Quilting Owl

Here are some more photos of the lovely work produced by some of the Sunday Stitchers.  Kathy has made this colourful table runner from a free Moda pattern and also these lovely bags.   Jenny has finished the top for another table centre in a different colour palette. Back in the studio I have been layering and machine quilting this scrap quilt and also spending some time at the design wall for a new kit quilt for Peter with some coffee themed fabric. While in our home Peter has been recovering after tripping over this rather viscious looking piece of garden equipment which resulted in a nasty gash in his leg plus lots and lots of cuts and bruises.  After a week he is slowly recovering although still sufffering quite a bit of pain and discomfort. Till next time Frances

I have been spending more time on the computer than I prefer lately so have fallen behind with blogging but here is a quick catch up.  My design "Hampton Court" has been revisited as a project in a special magazine "Patchwork Keepsakes".  This quilt was inspired after a visit to Hampton Court Palace in 2009 and a walk around their magnificent rose gardens. Now for some show and tell from the Sunday Stitchers and first up is Kathy's wonderful apple core quilt - Jenny had a couple of quilts to show us - this lovely one had some very useful tips and a nice bright table centre Linda's version of "Mary Mary Quite Contrary" has reached the final border stage and is looking stunning with the deep blue feature fabric. and Helen has been very busy making some dolls. To finish off I couldn't resist showing this lovely Blue Ulysses butterfly which visited our garden the other day. Till next time Frances ...

As the end of the first quarter of the year approaches we are very thankful in the Far North for a reasonably mild Summer unlike other parts of the country which have experienced floods, bush fires and heatwaves.  We always expect our norther summers to be hot, wet and humid so it was good to be able to get out and enjoy some blue skies the other day to walk on the Esplanade. Back in the studio I have been busy raiding my stash and scrap basket to make these blocks and have been having so much fun that I think I will make this quilt larger than first planned. I have also caught the hexagon bug - it must be because of seeing all the lovely work Shirley has been creating over at  Stitcherydo  - and these will be incorporated into a new hand pieced and appliqued medallion design which I am currently working on. Talking of medallion quilts, Lesleigh has been creating her own version of my new quilt, "To the Manor Born" and is doing a wonderful job.  A...

Since reorganising some fittings and adding lots of new shelves there has been some steady progress in the studio although I still have a large pile of paper and lots of fabric to sort through.  The pile of patterns to be written on the "to do" list is slowly (ever so slowly) diminishing and progress has been achieved on a number of current WIPs. I have just finished machine quilting "Buttons, Birds and Blooms", a medallion quilt with a panel centre I have shown in earlier posts, and made a couple of matching cushions with the other two small left-over panels.  Currently I am enjoying the process of hand stitching the binding after which the quilt can be photographed and the pattern completed.  This is a kit quilt commissioned by Peter to sell at Cairns Craft Centre. Till next time Frances

Since I started the mammoth job of sorting out things in the studio time has just evaporated which is probably not surprising in the heat of a Cairns' summer and a task turned into a career.  Well furniture has been moved around, shelves have been added for all the UFO project boxes, magazines have been filed or archived and I still have a heap or two of papers or fabrics to go through but that can wait till another day.  I have just been checking out the camera and found some lovely work made by my students in recent classes at Cairns Craft Centre. First up is Helen's lovely quilt which is the centre block of one of my new  medallion quilts "To the Manor Born" - and here is Jenny's version of this same quilt. Jenny has also completed the top for her stunning Kimonos Quilt - and lastly here are some great tablemats made in a class last year with a seminole braid trim. At the moment I am up to my ears in machine quilting and writing patte...

Sometimes you just have to come out in the open and own up - I am a magazine junkie!  While doing the big sort out I am finding magazines piled up in every corner and I still can't believe that our little house actually has that many corners and still I keep finding more. The magazines used to all live in this bookcase neatly filed in order but then I started running out of space and was too busy doing other things to start sorting. Well the problem just compounded and at the moment the worktable in the studio is covered with ever growing piles.  This photo was taken early in the day and believe me the heaps have grown. I am not a minimalist and really love my magazines so a lot of these will be kept and put into archive boxes at least for the foreseeable future.  My love of quilting and all my inspiration has generated from these publications and my earlier quilts all began as magazine projects so they have become part of my quilting life.  I just wis...

Yesterday we had a good turnout at the first Mini Quilt Class for 2013 at Cairns Craft Centre where everyone worked on this cute little "Kimonos" quilt. "Kimonos" by Frances Leate Then it was home to begin the big sort out in the Studio where I managed to set up one area with some of my owls hanging on a tree-like structure.  This collection got a big boost from some lovely gifts I received over Christmas. Now we come to chaos that I need to sort out - lots of paper, magazines and projects.  We moved around a lot of furniture and added some new shelves so everything ended up on the work table to be gone through and either discarded or a new home found in the studio.  Peter often wonders what the plastic box industry would do without me but when you live in the tropics it is the only way to keep everything clean and they stack under tables.  After all this is sorted the serious fun can commence! Till next time Frances