My life is busy, planning projects, working on them, starting new ones! doing a social media photography course- which is a steep learning curve.

So many things to do, now another challenge..... here it is, well up to day 6, I am bout to start day 7 project piece.

Broadstrokes April challenge- facilitated by Kathryn

What to do? A big dilemma

OPTIONS- drawing/ sewing/ something else….stitching is my thing.

I have lots of scraps and some large projects underway

The scraps are the answer to the problem, pieces smaller than my hand.

I found a brown piece of ugly fabric and cut it into equal squares of about 5 ¼ inches

The other pile of scraps was used for stitching on top of the base of ugly brown

 day 1.   basic wonky log cabin- the centre is not right, hmmm, maybe this is not what I am meant to be doing

day 2.   strips including selvedge (what else do you do with selvedge, especially ones with fun colours and text?) making progress and thinking about what I really want to do

day 3.   now this is good! Strips, with ragged torn edges, a little architectural in style

day 4.   regal purple background with 2 yellow strips. Experimenting with simple and straight and colour combinations, straight stitching

day 5.   yellow background, some slightly curved blue batiks. Simple. Striking.

day 6.   pale green background, a repurposed fabric, red strips from binding of Relay for Life quilt, on an angle crossed in one corner. I am enjoying the creativity of this project. Simplicity. Colour. Using scraps almost at random.

Mostly trying to use 2 colours only now. One background and one feature colour. Also have started the Tas uni course- photography for social media- so have started to put a picture a day on Instagram. Playing with apps and thinking about photo distortion and repetition etc
Look out for more to come as I work my way through the month and be inspired by small pieces!

Word for the year

My word for the year is 

  Something new

That is try something new, new foods, experiences, life choices, quilting ideas etc

I know that its 2 words, but it is time I did something different and new!

This week Peter and I have tried a new restaurant with different foods- and beer and wine to match,  at Villa Maria, Norman Park.

We went to Roma Street Parkland today, we have lived here 10 years and this was the first time we have ventured into the park, it was really hot! my lovely friend Jan drives the little train, so we had a train ride, which was fun, there is a profusion of colour and texture in the garden, so much to see, we will be back when the weather is cooler. Peter  enjoyed taking lots of photos with his camera.

I have tried a new quilting template- well one I have had for several years but never used for its real purpose, its a baptist fan set. Now that I have a ruler foot for my Bernina- I am able to use it easily,  The frog quilt pictured below is nearly finished. A little more border, some stitching in the middle and the binding and its done!

Loving the Hobbs Heirloom Premium cotton batting- 80% cotton/ 20% polyester- its handling so beautifully. Those are 10 inch blocks.

 Some class samples for my next quilting class- funky feathers.
So much fun making samples, and it is nice to find myself making up new designs each time.

Raw stitching

 This is my style of Boro- Japanese mending stitching, some found small pieces of fabric purchased years ago in Aeldaide, a little sashiko thread, and some restful mindless stitching. Great fun, so relaxing. it is about 40 cm square. I sent it to my mother for a belated Christmas gift, she loves it, it is 'raw', and very tactile, and is at the moment being prepared to hang with its raw edges in her hallway - unbound, just raw, calling out to be fondled.

 I loved the way the stitching pulled a little and made some gentle ripples.

This year brings me to some new and exciting challenges- some teaching, mostly machine quilting, with a little machine piecing thrown in at the end of the year. These classes are with Queensland Quilters  and BVAC.

 These are samples of free from machine piecing that I have made, I am teaching this class at BVAC in Brisbane this year, Brisbane Visual Arts Community.

http://bvac.org.au/events/category/ground-floor/

Hopefully this link will work!!

Planning to blog more frequently this year and get some more images up on my website soon!
Well its good in theory, will see how it goes in practice!

Web site launch

This week, I have with the help of my wonderful daughter Isabel Rundle launched my new website!

A little exciting!

It is janerundle.com

Featuring some class descriptions and quilt pictures-more to come.

Lets hope it can continue to grow and be  a new part of my life!

The quilt above is Grated! entered into Quiltcon! another first for me!

A little win

Last week I found out that I had won second prize in the Australian Machine Quilters Association Challenge, there were 4 categories and I was in the pieced, hand guided.
This included long arm machines and home machines. I use a Bernina 820 to machine quilt.

I am extremely happy with this win, as even though it was a small group of quilts the competition was quite strong and I suspect that many of the other quilts had been quilted on a long arm (more professional type ) machine.

The orange is a Lisa Walton hand dyed fabric, the grey is a perfect fit and  allows the whole piece to shine. I used some funky coloured threads, purple, green and blue.

Overall a very happy quilt and a very happy quilter!

Queensland Quilters Exhibition

What a great show, some fantastic quilts, some of mine included!
There is some very innovative work being done locally which is wonderful, some good use of colour too !
Here are some of my quilts. now onto next years exhibition pieces!!

Lovely quilt made by Kate Oszko and quilted by me, its for sale!

Class sample for next years machine quilting lessons!  its called OPTIONS-  that is Optins for design and  free motion quilting designs!

class sample

My blue and white- its called  Winter Wonder

Detail, I used my Westalee ruler for the first time on this quilt, now I will quilt the blue , maybe.....

Fruit Salad- a fun challenge quilt, bright and colourful!

Last years challenge quilt having another airing, sometimes you just have to do something different!

My Modern challenge quilt, some fun with the machine quilting and my new Westalee rulers! 

Improvising boldly

I have been following some modern quilters who are very improvisational in their work, now it is time to expand my own improvisational dreams! I am making a quilt as you go piece, easy and a little mindless, now I have finished my exhibition quilts for the Queensland Quilters show in October.
The quilt as you go method is easy to manage and I am having the thought process of " don't worry, just do it!" if it doesn't work I am not fussed as that is what learning  is all about. This is all about being impromptu and being fun. The smaller strips of colour are fun to use and I have so many it is good to use them up! They are small blocks to be joined into a larger piece later on.
I will be demonstrating this on the Wednesday at the Brisbane Craft and Quilt fair.

block in progress

finished and ready to trim and join

free motion sampler

 I have also been making some practice blocks of modern free motion machine quilting for some classes next year! This is great fun, I am loving this fun bright pink thread, it is a dream to stitch!
I have also learned some things about my Bernina 820 this week, just to make it all a little easier.

free motion sampler

free motion sampler with my new Westalee ruler foot