Update! Update! Update!
 An entire year has flown by without a single word being added to this post.  It has been a very busy year as usual, with Tuesday group (now to be known as "The Closed Shop") various classes, and shop duties, as well as wonderful monthly visits to Silk painting and machine embroidery with Ken Smith.
I think I am finally getting the hang of silk painting and have managed some quite attractive pieces this year.  I did photograph some of them, but they are such bad pictures I will not include them.  Will endeavour to take some better ones over the holidays.

"Its Not All Black and White"

Attended a workshop with Jane Sassaman, Applique Quilt Artist from the USA in April.  Really enjoyed her technique and the quilts she showed us.  All beautifully finished, mostly using her own fabric designs and plenty of built in machine stitches for quilting.  Interestingly, Jane doesn't free motion quilt, but uses the walking foot for this work.  I love her prints, and had just finished a quilt  "It's not all Black and White" using them on the front and back.  This quilt received a Highly Commended and Judges Commendation in the Tasmanian Quilt Show.

This is a little quilt I finished using Jane's techniques.  An  interesting  machine interpretation of traditional quilter's hand applique methods, plus Jane's slant on abstracting designs from photographs and nature.  My very literal head had difficulty grasping the design principles but I am quite happy with the results and did manage to finish a class sample, quite a rarity for me.
Still a work in progress in this picture.
I was very pleased with this quilt called "Circular Circus" continuing  my work with the Drunkards Path block and circular shapes.  I used all Kaffe Fassett fabrics in this quilt, lovely vibrant colours and amazing prints. The designs and colour combinations in these fabrics are often unexpected but they all seem to work very well together.

Couldn't resist some more Kaffe Fassett in a quilt "Fish Kaffe".  A fun project bound for this year's quilt show, so pictures later.

This little quilt, 8 inches square, was entered in a Quilting Arts Magazine challenge "My Favourite Colour" and was chosen with 9 others to appear in Issue 59.  It is called "65 Yellows" and has 64 x 1 inch squares on the front and a fabulour yellow batik on the back.  Very chuffed to be chosen from among 150 entries.


Last but not least for now, this 12" quilt is the result of a challenge for the Ken Smith groupies.  We were each given a bag of bits and pieces left over from other projects.  The challenge was to create an embroidered piece from the scraps.

This is "Moon City", utilising silk, lame, sheers, free motion embroidery, couching, hand beading and embroidery with found items and metal.

Our days with Ken are still fantastic, I will photograph some of my better silk dying efforts for the next blog.

Also for later, photos from the "Closed Shop" 12 x 12 challenge.  A project inspired by the Internet 12 x 12 challenges, and progressing over 2013 with an exhibition early 2014.  Each participant chooses a topic to be interpreted in a little quilt and so far we hve seen some wonderfully creative work.

So, till next time,
Cheers Virginia