Houston

From Napa, it was down to Houston, Texas to meet up with Deb. We wagged Schoolhouse and went shopping instead. Anthropologie again, plus all the other all American places we could fit in. Saturday was the start of Quilt Market. It's big! Here are some of the things we saw.


Amy Butler's new range - Love. A quilt at the Westminster stand.

Amy Butler's stand. Too shy to ask her to pose for me - although, being the all American, sweet as pie gal she is, she would have.

More Amy.

Heather Bailey's pretty stand. Must have got over my shyness, because I did ask her for a photo - it's just too blurry!

Anna Maria Horner's stand featuring her new gorgeous line of voile fabrics. Her oh, so cute babe was there too! But back to the fabrics - can't wait to have a play with these, they are super pretty.

Hexagons, Parties, Anything....

This boy is holding up only 5 fingers, but he actually turned 8 this week. Yo, yo, bling, bling!

This is the little visitor we had this past week. I think they are butterfly watching. Cute.

This is what's up on my design wall at the moment. Big hexagons with lots of Garden Party by Anna Maria Horner and some Kaffe and a fair bit of Kei red honeycomb.

My latest love. I spotted something similar on a gorgeous Japanese girl in the shop a few months back. I couldn't stop looking at the beautiful creation that her mother in Japan - who owns a quilt shop - had made for her. She had her Mum make me one too. I love it. All vintage feedsack fabrics. Can you see the fabric that Denise Schmidt must have got her inspiration from?

Book

The Quiltmaker's Gift is a book that was given to my son Oliver a couple of years ago by Kate, his aunty. He loves it. It's a story of a greedy king with many belongings, who learns, with the help of a generous and kind hearted quilter, to give away his belonging and find true happiness in the gift of giving. The story and it's prequel "The Quiltmaker's Journey" are written by Jeff Brumbeau and superbly illustrated by Gail de Marcken.


Oliver loves the connections between these books and what I do, what I create. He loves nothing more than poring over the elaborate illustrations discussing the quilts he would love me to make him. I love that he loves these books and that he takes such an interest in what I do - everything is quilting in his tender 7 year old eyes - crocheting, sewing, embroidery - he wraps it all under the one tag. Sweet.

Stripped Spiderswebs

Last year I was chatting to a lady at the Kaffe Fassett lecture in Perth. She was a knitter and I was a quilter and we were chatting back and forth about our respective passions. She mentioned that she once had thought she would one day like to do some patchwork, but on looking at the fabric decided against it as the fabric was beautiful as it was and she really couldn't understand why you would cut up something and sew it together again. I sort of understand her thinking - especially when you think of the process of knitting. But I love to cut the fabric up, the more the better I think. So I'll stick to patchwork I think. I've had so much fun creating these octagons. Here are my strips cut with the Marti Michell Kaleidoscope ruler and sewn together again.





This is my favourite one.

A bit of Liberty of London thrown. All you die hard Liberty fans will know which one it is - anyone who's not sure, it's the white one with knitting needles and yarn on it.

Below, is a gorgeous gift of Liberty for my birthday from a gorgeous gal - Danielle. Thanks so much, I just love it.

Pink Dolly Quilt

Here's Phoebe's dolly quilt all finished and ready to keep her babies snug. I went with the pink and I like it. It's fun and girly, just the way I like it.


Now I just need a spare hour or two to sand and paint this gorgeous old doll's bassinet that I bought at a church sale. It's ever so sweet and the perfect height for little girls to tend to their babies. It's even on casters. My heart sings when I see my little one nurturing her babies.