In 2022, I made a small quilt to welcome my goddaughter’s first baby. It was fun stitching the project, mainly because it gave me the opportunity to lay out colours in a way I thought would stimulate a baby. You can read about that quilt here. Now that baby is a little girl and she […]
Is a fabric stash a collection?
There are 163 blue fabrics in my stash. How did this happen? What could ever make me think I would use that many fabrics in my lifetime? If I possess this many blue fabrics, how many do I own of other colours? I have been buying fabric for patchwork for more than 30 years. I […]
Accidents with colour
I was trying to pull a piece of fabric from the bottom of a precariously arranged pile of objects on the top shelf of my bookcase. The fabric came out easily but so did my set of coloured pencils. The tin crashed to the ground and all the colours of the rainbow landed on the […]
Enjoying quiltmaking
I remember Gwen Marston saying this at a workshop I attended with her some years ago. Making quilts is my hobby, it’s not a business for me. I don’t sell anything. If you make quilts for pleasure, perhaps remembering this quote from Gwen could be useful to you, too, when you feel overwhelmed by all […]
Every quilter needs a design wall
Sometimes, it’s difficult to appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore. That’s what I experienced when I tried to accommodate all my sewing paraphernalia into a bedroom in our current house instead of the huge space where I had previously lived. I’ve been making quilts since the 1980s and have acquired masses […]
Washing quilt fabrics
As I watched rows of freshly washed fabric flapping on the clothesline the other day, I reflected on how much satisfaction I receive from simple pleasures. Whenever life seems to be complicated, I like to take a step back. During my first patchwork class last century, we were advised to wash our fabrics before using […]
Quilters – is too much choice a bad thing?
Is too much choice a bad thing? Is it easier to select exactly the right product for the job or does it make it difficult to decide anything at all? Recent research shows that the answer depends on whether you are a ‘maximiser’ or a ‘satisficer’. Maximisers want decisions to be perfect. They will research […]
The power of stories
For four years, I was Editor of an Australian quilt magazine. A few years after I left, the business was sold and the magazine subsequently shutdown. Until then, the magazine showcased a wide range of stories about the Australian patchwork and quilting community. I was proud of the hard work I put into nearly 50 […]
When a quilt is a challenge
The challenge was to make a quilt that measured 50 inches square. Sounds straightforward, right? No such luck – my quilt had other ideas. It simply did not want to be that size and fought me all the way. The quilt won. It has always been difficult for me to make a quilt to a […]
The value of creating
Have you ever read something that forces you to immediately stop whatever you are doing? Like when a sentence hits you with force and make you wonder how that couldn’t possibly have occurred to you before? For me, it happened when I read a quote from Neil Gaiman. I’m a voracious reader. To me, reading […]