Grandmother's News for 10th October 2019

Dear <<First Name>>,

Have any of you noticed lately how much more difficult it is to multi-task? I used to think it was overload and now I am not sure - it could be an age-related thing! Like deciding to fill the dogs' pot with water and then doing another task only to find 10 minutes later the water is still running into the dogs' pot - thankfully with the plug out! Or turning on the oven to bake something and an hour later while sitting at the sewing machine the oven is still churning away!! One task at a time!

This week I bought an air fryer! Harvey Norman had them for 88 dollars - normally this one is over 200 dollars with some brands 600 dollars. So I am having fun with cooking fish, baked potatoes and I have joined a recipe group in America just for air fryer recipes.

I have also got into a storage room and pulled out three boxes of fabric and UFOs. I am going to have a cleansing session as that storage room was getting ridiculous. It has my treadmill and exercycle and hopefully, I will now be able to reach them at some point. So far I have two large plastic bags of stuff that should never have been stored!

We have finally conquered the mountain of new fabric which arrived here over the past four months or so. I am going to talk about projects etc this week as we have all been so busy sewing. There will be a little fabric at the end - Layer Cakes especially.

Check out our Facebook page for a gorgeous quilt a customer brought in made with one of our Layer Cakes.

New Club - Color Weave Fabric
First of all, we have discovered yet another wonderful new palette of textured plains called Color Weave. There are over 50 colours and they are on the brighter side of the palette - for instance, there are no browns but the teals, aquas, greens and lemons are just gorgeous. We
will eventually have the whole palette on the shelves and like you, we will collect five or six new colours per month. You will receive fat quarters. They are also going to appear with a pearlised finish but there won’t be as many colours.

Each month we will include one pearlised fat quarter to match the colours for that month. We are going to begin with white, light grey through to charcoal. Greys are often difficult to find and the first month you will receive three along with the white, charcoal and pearl finish.

Visit our website to join this new club. We will start this club as soon as the pearl finish colour weaves arrive. They are not yet in the country.

Here is a link to a free pattern using all the Color Weave fabrics. You will see it is a bright, funky palette.

https://www.benartex.com/uploads/Image/quilt-gallery/67B/Prism.pdf

The Bag Ladies Club

We have been running this club for more than a year and today I found just one of the Bag Ladies I had embroidered so I found a frame and here she is!

There are 12 different ladies with a quilty theme. The fabric is all preprinted and pre-coloured so all you have to do is embroider and embellish. We have seen some really great quilts from this club.

Each month you pay just 25 dollars and you use your own threads unless you request a selection of colours but I think most of us have a bag full of bits leftover from other projects. You can use up all kinds of colours as they are after all Bag Ladies and will be happy with whatever colour you put them in.

Visit our website for all the details and to join this club.

New Kitsets!

Travel Duffle Bag
Lesley has just finished this fabulous travel bag, perfect for a weekend or to use as hand luggage. She has included in the kit the zips and hardware. Hardware for bags can be the devil to find so we have located what you need for this bag from overseas and as soon as they arrive (within 10 days) the kits will be ready to go. Lesley chose this beautiful Moda fabric and it is quite eye-catching.

It’s A Lovely Day
Gayle loves doing backstitch embroidery and she also loves creating pockets for needlework and works in progress.

This lovely little pocket with a zipper top would make a great gift for a sewing friend or just for yourself for whatever you are working on at present.

Coastal Dreams Placemats
These wonderful placemats all have a pocket for cutlery and a napkin and they would be perfect for the boat, motorhome or holiday house. You could roll them with the cutlery in the pocket or keep them flat in a drawer.

Theses ones have lovely coastal scenes but Lesley has made several different sets including some especially for Christmas.

These ones she called Holiday Beach.

... and these are her Sandy Claus Placemats.

Santa Claws
This is a fun wall quilt and already we have sold so many. It is laser cut for your convenience so all you have to do is peel, stick and stitch! For sewing these projects I recommend our Schmetz Super Nonstick Needles.

These laser cut kits are more expensive but for ladies with arthritis in the hands, they are still able to enjoy sewing without trying to cut around corners. We are seeing more and more of these appearing on the market.

McKenna Ryan has had several of her Block of the Month quilts laser cut so I guess they must be popular around the world as I am sure it must be very expensive to set up the designs for cutting.

A Barnyard Christmas
When I saw this pattern I immediately thought “Colleen”. Hasn’t she done a beautiful job of choosing the fabrics for this delightful Christmas wall quilt!

This is not laser cut so you have to cut your own! You still have plenty of time to get this finished for Christmas.

Christmas Critters
We have sold so many of Rachel of Greenfield’s felt kits over the years and here is her latest. The woodland critters are celebrating Christmas!

A pudgy bear, plump bunny, petite deer, prickly hedgehog, pointy fox, and proud squirrel make up this combination of three mitten and three stocking ornaments. You can pop treats inside the boots!

Sweet Christmas Stitchery
This is Lynda’s work as she loves to do stitchery in the evening and by using just one variegated thread you won’t even have to think of what colour to use next.

Stitch on a fabric border and then think about mounting it on an artboard. The border fabric is included in your kit.

Ocean Paradise
Colleen has chosen an amazing batik to act as the background for this laser cut kit.

Anything you see in the picture that is black has been laser cut and the coloured bits are the background.

You just carefully peel and stick and stitch. It is certainly eye-catching and looks like stained glass.

Dragonfly Dream
This is another of Colleen’s kits and again, what a great job she has done choosing the fabrics.

This kitset is not laser cut but the appliqué pieces are very manageable.

For those of you who felt that Colleen’s first dragonfly quilt was too much to cope with, this one is much easier! A great beginner's project!

Butterflies and Blossoms
This one is laser cut and Colleen has chosen a great background.

Again, all you need to do is peel off the paper of the black laser-cut fabric and iron it to the background fabric to make a beautiful stained glass wall hanging.

The quilt is bound with the background fabric making a very attractive wall quilt.

Jacob - Flannel
This is a Bonnie Sullivan flannel kitset and it uses her packs of 5” squares.

If you have never sewn with flannel before then perhaps this would be a good project to start on. It is very colourful and very cosy!

It would be very easy to extend this further with some of Bonnie’s flannels.

Proud Stag
This quick quilt, Elvene has made, is receiving a lot of visits on Facebook.

This is a pattern you will be able to use with other panels. Panels are becoming so popular and every fabric company is producing them. They are also becoming more beautiful so I guess there are a lot of quilters around the world using them.

Watch for a great bag designed especially for panels that Lesley is working on as we speak so even the bag designers are embracing the idea of panels.

Bloomsbury Town Square
Elvene has used a lovely William Morris print from Free Spirit for this quilt.

There is the choice of two more versions using the same fabric collection. It is a free pattern which keeps the cost down.

This quilt is suitable for a confident beginner who can keep all her ducks in a row!

Menlo Park
This quilt features the beautiful border fabric from Kathy Hall's Edison collection and the photo does not do justice to the wonderful design and colours in it.

Elvene has pulled the colours for the patchwork centre of the quilt. The size allows this quilt to be a great throw for a queen-sized bed or just something to snuggle in for an afternoon nana nap!

Blanket of Flowers

This is perhaps the only time you will be able to use the word blanket when referring to a quilt! Elvene used four of the gorgeous Hoffman digitally printed panels for this quilt and again it is important to keep all the ducks in a row by numbering the squares so this is a challenge for an experienced quilter but you do end up with a very large quilt indeed.

We are open to suggestions you might have for different colours for this quilt. Hoffman have produced this panel in quite a few colours now and you need two different colours. Visit our website to see the Dream Big Hoffman panels. We have quite a few in stock.

Coming Home
Elvene has used the lovely shades from the Grunge collection to great effect in this quilt. Each block has a narrow cream border halfway around it which really does add to this design.

This would be a great quilt to make for a man or for someone who doesn’t like flowers. It has a very contemporary look.

Crosswise
This quilt Lesley has made would be great for a man and it is certainly modern!

It is just so good to be able to offer traditional and contemporary projects reflecting the tastes of the various staff.

This quilt is probably a little more difficult than it looks so I would recommend it to experienced quilters.

NZ Bush Birds Table Runner and Placemats
Gayle chose Kiwiana fabrics for this lovely set and they have certainly turned out to be worthy of creating as gifts for overseas family and friends. She has also made this design using traditional fabrics.

They are not difficult to make. So a confident beginner could tackle them.

Watermelon Placemats
This is one for the people who love the accuracy of foundation piecing.

All the foundation papers are included and that makes the pattern quite expensive but those who do foundation piecing will know this.

These placemats when not being used form a table centrepiece which looks like a watermelon.

Meadow Grass Stitchery
We found this preprinted stitchery in Australia. This is Ngaire Brooks’ sample and she had it professionally framed turning it into an heirloom. There are no complicated stitches and we have used exactly the colours Ngaire used so you will finish up with what you see here. Beautiful!

In The Blue Garden Sewing Folder
This is another of Gayle’s sewing pockets and it is a good size with a clear zipper pouch as well as a pocket on the inside.

Linden Lane Stitchery
The photo in no way does this beautiful needlework project of Lynda’s justice. This is one we found in Australia and we have had it professionally stretched onto a wooden frame and it looks even better than the original!

You would be more comfortable with this project if you have done a reasonable amount of embroidery, but there is nothing too complicated. I hope you get a chance to see this embroidery in person.