The Sharon Schamber Workshops

Sharon Schamber is an absolute quilting legend. her work is exquisite and she freely shares her knowledge and expertise both through free videos on Youtube and through paid workshops. While her videos are great for those who can't get to a workshop there is really nothing like meeting her and having her guidance first hand.

This photo was taken at Sharon's lecture and that gorgeous quilt is her Spirit of Mother Earth. It's even more stunning up close and personal!

Sharon Schamber in Australia - May 2009

In May 2009 quilters all over Australia were treated to some of Sharon's workshops. Pam Hill of Manly hosted the tour and organised workshops at Tweed Heads, Brisbane, Maleney and South Australia. The Piec-lique class proved very popular but it was the 3-Day Longarm Quilting workshop that was of particular interest to me.

This turned out to be three days of absolute quilting bliss! Pam’s home is located at Manly overlooking Moreton Bay and you can see from the above photos it was just the most fantastic venue, perfect weather (not that rain would have dampened our enthusiasm) scrumptious food and lots of fun in learning.

Quilters travelled from Victoria, Western Australia, all over Qld and Northern NSW and they were not disappointed they made the journey.

The workshops

My good friend Wendy Watkins of Honey Pot Quilting came up from Bendigo (What an excellent excuse for a 3 ½ day leave pass from 2DD’s and DH). Wendy stayed with us at the Aspley Hacienda and as is always the case when we get together, the weekend was a hoot.
We attended Sharon’s lecture at Qld Quilters headquarters on the Thursday night and were just gobsmacked by the display of stunning quilts. Seeing Sharon’s ‘Spirit of Mother Earth’ up close and personal was awe inspiring. Such perfection in the detail. No wonder Sharon has an extensive list of awards and acknowledgements. Wendy and I both hoped some of the creativity would jump over onto us as we almost drooled over the beautiful quilts.

Day One – Wendy hit the shops for some retail therapy (Wuz up with that!) while I headed off to Manly for a day of Trapunto and Beginning Stipples. It didn’t take too long to discover that I was in the company of a very confident teacher. Sharon has a thorough knowledge of her machine which by the way is a Prodigy (that was one tick for me!). Sharon welcomed questions from her audience and was happy for the ensuing discussion to take place. I found her to be a very confident and helpful teacher.

More happy faces.....
L-R Judy Nolan, Robyn Dall, Debbie Cadman, Sharon Schamber and Elizabeth Magagnotti. came over from WA. (Those girls really know how to have fun at work!)

The two days that followed were filled with even more inspiring quilting... we learnt how to ‘Dance with Feathers’ and how to quilt all those creative stipples from ‘Spirit of Mother Earth’. Sharon truly is a very creative artist!

Show and Tell was amazing! This quilt is a stunner and just look at all those stipples and such majestic feathers!

All things considered... it was a fantastic weekend. Thank you Sharon and thank you Pam.

A Day with Barb

Sandy Cunningham of Murwillumbah, NSW, visited my studio recently for an all-day 'watch and learn' session of longarming. What a great day!

Sandy has a different computerised operating system so I only utilised my Intelliquilter to lock a straight line of basting when necessary.

The lesson predominantly involved manual techniques and the variety of pieced borders on this little quilt made it an excellent teaching sample. I was able to demonstrate quite a few techniques and discuss certain choices in building-up the overall plan, including,

• floating the top,


• stabilising the quilt into workable sections,


• why I needed to use different techniques, and


• how to use those techniques to apply different types of quiting whilst limiting the (all too time consuming) number of stops and starts and thread changes.
  

It all worked and 'Flutterby' came together very well. Sandy said she learnt heaps!

The Quilt Connection goes digital!

Welcome Intelliquilter!

I don't know if you're aware but I've been hankering after a computer for my quilting machine for some time. I've been humming and hawing, waiting for the dollar to improve, tossing up between this machine and that... You know how it goes.

Eventually I decided on the Intelliquilter and now I have it I'm thrilled with what it offers both me, as the operator, and my customers. In fact I've had it now for about 12 months but I wanted to really run it through its paces and totally get my head around the many ways it has to enhance my creativity before I told you about it.

The image on the left is how Intelliquilter sees the pattern. This one is called Sabrina and is designed by Donna Kleinke of One Song Needle Arts. The image on the right shows the quilted version. Isn't it lovely?

New quilting horizons

The Intelliquilter has so many features but from the point of view of "what's in it for you, my customers" it boils down to the following:

• I can now boast a fast turn-around for pantograph (E2E) quilting - only a couple of weeks


• The fact that I can be attending to other things in my studio while the machine is working for me hands-free, is such a welcome change and allows me to service more customers


• The Intelliquilter produces perfect and exact quilting


• No need for paper patterns anymore. Patterns are digitised and stitched out exactly as the designer intended.

The Intelliquilter gives my creativity full rein so please give me a call on 07 3862 8797 or come and talk to me about the many exciting options I can create for your special quilt.

The Bunbury Classes

The Bunbury Classes
I met Robyn Dall of Quality Quilting of WA at the WA Machine Quilters' Gathering and she drove me down to Bunbury after it. She had arranged for me to give a week of classes and each one was fully booked! The classes I taught included:

• KNOWING THE BASICS
• PANTOGRAPHING
• UNCOMPLICATED MACHINE QUILTING OPTIONS
• NO MARK QUILTING
• SHOW STOPPER STUFF
• TEMPLATING

Victorian Textiles were kind enough to sponsor the classes and supplied batting for the quilting demonstrations. Below is a photo of some of the students who attended the Bunbury Classes and the completed sampler I worked on during the 'Show Stopper' class.

The Bunbury Quilt Show

On the weekend I visited the Bunbury Quilters’ Quilt Show. What an absolutely fabulous show... Take a look at the Raffle Quilt photos below. This gorgeous quilt was quilted Susan Campbell of Rowdy Flat Quilting, Yackandandah.



There were so many inspiring quilts and lots of very creative machine quilting. I also had the chance to view the Bunbury Challenge and I have to say I was ‘gob smacked’ by the standard of entries from all over the world. I bought a challenge pack for 2010 (but alas I didn’t get an entry in).

Relaxing in Bunbury

My relaxation was to take several strolls along the long beach just down from Robyn’s home. I love to walk along the beach, I find it's good for the soul.

My WA Resolution...

I’ll be happy to go and teach in WA anytime! The girls were great, they were like machine quilting sponges, just soaking up any information I could give them. They were all so appreciative of me making the trip and made me feel really welcome. Only thing I swear never to do again is to travel home on that ghastly ‘red eye’!!!!

WA Machine Quilting Workshops

WA Machine Quilting Workshops

Robyn Dall of Bunbury, WA sent me the following heartfelt plea...

"Poor WA is very isolated far away from the east coast of Australia where most machine quilting training opportunities happen. Now that the Machine Quilting Conferences that were run by the Gammill dealers at Mittagong NSW, have discontinued, there are even less opportunities. Us WA people need to create our own opportunities for skill development. So wondering if you would be interested in running classes here at my quilting room in Bunbury"

I just couldn't refuse! So started my jaunt to WA! I had a wonderful time and met some really lovely people and committed machine quilters.

The Perth Section of the Trip

What a wonderful welcome! I was met at the airport by Greg Camden - a very accomplished male quilter and WA Agent for Superior Threads - of House of Quilts. Greg and Gayle gave me a very nice dinner and put me up in style despite never having met me before.

Thanks so much Greg and Gayle, I'm looking forward to returning the favour when you visit Queensland.

The next day we gathered at Jo Northcott’s home (Jo Northcott Quilting in Sorrento) for the Machine

Quilters' Gathering which was very well attended. It was great to meet so many quilters. The Gathering was a real hive of activity and discussion and it was good to see networking in WA is in fine form.

There were lots of products on display including backing fabrics from Widebacks Australia and threads from Superior Threads and a scrumptious lunch! So much food!

Stay tuned for the Bunbury Section of my WA trip...

Catching up and the AMQA website

Catching up...

Life has been so hectic the last 12 months that I just turned around and a whole 18 months flew by. Well, I'm hoping to be able to be more regular in my postings from now on but I thought first I'd bring you up-to-date on what has happened in the last 18 months, so here goes...

The AMQA website

The committee of the Australian Machine Quilting Association (AMQA) decided in 2009 that the Association needed a new website to be a more effective focal point for all aspects of machine quilting. A place where quilters and their customers and potential customers could go for relevant, up-to-date information.

Setting up this website and briefing the designer were my final tasks as the founding member of AMQA. After four years of putting strong foundations in place I felt satisfied that the association had made good progress so I resigned as President of AMQA to refocus on my own business and my family.

The new website looks fabulous and provides AMQA the means to grow and prosper to the benefit of everyone involved or associated with the machine quilting industry.

As I said in my President’s report (AGM August 2009), “I am proud of what has been achieved and... I resigned from the Presidency earlier this year. In the belief of the AMQA vision, I felt I should step aside and provide the opportunity for the new membership to step-up and broaden the culture of the organisation, give it a new horizon to pursue, whilst carrying forward the strong principles on which AMQA was founded”.

Since then I have been focussing on my own family and business but I continue to watch AMQA grow with great excitement.

'One Still Bird' by Annette Isager

"I call my quilt "One Still Bird", because the bird inspired the design. I began this quilt in July 2006. It was taught in a class at Vision Patchworkers in Ipswich Queensland. This is after an origional design by Sue van Slyke (Copyrite 2006) called Sue's Medallion Quilt. Sue was assisted by Audrey Mazzaracca. The quilt was tailormade as a bedspread for an old silky oak bed.










The bird was painted by a friend called Maggie. I kept the Tshirt it was on for 20+ years and was delighted to be able to include it.







I used pictures and flowers of the West Australian gum Eucalyptus caesia for a guide to the gum flowers and photocopied Gerladton Wax flowers for the guide to the flowers in the baskets.



I should be finished this quilt in October 2008 and owe a debt of gratitude to my great friend Cheryl Doblo who helped me in many ways throughout the making.



Everyone who comes to my house gets dragged in to the guest bedroom to see this quilt. I love it and am totally delighted with your work. Everyone who has seen it loves it too!



Thanks for your great work. I feel you have made my quilt an heirloom. "
Annette Isager
Booval Qld