Watch and learn.

Have fun with fashion - no matter what your age is. LOVE IT!!!!!!!
http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/3/23/advanced-style-fashion-film

Back at Work

Two weeks have passed since ‘Party Central’ and life is gradually slipping back into order.  My dual role as nurse maid (to my son with the broken arm) and craft artist are becoming easier to combine and I am beginning to feel more like my old self.

Because I was near breaking point the week after the party, I made a very difficult decision to cancel the workshop I was giving and my stall at Handmade Market. I just didn’t have the strength or time to do them properly and something had to give – and it wasn’t going to be my soul.

So, after some gardening – and more cleaning up after the party, I got back to my desk and started work on my patterns again.

So, this week I will be at last releasing, at last, ‘Pretty Corset’  and ‘I want That Shoe’ www.paperquiltcreations.com/shop/latest_patterns.html

  – and soon to follow ‘Fashionable Greeting Cards’ and ‘Tab Pocket’ Scrapbook Page.
I hope you enjoy them.

Party Central

Paper Quilt Creations is back at work today after a week of cooking, cooking,cooking, making decorations, cleaning and generally running around like a chook with its head cut off. Preparing for our daughter’s 21^st birthday was a huge but wonderful and fun time. I was worried about how many people to cook for, where many people would sleep, as we live in the country and how the whole party area would look.

As the week progressed things fell into place and once we had collected the mirror ball, bar tables with lights, hung the curtains to hide all the shed ‘stuff”, hung the purple tissue pom poms and tested the music it started to look as though a party really was about to happen.

My dear friend Anne arrived from Sydney to help and Saturday rolled along as the things on the To Do list were crossed off one by one. We had a lovely lunch sitting outside eating lovely tarts Anne bought from our favourite patisserie ‘Silo”.  Then a shift in the cosmic universe happened at about 3pm and someone upstairs decided to throw us a few tests of strength.

My husband went to collect our son, who was helping build a down- hill bike track at Mt Stromlo. No response from his phone. Nowhere to be seen. At last he phoned and we heard that he thought he had broken his arm! OMG!!!!!!!!

So for my Husband and Son the day changed. Queanbeyan hospital – yes, he had broken his arm. Then Canberra Hospital – he needed to be operated on. Waiting, waiting and lots of pain.

Back at party central we had many people about to arrive so it was build fire pit, set large fire, move the big bath tub for bottles and ice, buy ice, set up all the glasses for the bar, receive 2 strange phone calls which nearly made me flip, find out why the gas has not arrived when they promised to come as we had only 2% left and a tribe to cook for, help gas man as night began to fall, set out all the lumiere candle bags and jars, light all the candles and in between keep the ham cooking and being basted, turn on the slow cookers and start heating up all the casseroles, decorate all the canapé trays and assemble the canapés etc.  etc. etc.

THANK GOD for two fairy godmothers. Dear Anne and Pauline. My saviours who just got in there and just started work. Keith and Nicolas who guided traffic and helped set up the slide projector. Keith for carving and carrying the enormous ham.  Collin who worked out how to get into my husband’s laptop working  and start the slide show – along with taking control of the fire and sweeping up broken bottles. And Jo for her delicious sausage rolls – they really were delicious.

7pm came and beautiful girls and boys began to arrive dressed for a cocktail party. The music began and the buzz began to increase.

9pm came along and the operation on my son’s arm was cancelled for the night so my husband came home to our daughter’s delight and after a little sit down to catch his breath he was able to make a lovely and wonderful speech.

11.30pm came along and Anne drove me through the night to the hospital to see our mountain biker, give him a hug and kiss and deliver chicken casserole, ham and cake. Then it was back home to the party which stretched way into the night.

As I sit here Monday morning, I look outside on a very wet, windy and cold morning. Last night – Sunday, we had a huge rain storm.  So I am so grateful for wonderful friends, that my son is safe and it was his arm not something worse, for my husband who looked after him and then gave a beautiful speech and stayed up to look after things when I couldn’t stay awake any longer, to the fact that the party looked very beautiful and everyone seemed to have a great time and our daughter was so happy. AND, that it was a beautiful night where people could sit around a fire and watch the moon rise and NOT last night when it absolutely poured with rain.

As I said to our daughter on Saturday afternoon, when our little world seemed to spinning out of control, just pretend that we are in some crazy funny beautiful Diane Keaton, Jack Nicolson, Woody Allen film. And it really was like that.

Country Garden Heart

What I've up to

Customized wedding card and gift tag/bookmarks

Happy Birthday Possom

It's my little girls birthday today. Happy 21st my lovely girl. Have a wonderful year.

Last Month

What incredible fun I had last month taking part in Craft Expo for Bernina in Sydney then Brisbane. Almost every workshop was full  - it was wonderful to see that so many people wanted to learn about Paper Quilting. And everyone who took part went away with a new new craft and a couple of projects that I'm pretty sure they were very proud of.
Here are some pictures of the two events.

Getting ready for Craft Expo

Next week in Sydney, Craft Expo arrives at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse for the first time. So, this week I am preparing all the kits for the workshops I am running with Bernina. The one hour hands-on workshops  run three times daily at 10.30, 12noon and 2pm. (please book at the Bernina stand #E13). Each person will be able to experience working on a Bernina 'Black Beauty' H46 and go home with 2 Paper Quilt projects. See you next week for all the fun of the fair.

Craft Expo
Rosehill Gardens Racecourse, Rosehill, Sydney
March 10 - 13
Thursday-Sunday 10am to 4.30pm daily

A Colourful Day Workshop with Kaffe Fassett

On Wednesday I was so fortunate to spend the day at Addicted to Fabric at a workshop run by Kaffe Fasset and Brandon Mably – colour in a Diamond Quilt. I learnt so much about working on a much larger scale than I am used to. In some ways it is much easier because, like painting on a large canvas, you can stand back from your work and see just how it is going. The challenge is to see what’s wrong and know how to fix it! So the masters were very active in the class giving us wonderful advice about colour and print and taking us shopping for fabrics which would bring our work to life. It was so interesting and inspiring to see how each of us handled the same design in so many different ways by the end of the workshop. Truly a lovely day.

Students hard at work

Kaffe and Bradon taking about my quilt

two more beautiful quilts

Kaffe and Bradon with a beautiful quilt which will be in their next book

My quilt at the end of the day

My visit to Eileen Fisher

Well the show came to an end at 2pm on the Tuesday. At the beginning of the show you have all these days stretching out before you – and then it’s all over and everyone packs up and goes home. The sounds of packing tape and fork lift trucks and the buzz of everyone just wanting to get out fills the air. All the people in neighbouring booths, who have become like friends in a little village, disappear and you know that you will probably never see them again. It is quite sad. Packing up never takes as long as set up and we were soon on our way back in the bus with our big suitcases and boxes. We were very tired but happy.

Our last day in LA was spent trying to fit everything back into out suitcases for the trip back home. WHAT A JOB!!!!. Luckily Bill is the packing expert. So apart from a few pieces of random advice, I sat on the bed watching news footage of the huge snow and ice storm making its way across the US and then satellite images of cyclone Yazi in Australia.

At last we were finished. So after a very late breakfast we set off to find the one shop I wanted to visit while we were in USA. Eileen Fisher. I have only seen her range of clothes in magazines and on the web - and I love her style. A long bus ride then a taxi and we found ourselves at a very glamorous shopping centre called Century City. It was incredible. So here are some pictures of one of the loveliest hours I have spent shopping – ever. I hope even one Eileen Fisher store comes to Australia very soon. After a wonder around, a Wetzels Pretzel and a great cup of coffee, it was back to the hotel to squeeze my new clothes into the bulging bags. Then off to the airport for the long flight home.

I love Eileen Fisher