It's a cool sunday morning, Playing some Crosby, Stills, Nash + Young on vinyl, and cleaning up the aftermath of a week of heat and torpor. But as promised i have many pics to show from the class at Amitie yesterday, which was a resounding success due to the fantastically enthusiastic and super industrious stitchers! My how they went at it! As you can see all the blocks are diverse and totally unique, and once the process is comprehended there's no boundary's to what may be created. Check out their report card:
Justine's excellent four (!) blocks: Extra-ordinary use of colour and scale of prints: A+
Mindy's gorgeous trio: Delicious mix of fabrics, with a clever use of graphics: A+
Lucy's bold Graphic: For a first-time sewer(ever!), totally fearless, top result : A+
Emma's beautiful 6 blocks: Prolific, vivid colours and great attention to detail: A+
Anne-Marie's fiery 3: Clever use of strong colour palette, a striking design: A+
Hilary's brilliant Duo: Wonderful use of blue, punctuated with red: beautiful aesthetic: A+

I look forward to seeing the end results and for those of you interested I'm sure Jenny will timetable more classes for Gee's Bend-ers.

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And to top of a busy day, a gang of Mixtape enthusiasts gathered at Amitie for a lovely afternoon. We sewed, we ate, we chatted! Some Shopped.....always tempting. By far a really great mix-together. There was even some book-love sharing, thanks to Kirsty.
No Photo's here yet, those present may have go it together! Try Justine, Nic, Fi, Kirsty, Kitty, Steph, Holly, Beverly, Leslie, Sharon....... Well done Team Mixtape, another fun time!

It's not a competition...

..to see how hot we can take it! Joke over! I get it! It's Hot, I'm hot, enough already! Now bring on Autumn.

Meanwhile, Big Day out was fun, the flags looked pretty darn amazing, Neil Young: Legend! The Prodigy: Electric and crazy fun! The crowd and the weather added up to a top day for all. And now it's almost back to normal, Life, that is.... Kids starting school on a 43.5 C day is cruel, particularly for the youngest starting big school in woolly uniform for photo's. luckily they were out of there toot sweet and hit the beach (which i thought was insane, and promptly rescued child and plonked him and friends in a cool room with lemon cordial and snacks!) And my gee's bend class is on Saturday at Amitie... (some cool weather'd be nice). I've not been very diligent blogging of late (weather - again)And i'm not big on the self promotion either so i'll do a post class round up. As all places are filled i'm sure this class will run again. There's been quite a bit of enthusiasm shown for this type of block making. All the rebels, non-sewers, virgin quilt maidens are coming out of the woodwork so i'm excited to see what fun/havoc is created. So better drag myself off the computer and get organised. Maybe one more iced drink first. Hope all melbourne-ites are keeping like, way cool!

Already the new year week has gone.....

So the new year is already one week old..... and we're back from the beach, (15 of us, aged 2 years to 52 years). 8 days of sunshine and rain, togs and gumboots, food, food and more food, cranium versus balderdash and plenty of rest, reading and red wine. Nothing like some ocean + bush to put things into perspective, (they're so big, me so small).

It's not all business as usual back on the home-front, here's a brief rundown of whats looming on the immediate horizen:

*Making 25 flags for Lilyworld, B.D.O., using an overlocker and silk for the first time, not as tricky as i suspected. (but man-o-man, the frayed threads are from one end of the house to the other...!)

*Preparing for a class at Amitie, my first as teacher. Inspired by the quilts of Gee's Bend we'll be exploring the no-rules block construction recipe!. Now, if you're anything like me, some quilt ideas seem so conventional, complicated and rule-centric that i feel defeated before i've even started! Not so with Gees Bend. It's a very satisfying approach, experimental, quick to construct and great for first time quilters. In a nutshell: exploration + process = design ...or something smart like that. Justine has signed up (and if she brings me an apple i'll give her an elephant stamp!) Go check it out at Amitie, (a really big work space plus lots of great fabric inspiration) Plenty of elephant stamps for all!

*sewing up some skirts, simple and quick i hope.
*finishing a quilt for above class...eek!
*quietly woo-hooing to 1 year of blogging!
* making a 2nd Christmas fruit cake cos the first was so good and was gone in a week!
*reading the Thrift Book by India Knight. Lots of good reading here, a nice reference to this clever person and even a section on emotional thrift...Right on!