New Zealand yet again - Robbi Eclow

Robbi Eclow, who is also known as the Queen of the Last Minute, was the teacher for my second class ..and what a great teacher. These are her own samples which many of the students used to form the basis of their own work. They are all very vibrant and full of life. If you ever get the chance to do a class with Robbi take it.		I again failed the test and didn't make it as teacher's pet here either. When I enrolled in Robbi's class I thought it was a two day design class, but alas it turned out to be half day of design and one and a half of actually making a quilt. I contacted Robbi before the class and asked if she minded if I simply designed for the two days on the computer. She agreed and boy did I learn a lot... unfortunately I didn't learn how to change an Illustrator design into a jpeg for uploading here but will try to photograph it tomorrow.

New Zealand Symposium - Chris Kenna class

Day 1	A few weeks ago, it actually feels just like last week as I have been so busy, I went to New Zealand and attended the Taupo Quilting Symposium. I had hoped to do two classes, the first by Gwen Marston and the second with Robbi Eclow. Unfortunately Gwen was super popular and her class filled well before they managed to process my application. I also missed out on my second and third choices but managed to get into a class by Chris Kenna doing the New York Beauty.
Day 1 everyone, well except for me, made a 7in blocks, and an edge block. As I wasn't going to be making a complete quilt I only wanted to make two blocks and wanted these to be the same size and so I made a 10in block from Day 2's patterns. It is the block in the bottom left that doesn't fit in, in the photo above. There were some real beauties.	Day 1 & Day 2 -  7in blocks
Day 2 - 10in blocks	Day 2 People had the choice of making more 7in blocks or trying more advanced 10in blocks. I made my second 10in block and even managed to join them together. This time they are the two top left hand ones. Aren't some of the colours exquisite. When I came home my two blocks were joined together and then I designed a border for them and joined them all together and made a pram cover for my niece who recently had a baby girl, Annabelle. I posted the quilt off on Tuesday and can't find the photo of it around but if I find it I will upload it... I think it looked gorgeous.

Collection 6 - Where did that name come from?

 This collection contains one of my favourite blocks Crystal Dreams, the fabrics do nothing to showcase the design but I still love it.

Short Changed was one of the first blocks that were based on a smaller grid with an extra border. The original aim was to leave space for highlighting quilting, but my skills were too poor, atrocious is a more apt description for my machine quilting. Anyway due to my level of quilting skills I  ended up leaving the area still plain.. Would like to see someone do something with their skills.	C6 Short Changed	Crystal Dreams was designed to show some flowers in a crystal vase. The diamond cut that is common on many of the crystal vases inspired the design. Isn't it surprising that two fabrics that looked good together in strips don't come up so well when sewn...and then top it off with my being too lazy to resew the block...viola!
C6 Disappearing Hope	Disappearing Hope was made at a time when things were going pretty badly within my family after an argument with my father. Many things weren't too good at that time, but the block still looks good.	C6 Crystal Dreams
Fake Hands was made around the same time as Disappearing Hope. People pretend to care but spite and jealousy cause a lot of harm..and then they walk away, leaving much damage.	C6 Fake hands	Enter With Care - my eldest son worked for a while at Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and he would joke about consequences of a nuclear mishap. Youth knows no fear.
C6 With Care	The title With Care came from the fact that care needed to be taken when fussy cutting this block.	C6 Enter With Care
Strung Out was made about the same time as Disappearing Hope and Fake Hands. Gorgeous blocks for not such a nice time:)	C6 Strung Out	Links Links to blocks by Carol -  Short Changed,  Crystal Dreams, Disappearing Hope, Strung Out, Enter With Care and Fake Hands, With Care

So where are your photos?

Unbelievable but there is no U Scatterday post here

Life has been so hectic that it struck me this afternoon that Saturday had already arrived and alas I haven't written a post for this week. Will have to be next time. Missing only one all year isn't bad:(

Scatterday H

Don't you just love the floral H and I am sure you will also enjoyt the categories this week.
# Sticky
# Wearable
# Breakfast
# Hiding Place

posting date 17th August

Snippets from Delma

C2 I Love Lucy

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to teach at the South Coast Quilters Retreat, which is held biannually at Cobargo. Delma was one of the ladies in my class and a short while ago she brought the blocks which she had finished to our sewing day at Nowra Quilters. Don't you just love her fabrics?

C3 Burning Bright

Delma usually prefers applique or machine piecing but decided to try the miniature Raconteur blocks. She has now finished the five hand pieced blocks and only has left the two foundation pieced blocks.

In the class we did a collection that I call Snippets as it is a taste of the different techniques and structures that are used throughout Raconteur. The seven blocks are taken from different collections and slowly build from easy to rather difficult. Unfortunately after having made so many of the blocks my idea of simple/easy and a beginner's idea of this are vastly different. It was one of the women at this retreat who first prompted me to enlarge the blocks and showed me what a difference this small change can make to not only the final number of blocks that someone needs for a quilt, but also to the success that different people can achieve.
Teaching is a great opportunity for people to learn from others, not just for the students but also the teacher.

C6 Crystal Dreams

C4 BlackBerry Freedom

C6 Enter With Care

BOM 6 - Crystal Dreams

By Carol Le Maitre	By Daiva Ceicys
From Quilt Snippets	BOM6 - Crystal Dreams

Crystal Dreams is the BOM for August. This is one of my favourite blocks although the fabrics used in Raconteur itself do nothing to showcase it.

I have made this in a few different fabrics and it is amazing how different the block looks every time. The first two blocks were made by Carol and Daiva and you can see how delightful they are. The pale green was made by myself for another quilt that I made called Snippets.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this block too. 

BOM 6 - Crystal Dreams

By Carol Le Maitre	By Daiva Ceicys
From Quilt Snippets	BOM6 - Crystal Dreams

Crystal Dreams is the free BOM for August. This is one of my favourite blocks although the fabrics used in Raconteur itself do nothing to showcase it.

I have made this in a few different fabrics and it is amazing how different the block looks every time. The first two blocks were made by Carol and Daiva and you can see how delightful they are. The pale green was made by myself for another quilt that I made called Snippets.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this block too. The featured collection and free BOM will be uploaded tomorrow here.

Another Great Link for EPP

In the Raconteur yahoo group there are some links to useful sites. These have been added whenever anyone recommended it and until now I haven't had a chance to actually check them out.
Today I decided to have a look at one of these, flossieteacakes and found it a wealth of information.
Although Florence says it will be just a quick post she does give a lot of information, so this is another brew up a coffee first type of web pages. The post was written from a beginner's point of view as she has only recently started using this method so is perfect for those of you who have also decided to try it particularly for the miniature Raconteur.
Just a short summary to the topics she covers

• What is EPP?
• Fabric Choice 
• Books and Patterns and Doing Your Own Thing - 
• Paper Choice 
• Creating Shape Templates 
• Making the templates for cutting the fabric
• Cutting the Fabric 
• Basting the fabrics around the paper
• Wrapping the fabric around the paper
• Thread 
• Thinking about needles
• Types of stitches - whip stitch vs ladder stitch and how many stitches
• How to sew it together
• clever tips
• Storage
• Removing the papers
• Over to the experts

Lots of good information and worth a cup of coffee.

Design Layout Thoughts - colour & quilting

Well here you have an uncropped collection. Along the top of the photo you can see the fillers that I used to level off the top and bottom sides of the quilt. These were left overs from another quilt and when I had run out of ideas as to what to do for Raconteur,  I remembered these. I actually have over two hundred of these triangles as the original quilt turned out to be a real flop...even though the triangles, (well diamonds in truth as I was making a lone star quilt) looked great.

The collections are set out in the Grandmother's Flower Garden setting with each subsequent circle of petals having a different frame (outer) colour. Red, green, red, blue and red again. There should have been a red outer border but I couldn't find one to suit when I reached that stage. The green border that I chose unfortunately doesn't focus your eyes on the colour plan, which is a shame considering that I had to redo several of the frames when I made the quilt to get the colour sequence that I wanted. Oh well we love and learn.

The quilting in the collections isn't obvious since it is merely ditch stitching around the feature fabric in each individual block and then on both sides of the small borders. This was all completed before the collections were joined together. I had no quilting in the dark outer borders (called frames so as to avoid confusion in the notes, between the little block borders and the collection borders:)
Every collection was completed and quilted and then they were all joined together. It would have been impossible to quilt the whole quilt any other way...particularly with my skill level..or lack thereof.

Scatterday Zealot.... Not here

Well I realise that Z is not the easiest of letters to scatter for but as I had included a chicken's escape plan only a few weeks ago with the letter X I thought people might think I was being slack if I included another escape plan....particularly since everyone apart from Christine and me had done the hard slog last time.
So here goes ...without the assistance of the vampire accent either I will have you notice.

My initial draft was to be based at a zoo but once I started googling I found a lot more interesting reading looking into criminals. 'Notorious' was always going to link into criminals. Well here are my stars of the letter Z.

Scott and Zealand Fitzgerald were notorious party animals. Reckless, beautiful and always intoxicated – Jazz Age decadence personified – Scott and Zelda made headlines for their scandalous exploits: jumping into the Plaza Hotel’s fountain fully clothed, joyriding around the city in various states of intoxication, spending night after night partying until dawn with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Sadly, their lifestyle — and their mutual dramatic personalities — soon began to backfire, disrupting their marriage, their reputations, and their health.

Zesty antecheros - now personally I don't think that these are edible however there are at least some Mexicans alive who would swear that I am wrong. Now admittedly t
hese are only number 6 on the list of the most terrify foods in the world and my son's girlfriend was not too happy when she spent Xmas in Australia and discovered that we didn't readily have the ingredients for lutefisk which is number 4 and a regular item at her family Xmas lunch!

So what are zesty antecheros.. they are the eggs of the giant black Liometopum ant. They are highly venomous and have some kind of blood grudge against humans.... I wonder why?
They do have a surprisingly pleasant tast, buttery and slightly nutty

Family what could be more comforting than our families.... how about the Zerilli family. Dad made it to the top and his son Joseph grew up and followed in dad's footsteps all the way to the a five year holiday at state penitentiary when the feds became interested in his interest in a few of the Las Vegas casinos. Before his vacation he headed one of the most vicious Detroit mafia familes. Seems he knows what happened to Teamster president James Riddle Hoffa. Most of us in Oz know little/nothing about the teamsters and I am in that mob but their name did start with Z.

This post was written up the night before I flew out to NZ for the symposium and my brain can't think of a ZZZ apart fromt hat is what I want to be doing now.

Back on  Wednesday...hope those who are at the Scquilters retreat are having a ball of a time ... I'm going next year.

Scatterday U

 I am at present in New Zealand and this is a quick post to get the categories up for the next Scatterday post
@ Magazine
 @ Dangerous
 @ Yellow
 @ UFO

posting date 3rd August

Collection 57 - Where did that name come from?

C57 Quiet Reflections	Quiet Reflections was named because they were soft colours that I always associate with reflective times.	C57 Carefree Bubbles
Dappled Light slipping through the curtain or blind cracks. Spots of brightness against the pale drabness of a colour neutral wall.	C57 Dappled Light	Carefree Bubbles don't the fabrics appear to be like bubbles from your childhood. Remember those plates of soap mix your mum made which kept you amused for ages...dipping the bent wire clothes hangers, blowing the bubbles and chasing them. Childhood is a wonderful time.

C57 Pink Tutu	Pink Tutu -  I never learnt ballet as a child, very few children did in my neighbourhood but you still dreamed of a pink tutu in which you could twirl and dance.	C57 From All sides
Oh Where? Look carefully at the central fussy cut circle and you will see where the name came from...Little Bo Peep of course. The circle was pieced into the centre but if you like you can always applique it.... your bock ...your choice.	C57 Oh Where?	From All Sides - this was one of the first 'intricate' blocks. It looked great on paper, and also when finished but when I started to make it I was surprised at the patience it took to fit all of those tiny pieces together. Only 61 pieces though.

C57 Box Pleats & Windos Ties

Box Pleats and Windsor Ties - The kites reminded me of the ties we all wore to school...back when the ark landed and of course our uniforms had those horrid box pleats that created such a pain when the hem would come undone... oh for the simplicity of today's modern high school repair job... staplers do a great job don't they and you don't even have to worry about the staples snagging your stockings and causing a run...the stockings have also gone:)

I hope you are all enjoying the first of the Surprise Day Collections. Looking forward to seeing some photos.

Collection 57 - Where did that name come from?

C57 Quiet Reflections	Quiet Reflections was named because they were soft colours that I always associate with reflective times.	C57 Carefree Bubbles
Dappled Light slipping through the curtain or blind cracks. Spots of brightness against the pale drabness of a colour neutral wall.	C57 Dappled Light	Carefree Bubbles don't the fabrics appear to be like bubbles from your childhood. Remember those plates of soap mix your mum made which kept you amused for ages...dipping the bent wire clothes hangers, blowing the bubbles and chasing them. Childhood is a wonderful time.

C57 Pink Tutu	Pink Tutu -  I never learnt ballet as a child, very few children did in my neighbourhood but you still dreamed of a pink tutu in which you could twirl and dance.	C57 From All sides
Oh Where? Look carefully at the central fussy cut circle and you will see where the name came from...Little Bo Peep of course. The circle was pieced into the centre but if you like you can always applique it.... your bock ...your choice.	C57 Oh Where?	From All Sides - this was one of the first 'intricate' blocks. It looked great on paper, and also when finished but when I started to make it I was surprised at the patience it took to fit all of those tiny pieces together. Only 61 pieces though.

C57 Box Pleats & Windos Ties

Box Pleats and Windsor Ties - The kites reminded me of the ties we all wore to school...back when the ark landed and of course our uniforms had those horrid box pleats that created such a pain when the hem would come undone... oh for the simplicity of today's modern high school repair job... staplers do a great job don't they and you don't even have to worry about the staples snagging your stockings and causing a run...the stockings have also gone:)

I hope you are all enjoying the first of the Surprise Day Collections. Looking forward to seeing some photos.