Alzheimer Raffle Quilt from Auckland

Dear Rosemary


Here is our finished quilt! It looks absolutely stunning, and a real community effort.

The Auckland Patchworkers and Quilters Guild makes a quilt every year to be raffled with the proceeds to go to a chosen charity; selling of the tickets culminates at our annual "Calico Christmas" quilt show in the first week in November where the quilt is always featured as part of the display.

This year we decided on blue and white, with our chosen charity as Alzheimers Auckland, whose logo of course is "Forget-me-not" with those colours, so our choice of quilt is perfect! .. Like other places around the world, New Zealand has an ageing population and there are over 40,000 people with dementia of some kind in the country, more than 10,000 of them in Auckland, our largest city.

Seventeen different people hand-appliquéd the 20 blocks, two others assembled the quilt; it was professionally machine quilted by another of our members and the binding done by yet another. These lovely people come from "all over" so its not been possible to assemble them all for a photo-shoot I'm afraid. We have just started selling the 2500 tickets, and I'm very hopeful we will sell all of them, particularly as Alzheimers Auckland is holding a big Quiz Night fundraiser in September and will be promoting ticket sales there too.

Thank you again for allowing us to use your designs. They are perfect for our purpose - so stylish and very up to date, but also so traditional - we know from previous raffle-ticket-selling experience that "traditional" is good! And I think all our hand-workers enjoyed their stitching. I know I have enjoyed organising it and am very proud of our result!

Yours sincerely

Elizabeth Sadler

Raffle Organiser,

Auckland Patchworkers and Quilters Guild Inc.

Welcome To My Studio

My "studio" is actually my basement! LOL
It is a nice bright space and I feel very lucky to have it. I can come down here and get away from the world and just enjoy being creative--what a freeing experience!
This is my Janome 1600P which I like to use for free motion quilting. Here I am machine quilting my Canadiana Rose quilt.



Here are some of the ribbons I have won over the years. In the past I didn't enter my quilts in many contests as I was afraid of having my quilts lost or damaged during transit; but my quilt appraiser advised me that quilts are more valuable if they have won ribbons so I have started to enter a few more contests. Ribbons are nice but I always feel that more important is the satisfaction that you get when you complete something beautiful. I try to only compete with myself and try to learn something new with each quilt that I make.



Writing my books and designing my patterns has given me a lot of satisfaction.
It is probably the hardest thing for me to do and causes me a lot of stress sometimes but when I see the end result it seems all worthwhile.



This is my computer corner where I prepare my lesson plans, class handouts, patterns, and books. Unfortunately I find I'm here more than I am at my sewing machines.



Here is the newest addition to my sewing machine collection. I'm enjoying learning how to use my HQ18 midarm sewing machine. It's a bit harder to learn than I thought it would be. As I quilt on it, I keep thinking about the words of the song "I'm not perfect but I'm still trying."

Thanks for dropping by!

Marking a Quilting Pattern with Press'n Seal

Sometimes it is difficult to see through a very thick fabric such as felted wool or a quilt that has already been sandwiched with the batting and backing. This makes tracing a quilting pattern onto the quilt very difficult. Using Press'n Seal (which is available in the grocery) simplifies this process.




First trace the quilting pattern onto the Press'n Seal with a fine tip permenant marker such as Pigma Pen size .05 and let the ink dry.




Then place this traced pattern onto the quilt in the desired location and finger press in place. Lower the feed dogs on your machine and use a darning foot to free motion quilt along all the lines of the quilting pattern.




After all the stitching has been finished; tear away the Press'n Seal leaving only the stitched quilting. In this photo I have started to remove some of the Press'n Seal. I use my fingernail to scratch at the Press'n Seal or sometimes I use tweezers to help pull off the pieces of the Press'n Seal.

Please leave me a comment if you find this technique helpful. Let me know if there is another technique you would like to see featured.

This post is a followup to my Felted Wool Applique tutorial posted on June 9, 2011 at http://stashmanicure.blogspot.com This was a very popular tutorial with 133 comments posted so far. Thanks everyone!

Mother's Day Quiz

Who was this famous Mother?

1. Down the ages, told or sung,

Her rhymes delight the very young.



2. Fine old dame of visage glum,

Who knows the artist knows his mom.



3. Labouring in slums obscure,

Mothering a thousand poor.



4. Produced by this famed dowager,

One president, two senators.



5. Grandma proved it's none to late,

To gain renown with brush and paint.


Bet you can guess them all!

In Praise of Mothers on Mothers' Day

This is a photo of my Mama quilt made from a pattern by Bunny Leighton of Bunny Publications. It shows my family in the center showcasing each of our hobbies--my husband with his gardening, me with my quilting, Ken with his turtles (one has escaped) and Candice with her doll.

The other blocks show all the many activities that mothers do in the course of a busy week looking after their family. I fell in love with this quilt because when I was small my Mom used to tell me stories of her mother whom she called Mama. The many activities reminded me of the things she said her mother used to do.

The pieced quilt blocks in the corners are called Happy Home. That's my wish for all of you--that you and your family have a happy home.

"God can't be everywhere; and, so, invented Mothers." Sir Edwin Arnold