3. Remember that somewhere out there someone is making a lovely lovely surprise for YOU, so please make the effort to something lovely for your partner! Nice wrapping and a friendly note will make the reciever on the other end smile. And isn't that why we joined in the first place?

4. Big rule! Please don't send me cranky emails and cross things about your swap partner, your lack of email or something similar. Remeber, I'm doing this because I was asked and I am very very time poor! I want everyone to have fun with this INCLUDING ME so a nice friendly email will always be answered faster than a crabby one!

Ok everyone have fun signing up and I'm looking forward to seeing who's playing. Thank you so so much to my Swap Fairies Belinda Shreeve, Jules McMahon and of course Amy Lobsiger who are all going to be called upon to help me out over the coming weeks! bahahahaha (insert evil smile here)

Instagram hastag for this swap is #littlequiltsswap

DON"T FORGET to state if you will only ship domestically. If you say nothing we will assume you are OK with international and assign accordingly.

*** EDITED TO ADD! The signups are now CLOSED, wow that was fast!! Stand by for info on your partner Swapettes! Remember to IG anything you think might be inspiration for your partner and have fun!

Posted at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Giveaway Winner and Pat Sloan Radio!

Morning peeps! The sun is shining (and in Sydney, having rained 26 out of the last 32 days, that's a miracle!) and I have a full day of sewing in front of me. Given the volume of my workload over the past few months a day spent doing nothing but stitching (even if it is for work!) is a rare and exciting treat!

And besides, what better way to start the morning than with Pat Sloan on the radio?? I always love chatting to Pat and today we spoke about Little Quilts, my new fabric Enchanted, and my Aurifil collection. Click here to listen in and hear Pat's other fantastic guests too. The podcast will be loaded up a little later today.

And now to the part you want to know about! Who won the Little Quilts giveaway? Well my random number generator Oscar picked a number and the winning number was 19, which is.....

Very Kerry Berry!

Hooray! Congrats Kerry and the book will be on its merry way to you shortly.

Part of my sewing today will be to start pulling fabrics for my Super Secret Squirrel Swap Partner... I wonder who it is.... the next stop on the blog tour is the always marvellous (although slightly sniffy at present) Miss Pam Kitty Morning, she is giving away a copy of the book too so hop over and say howdy. Have a good day!

*** Edited to add! If you are looing for information on my Little Quilts Swap, the info and sign up linky will be added on WEDNESDAY so stay tuned.

Posted at 07:33 AM in Books I'm Reading | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Little Quilts Blog Tour and Giveaway!

Little Quilts has been out there in the world for a few weeks now, and thank you to everyone for all the love it has been receiving!We thought it was time we threw it a little launch party, so here it goes.

(Thanks Amy I have shamelessly pinched your extremely cute pic.)

Owing to the fact that the Little Quilts journey began with Amy and I sending each other little quilts in the post, we thought that rather than ye olde blog touring around to hear what everyone has to say, we would have a little Swap of our own! So we got together some of our favourite quilty peeps to play along.

Each stop on the tour will have a copy of the book courtesy of Cico Books to give away, starting with Amy and I. To enter my giveaway you can leave a comment on this post telling me some of your favourite quilty peeps. Please leave a comment with information I can contact you with - if there are no contact details I will redraw. My contest is open until September 8 at 5pm Sydney time, and then Miss Pam Kitty's contest will open so don't despair if you don't win! There's always another chance.

If you just cant wait to win I have the book and some associated templates for sale on my website so there's always that option!

Now the peeps will be posting and chatting as they go along about what quilt they are making for their Mystery Someone, their colour choices, the pattern they picked and so on and so forth so make sure you check in and see what they're all up to! I've added everyone's Instagram tags to the blog post details below so you can have a peek at their IG feeds and see what they're doing there should you be so inclined.

And no i just have to decide which quilt to make for my secret squirrel partner!! Hmmm..... tempting to make one of mine because I already know how to make them all :D How about What a Star, I love that one...