Latest Work

This is a small section of what I've been busy doing lately. I am teaching a dyeing,using dyed fabrics, and free motion quilting workshop in Jan so have been organising some class samples. I have always liked Japanese quilts so I decided to use their cherry blossom as a raw edge applique. I have free motioned a leaf motif to make the flowers float. I use small motifs to escape the "death by stippling" routine. I used a 50wt variegated valdani thread . I am currently finishing off the stamens in the rest of the blossoms. For the first time I have used iron on pellon and have used some of the embroidery as quilting. Trying to use time saving techniques as the workshop is not long.

I also used free motion satin stitch as I felt the wider feed dogs up satin stitch too chunky and straight looking.

Drought Quilt 05

Australia has been suffering a drought in most places that are prone to drought for years now so I named this Quilt "Drought has come to the Coast"
I attended another dyeing workshop in Bundaberg and somehow chose turquoise as my blue colour . I ended up with an electric combination of colours. I continued experimenting with format etc for this quilt . I wanted some of the connector strips to stand out in places with others blending.
This quilt reminded me of the red soil areas around Gayndah where I spent quilte a few holidays as a child on my relatives peanut/ grain farm getting very dirty.
I entered this quilt in the Australian Quilt Show in 2006. It is a lot smaller than the previous connector quilts I have shown.
A good size for a one day workshop. You only need a fat eighth for most fabrics and a skinny quarter for the border pieces.

Colour Connector Quilt 2

After the success I had with my first abstract landscape quilt using colour connectors I decided to try another colour scheme and format. This time I kept one strip series level and waved the other one.

This quilt format is based on 2 sets of fabrics joined together then cross cut into strips and arranged in a bargello manner.

I am teaching this workshop to some Bundaberg Quilters members in November. I am really looking forward to it as I have not played around with this for awhile. Might even need to dye more fabric agin.

The photography could be better as this photo was taken hanging in the gallery at Gin Gin.

Favourite Quilts

In 2001 I attended my first fabric dyeing workshop. As a result of that new addiction I ended up with a huge pile of dyed fabric to play with. I had been inspired my some quilts made by Judith Larzelere.

Here was a style I felt could use some of my fabric with.

I entered a quilt made in about 4 weeks into the inaugural RNA Quilts Across Queensland with a theme of The Outback being 2002- The Year of The Outback.

I was lucky to receive 2nd prize in the contemporary section.



Since then I have continued exploring this technique. Changing the format, dyed fabric styles and quilting on the surface.

I have been teaching this as a workshop called
Connecting with colour for a few years. I do not have the opportunity to teach much because of work commitments but when I do, I really enjoy it.

Quilts and Blogs

I responded to Robyn's post from quilt antics about online quilting and groups. She has responded with what is it about these aussies. My experience with patchwork and quilting is it can be a solitary hobby/ passion unless you make /take the opportunity to mingle with like minded people. Same story applies to life really.


I belong to Bundaberg Quilters being their publicity officer. We are a group consisting of about 140 members but I live 115 kms away so do not get to group functions much. This would probably be a similar story for many Aussie quilters. The other informal group I am a member of is the Mt Perry Quilters. About 8 of us. We use our blog as our newsletter. Why waste paper when you can post photoes in colour etc and your friends anywhere can see them.
Our Mt Perry blog is mpquilters.blogspot.com if you have not found it already.

We all have internet access. Most of us have satellite broadband because of our remoteness from urban areas. This has allowed us to "meet " so many people and now is allowing us to purchase supplies much easier. We still love driving the long distance to the local patchwork shops when we can for our shopping trips though. The blog world has allowed us to view trends and tips so much easier and makes us feel like we belong somewhere.


Australia is probably different to the USA as quilting groups here are only about 25 to 20 years old, not like some long established ones in USA. Bundaberg Quilters celebrated their 20th this year.





I have been teaching workshops for QCWA Piecemakers since doing a tutors course for them in 1999. They are a far flung group of members across Queensland. They are also in the process of setting up a blog for their members as well. They currently have a section on the QCWA website.


I have been busy working on my next workshop in January. I purchased a free motion feathers DVD from Patsy Thompson 2 weeks ago and yesterday successfully produced my first sample of free motion feathers without marking the quilt top first. Now I am doing these in the outside border of a queen size log cabin bed quilt. I would not have been able to progress so quickly to doing this without the blogs that I read.


This is the actual piece scanned . A sample of hand dyed fabric with 35wt valdani variegated thread. On my bed quilt I am using an aurifil thread 50 wt cotton mako thread. The thinner thread is beautiful to use for traditional style quilting.

The only downside to all this blogging is interrupting the sewing sessions.

Kaliedoscope Quilts at the Gallery

My 2 kaliedoscope quilts are now hanging in the Pat Augustine gallery in Mt. Perry along with the other quilts by the Mt.Perry Quilters. Amazing what setting a deadline does for the reduction of UFO's. The entire group all finished their quilts.It's quite an achievement for such a small town to have an accomplished lot of quilters living nearby. Not one of us actually resides in the town. We are all from rural properties in the area. Shows our dedication to our passion doesn't it.
Yesterday, Thursday I spent doing gallery duty and had the pleasure of speaking about quilts to 5 visitors.

Now that this deadline has passed, I can resume "working " on another project.
I am going to be teaching a workshop on dyeing fabric, using your own hand dyed fabric and free motion quilting for QCWA in January 2008.
I have been working out the program and requirements lists for the class. Wow what a lot of preparation. I still have to fit this in around everything else I "have " to do.

I have been putting together some quilting samplers using small dyed pieces.This is a before piecing photo. The block pieces give me natural borders to experiment with different FMQ motifs. It is simply designed as I believe dyed fabrics work better with simple designs and lots of decorative quilting. I use varied sizes of hand dyed variegated threads for my quilting.
During gallery duty I also managed to cut out a second small quilt using some "ugly" dyed fabric.

Kaleidoscope Quilt 2

As a member of the Mt Perry Quilters I participated in their recent kaleidoscope workshop. I have already showed you the second quilt made using this technique.
The first one was from a japanese print. I am currently enthralled with japanese quilts and subscribe to Quilts Japan magazine for my access to viewing their quilts.
Japanese ponds however usually have a bridge, The bridge pieces just would not have "worked" in this quilt.
The little boxes are tricky to make but well worth the effort.
This quilt will be hanging in the Mt Perry Gallery nrxt week.