Time is precious at the moment…. there is never enough time to do things…!!!!
I’ve been out here till the wee hours and up at 6.00 in the pitch dark for the past week or so.

I’ve just put on some baroque music very loudly so I can finish my paperwork…. who ever says that being a quilt teacher is  easy….!!!!
Paper work, paperwork, paperwork. – at least it’s almost done for a week or so and I can put the France and Britain folder on the pile and say  FINISHED….. until June at least.

I’ve several interviews to do, so that can be done on the plane Thursday.. Fortunately Most of the overseas magazines interview you by email….

I’ve appliquéd the little quilt and now I’m quilting it….however, it will have to wait till I get back from Canberra to be finished…

I used a 50 weight cotton for the leaves, and I matched the color as closely as possible.
The fabric is batik so it’s a tight weave and doesn’t fray.

For these projects I don’t wash the fabric, I need the sizing to remain in the fabric. The sizing keeps the fabric crisp and fresh, I can’t work with dog-eared fabric.

To be really honest I don’t normally wash my fabric.

1. The first wash of a cotton fabric removes 30% of the body of the fabric.

2. The sizing prevents the fabric from fading.

3. It helps to set the pigment ink that I use as illustration……..

4. I do wash samples of fabric as they come into the studio… and to be honest if it fades or shrinks, I just don’t use it…

I’m  using a 60/8 sharp needle which is the finest needle you can use.

I can straight stitch right on the edge of the leaf. I used the walking foot when I was appliquéing the leaves.

For this project I’m using the  Janome 6600P and it has "acufeed"

Acufeed is easily described as a built in walking foot or even feed system to sew multiple layers of fabric.

I used  the open toed foot shown below. However for free motion quilting I used the embroidery foot.

The stitching on the base of the plant is free motion zig zag set at 1.4 stitch width and 1.4 stitch length.

I have quilted each square and now now I’m free motion quilting the  background following the slight pattern in the fabric…. I’m changing thread as the fabric graduates….