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 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’!!!!