Free Finger pincushion pattern

Stitched together Studios designed this handy finger pincushion for Bernatex.

Get your free pattern by downloading the PDF document HERE. 

   

Another free e-book

Sew Daily gives us the opportunity to download yet another free e-book.  This time for sewing accessories and in this free book you will find purse, bag and scarf patterns.

To download your free e-book just click HERE  and type in your e-mail address to get started.

2011 Stellenbosch festival news

Are you as excited as I am about our National Festival in Stellenbosch?  I can hardly wait and when I got this e-mail today I got even more excited.  Herewith a letter from Marié du Toit.


Dear Quilters

The Festival Committee is ready to welcome you in Stellenbosch- we are counting the days. (So little time left to get everything done)

I am sure you would like to know where your classes are. Hereby attached is a plan of the school with all the areas marked. The class schedule is in an excel spreadsheet. The class numbers are in the first column.

We are thankful to the sewing machine companies who have provided sewing  machines - Bernina will give 58 machines and their machines will be in rooms 5 -10. Elna will supply machines needed in classes 24 – 27 - these are mostly hand work classes and in classrooms 30 and 31. Husqvarna, Pfaff and Singer will  provide 20 machines in total and they will be in classroom 4, 28 and 29. Unfortunately we are over our capacity for machines on Saturday. Jigsaw puzzle is a handwork class with sewing machines as an optional. Those  who requested machines and will be in this class on Saturday might have to share.

Please bring a multi plug – there are always too few of these. If you are coming by car, please bring a lead as well. Please mark all your property so that it does not get lost or confused with some one else’s.

We have very comfortable plastic chairs in the classrooms. They are not so comfortable for sewing though! Please bring one or two cushions to make the seat higher, or your pillow from the hostel.

It is winter in the Cape and often cold and wet. (We are having beautiful sunshine now and it looks as if it may continue for the next two weeks - so it might rain during Festival!)  If you get flu easily it might be wise to get injections. Also make sure you take a daily walk to get fit for the Festival!

There is lockers in the school to use for shopping (it is not big enough for a machine-store your machine in the classroom) you just need a padlock. You will also need this for the cupboards in the hostel.

We are not going to supply polistyrene cups at Hospitality. Make sure to bring your own mug - or buy a Festival mug at R20. Do make a colourful mug bag now and let’s see who has the most interesting bag!

Unfortunately for the smokers - the school is a no-smoking area. Smoking is only allowed in the parking areas and on the one side of the building. We request that you will all be supportive of this request.

We would like to have “Show and Tell” in the hostel. Do bring a quilt from home - it will be good if it is nice and warm to sleep under as well. Maybe a hot water bottle is also a good idea! You will have a duvet- so if you want a top sheet please bring that as well. Please remember your own towel.

I will talk to you again before Festival.

Marié du Toit


PS:  I intend to shop till I drop.  Anyone prepared to bring my clothing back to Bloemfontein in black garbage bags?  I need my suitcase for all my purchases!!

Second quarterly meeting – Furoshiki

Our chairperson, Marianne le Roux, gave a very interesting talk about Furoshiki, the art of wrapping with fabric and even gave us demonstrations of some of these folding techniques.

Furoshiki originated in Japan as a way to save the environment by eliminating waste, so instead of wrapping a gift in useless paper, rather wrap it in fabric that can be re-used (especially by quilters).

Several folding techniques for wrapping different types of gifts with full instructions can be found by clicking HERE.




In fact if you simply GOOGLE the word Furoshiki you will find many more interesting facts and some videos on this.

Second quarterly meeting – Types of quilts

Our 2013 Festival coordinator, Iessie Steenberg, talked about the different types of quilts but anyone who knows this woman will also know that if I had to type up everything she said, it will take me 7 days and 7 nights, for there are few that can talk as much as she does!

However it seems the ladies were fascinated to learn the differences between the types of quilts.

Iessie used Pam’s Quilted Memories as one source of her information but you can find many more rather interesting topics on all the types of quilting by searching it on Google.

The nicest part of Iessie’s speech is that she had examples of all the quilts she mentioned so we all could clearly see the differences.

Our guild meetings turn out not only a lot of fun but rather informative and educational as well.  

Second quarterly meeting – The People

Just because I can I’ve decide to do a post with all the photos taken of the members at the meeting.  As much as we all would like to sit and look at quilt pictures all day long, these can unfortunately not happen without the people who made them.  So meet my fellow guild members.

Some of the vendors manning their stations

Sonja, our treasurer welcoming all at the door making sure we pay for our tea.

Speaking of paying for our tea - the table neatly

set for us and some of the ladies responsible for

the divine soup on this day.

More friendly faces

And finally, my kind of people

Second quarterly meeting – Wearable Art challenge

For this meeting our challenge to meet was to bring any wearable art we’ve created and the entries were absolutely amazing as can be seen on these photos.

They ACTUALLY have time for this???  I'm just battling daily to finish my UFO's.