What's NEW at the shop this week...

Last week while I was at the Melbourne Quilt show there was a delivery of these wonderful new fabrics by Judie Rothermel for Marcus Brothers. The range is named 'The Union Forever' and has a mixture of strong prints in red, blue, purple and brown.

I think this little pile might just have to come to my house!

Also last week, we received another delivery of these fantastic scissors. Have you tried them yet? They are from Karen Kay Buckley and are designed primarily for appliqué. They have soft handles, are very light weight and have a serrated blade for precise cutting. I think these might also have to come home with me :)

In my next post I will be sharing lots and lots of photos from our display of Mrs Billings quilts... stay tuned!


Until then,

And... the winners are!

Wow... what a wonderful event we are having this week at the Craft and Quilt Show here in Melbourne. The Friday girls, plus some friends of Somerset Patchwork, are presenting a spectacular display within the Victorian Quilters Quilt Show of their very own Mrs Billings quilts, and... two of the group have been awarded very special prizes for their amazing efforts.


The very talented Shirley was awarded first prize in the Traditional Amateur category AND... runner-up BEST of SHOW!!! 
Shirley's Mrs Billings is entirely hand pieced and hand quilted. Well done Shirley!

Meredithe (from Pomegranate & Chintz) won first prize in the Traditional Professional Two person category for her lovely 'Beguiling Billings' entry. Many of you have been following this quilt in progress on Meredithe's blog.

And here is Sue watching over the display and chatting to passersby at the show. The quilts look absolutely fabulous all hanging together.

The quilts will be on display until the end of the weekend and if you have a chance to visit, call by the girls and say hello! - they would love to meet you.


I promise to post more photos of the rest of the quilts soon!


Until then,

July Fabric Samplings Club...

The July Fabric Samplings Club is in the post! A little later than expected this month but well and truly on its way.

This month marks the 4th year of our Fabric Samplings Club and to celebrate we are giving away 

4 free postings for the September Club mailout. 

Paul has randomly drawn 4 lucky Fabric Club members' names out of the hat... 

and if you are one of those lucky 4 you will need to email us by the 1st August to receive your next month's Club Samplings for free!

And the lucky numbers are... 057, 153, 381 & 534.

Your Fabric club number appears on the top right hand side of your address label and on your membership card of course! 

Good luck, I hope you are one of the winners. 

Until next time,

P.S. If you are not a member and you would like to know more about our 19th Century Fabric Samplings Club visit here for information.

Shirley's Star-a-day update...

These past few weeks I have received a few questions about the progress of Shirley's star-a-day quilt. Well, here are some updates...

Friday is the day Shirley sets aside for setting the 3" squares into place with the stars. To make the final piecing easy we have decided to make nine equal sized squares. Here are four of them ready to go!

 Place the four together and voila, aren't they neat little stars!

 Shirley is so organised that she has cut and prepared the remaining five months of star blocks... thats right, all the stars are cut for the rest of the year and ready to be pieced. Each star is packaged into its own bag with backgrounds included.

Lois is up to date too! Wow look at all those sweet fussy cut stars.

The Friday girls are having so much fun that the pressure is now on... what do we do for next year! I will need to keep thinking on that one!


Until next time,

Mrs Billings on display!

Something special is happening later this month... We are having a display of 16 Mrs Billings quilts at the upcoming Craft and Quit Fair here in Melbourne. They will be featured all hanging together in their very own section in the Victorian Quilters Showcase exhibition. 

The 4 beautiful quilts shown here belong to Lois, Leigh, Ros and Glenys, they are all quilted and ready to go! If you would like to see them in the flesh come along to Jeff's Shed from the 26-29 July, Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Southbank.


See you at the fair...

Home Again

The last few days of June have been spent teaching in 'sunny' Eumundi, Sue Daley's home town, well it was sunny by the end of the weekend at least. Sue, Michelle Yeo and I were teaching technique classes over the three days, covering lots of different things - English Paper Piecing, Hand Applique and Hand Piecing using acrylic templates to name a few. 

It was also very exciting catching up with so many of our Fabric Club members over the weekend and putting names to faces. Thank you for introducing yourselves.

These are two of the six quilts we were teaching during the weekend. 

Circle of Friends (above) by me, and Desert Sun (below) by Sue.

Another wonderful weekend of stitching unfortunately done and dusted! 

Back to work again for now...

Until next time,