Tanya Whelan, fabric designer and author

This wonderful designer has a new fabric line out, and a new book coming!

Sew What You Love: The Easiest, Prettiest Projects Ever

 can be ordered from Barnes and Noble  or from Amazon. I love Tanya's design including  accessories, clothing and gifts so this book will be a welcome addition to the library.
You can see her beautiful projects and fabrics on her blog
Hop on over and enjoy the eye candy!

Ceryle's Celtic quilt

I was celebration time for Ceryle this Tuesday at patchwork class. During the years when she's been very busy having 2 children and working, she's managed to hand-sew this amazing quilt top. The design came in a kit from The Quilt Basket at Victor Harbor, but Ceryle redesigned the whole centre block. It's truely a masterpiece.  The design had to be marked on the blocks, the strips of bias fabrics all cut and hand sewn into suitable lengths, then tacked onto the black background fabric making sure the pattern twisted over and under sorrectly. Then Ceryl could begin hand-sewing both sides of each fabric strip!This Tuesday the quilt top was finished up to the borders. ...congratulations and it's fabulous:)
The first photo show the quilt top ready for borders (more patterns) and the bottom photo shows just the centre block that Ceryle designed. The quilt is perfectly straight and square. It's the photo that's distorted.
Now this quilt is in danger of being finished:)

Knitting another shawl in Royal Style!

I had a cone of cashmere from Colourmart enticing me to knit another shawl like the one the Duchess of Cambridge was spotted wearing on her shopping trip just after she was married. After studying the photo I decided the shawl has a chevron texture with a k1p1 ruffle. I swatched and yes! the pattern looks good. To replicate the shape exactly I would need to work just one large triangle either from the bottom point up or from the top down to the bottom point. Because the main texture required a lot of garter stitch, the shaping would be too complicated this way, so I chose to work top down from the centre back, with a spine dividing  two triangles. That would give enough shape at the top for the shawl to stay on the shoulder well and not be a nuisance.
So here's my shawl made with 2/36 NM cashmere held double to make roughly a fingering weight yarn. It would have been better knit single, but I didn't want to take a year to make it:) What's the project called? "Shopping in Royal Style", of course.
Thanks Teagan for being a wonderful model:)

The Koala returns

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We used to think it was funny when international visitors expected to see Koalas wandering the streets in the suburbs. well we have our own Koala who strolls down the road to his favourite tree right next to our house. We think it's a male as he snorts like a pig during the night. The first few nights we were all a bit perplexed as he sounded like a wild pig. There was evidence that he had climbed into our yarn and had a drink from the fish pond.

This time he's also making other noises too, much quieter. He has been seen wobbling along the local roads, but we have no idea where he comes from or where he goes. He arrived earlier this year and it will be interesting to see how long he stays.

An August Tuesday Patchwork class

Some updates on the Tuesday Class happenings:)

Ceryle is dedicated to finishing her Celtic quilt, and Anthea takes some time out to check out a book.

Bev's almost finished the lovely I Spy quilt for her granddaughter. The hexagons provide a little game of "spot the pairs" and "spot the odd one".

Here you can see the great block Anthea is working on. It's from her latest block of the month quilt purchase.

This is a better view of the centre of Ceryle's Celtic quilt. She has re-designed the centre with her own creation and we're all looking forward to seeing the full quilt. Stunning!

Renata is working steadily on her "Fun on the Farm quilt". It looks superb:)

Another view of Renata hard at work. If she keeps working at her present rate there will be many finished projects by Christmas time.

A hand-knitted shawl in Royal style!

A few weeks ago I was experimenting with an easy Estonian knitting stitch with the idea of making a triangular shawl with some very soft Malabrigo Lace yarn. It just happened that at that time the newly married Duchess of Cambridge was photographed dashing out to the supermarket wearing jeans, a casual white top and a green cashmere ruffled shawl.
I loved the shape of the shawl and how it looked on her. That was it, the Estonian stitch would work perfectly for a shawl in the manner of her shawl. Not deterred by the fact that The Duchess could make any clothing look great I imagined that I could make a stylish shawl like that:)
It seems that I wasn't the only knitter intrigued and envious of this shawl, because on Ravelry there was a group started for those who fancied making their own version of the shawl.
A few thousand stitches later, the shawl was off the needles. I did it! It looks like Kate's!  Well with some imagination it does. The length is right, the wings drape down just the right way and the ruffle sits beautifully:) My model is every bit as stylish as Kate!
I began getting emails asking for the pattern. Five lovely ladies volunteered to knit and test the pattern, trying out different sizes using a variety of yarn. It was exciting.
Now at last the pattern is available so you too can knit the shawl in the style of the now famous one worn by the Duchess of Cambridge.
Available here or from my page on Ravelry for AU $4.50.

A shawlette finished/ Fiore di Mare Shawlette by Tiziana Samuri

Over the last month or so I've been knitting a lovely shawlette designed by Tizianz. It's called Fiore di Mare. Those who know me won't be surprised that the inspiration for the flower shape, and the crescent shape of the shawl come from "old" shawls.As with quilts, I'm drawn to the antique ones.
I used Yarn Addict Anni's hand dyed yarn called Fairytale sock yarn. It's a lovely mix of  wool, silk and cashmere. The pattern is available from Tiziana's Ravelry shop.

If you enjoy knitting or crochet, it's definitely worth joining Ravelry. It's free. It's an international data base of thousands of free patterns, pay-for-patterns and more. There are forums for any kind of thing you could possibly be interested in. I've discovered a world of yarns and patterns I didn't know existed and made some great friends. One really cool feature is this..if I have some yarn and don't know what to do with it, I can search a data base for all the projects others have made with that particular yarn. They're shown with links to the patterns. In about 10 minutes I can see what I want to make. Amazing!

Free quilt project

I just discovered that a quilt I designed for Quilter's Companion Magazine is up on their website for free. The photo is lovely. I'd like to  say the photo is taken in my dining room...but those who know me would know it's not:)
The quilt is called "Down by the Old Mill Stream". The pinwheels and the flowers somehow made me think of a river with rambling flowers on the banks and a big paddle wheel powering a mill. Mukm and Dad used to sing the old song "Down by the Old Mill Stream" and I couldn't get it out of my head as I designed the quilt.
So if you want a free pattern go over to Universal's complete craft website

This is a computer generated image of the quilt, but you can see a much better styled one by following the link.
best wishes
Colleen

Ceryle is progressing with her Celtic designs quilt

It's great to see Ceryle making huge progress with her hand stitched Celtic Design quilt. It's a kit (block of the month) she bought from "The Quilt Basket" at Victor Harbor a little while ago:) The outer blocks are now all finished and Ceryle is working on the centre design. She's changing the original and designing her own celtic curves for this large block. The colour arrangement is very clever. Being a busy Mum of 2 boys means Ceryle doesn't get much time to work on her project at home, but she sure can achieve a lot at class!
The photos show some of the blocks, and Ceryle's Mum, Anthea working on her quilt, along with Alexander who loves being "in" on what's going on:)