Chris Chats
I've had the most incredible month, my head's in quite a spin and my feet have hardly touched the ground but the good news is I'm not suffering from jetlag after my travels.
Firstly, the trip to South Africa surpassed every expectation. You might find it hard to believe but for once I didn't go hunting down fabric stores, though I did pick up 2 great pieces in Cape Town's Greenmarket Square, I'll share them with you later in the newsletter. Johannesburg was all business, but with that out of the way, Simon and I were free to enjoy Cape Town, the vineyards and we did a great safari on a private reserve.
Arriving back in the States I was straight into Quilters Take Manhattan - starting with our volunteers meet up on Thursday evening, I led the Behind The Scenes Tour at The Met on Friday and spent Sunday with the Sponsors. Four crazy, busy and fun filled days but the highlight for me was the Main Event at FIT on Saturday and, more specifically, Quilt Match. I'll share some pics and a vid in a bit but I only went and won, yep I won and I was so excited I couldn't stop jumping up and down.
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Back to earth with a bump on Monday, I had to finish quilting my Mirabel Bowties quilt ready for the Blog Tour attached to the release of John Kubiniec's new quilting book A New Spin On Drunkard's Path. I made my deadline and I'll be sharing my finished quilt and a super, super international giveaway with you in a minute.
I do want to take a moment to mention the terrible train crash that happened last Thursday. Many of you knowing that I live next to Hoboken Terminal on the Hudson River, contacted me to ask after the well-being of me and my family. We are safe; on Thursday morning my husband was en route to Seattle instead of the city and I was desperately trying to make my book review deadline for John so didn't take my morning constitutional to Washington Street. We can only be grateful for the changes to our home routine so we weren't walking through the terminal as we normally would be at that time. Thank you for your concern and let's send lots of positive thoughts and love to those affected by the crash.
If you're happy to stick around, thanks for subscribing and let's do this together :D
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LATEST BLOG POSTS + GIVEAWAY
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I bet you can't believe I've finally finished this quilt!!! Lots of process and finish pics here in my blog post. Still hearting the Maribel fabric collection by Annabel Wrigley for Windham Fabrics AND the Bowties pattern is taken from John Kubiniec's book that you can win in the giveaway in my other blog post.
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How about this for an INTERNATIONAL giveaway? - a copy of John's new book + a set of Drunkard's Path Templates. Open until 10 am (EST) on Saturday, 8 Oct 2016 - click through to enter now!
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NEWS
The City Quilter in Manhattan is closing in October. This is such sad news for everyone across the quilting community and especially for staff and teachers at the store.
As you know I teach at the store but you may not know that I too learnt to quilt there under the instruction of the wonderful Christine Janove. I then went on to work the shop floor through to January 2015 and I was also the Bernina Sales Assistant.
I want to say a special thank you to the owner, Cathy Izzo, for giving me the opportunity to spread my teaching wings at The City Quilter, I will always be grateful. Additionally, I have met many wonderful students, customers and colleagues there, many of whom have become lifelong friends.
The City Quilter has played a huge part in my acclimatisation to life in the States. I'm so glad I picked up the courage to ring the doorbell and walk into the store 5 years ago. I hope there are more great doorbells yet to ring in my life, thank you CQ for being one of them x
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If you love CQ's NYC fabrics as much as I do - it makes the best gift when I'm travelling and I took along a yard of Line By Line Night fabric for QTM Quilt Match last week - no need to panic it will still be available online after the store closes.
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AFRICAN FABRIC SNEAK PEEK
I picked these two fabrics up at Greenmarket Square in Cape Town. The top fabric is a large panel (1-1/8 yd x 1-2/3 yd) printed on a canvas - the seller told me it is potato dye which I hadn't heard of before. I've investigated and found this handy pdf by maiwa.com that explains different types of resist methods. I also picked up two metres (approx 2-1/4 yd) of the second fabric below - a wax block on cotton.
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In Johannesburg, I visited Rosebank Arts & Crafts Market and fell in love with these gorgeous handmade dolls in their shweshwe dresses. I've been a big fan of shweshwe fabric since my good Susan Sato of Easy Piecing started selling it in her vending booth - oh the designs and colours!!!
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Have to share the amazing colours of houses on this Cape Town street too! Every day here has to be a great day with such happy bright colours surrounding you.
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QUILTERS TAKE MANHATTAN
Yep, that's me, well actually it's me and Allie Aller - she's just handed over the Quilt Match winner's belt and is tying it on for me. News, hot off the press, is that I did, in fact. win the Quilt Alliance's Quilters Take Manhattan Quilt Match last weekend.
What is Quilt Match? - 3 contenders (in this case me, Aleeda Crawley and Mary Fons) have 45 minutes to design and glue together a quilt top using 1 uncut yard of their own fabric and other sponsor supplied fabrics. On stage watched by 300-500 people (I've no idea what the actual number was on the day, I just know it was a lot) and the winner is chosen using an applause meter.
After 15 mins or so, you can have an assistant join you on stage - of course, it had to be my buddy Susan Sato (@Easy Piecing)
My piece is called "An Englishwoman In New York" - I won't say more as I'll do a blog post about it when I get the chance.
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Lol, don't you love my winner's happy dance?!
Go Team Quilty Spice
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HOBOKEN TERMINAL
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