Christmas Celebrations

What a wonderful time we have had the past few days. This year there are two extra little ones to celebrate with and the others are all a year older. Here is my brother with his wife and three week old Cooper. Below is my delightful Cameron - it is had to believe he was smaller than Cooper just 5 months ago. You can see he is enjoying his Christmas lunch!

Thomas was another year older making Christmas that much more fun (for him and us!).

Then it was time for both big and little men to have a nap.

Last day for Christmas Giveaway

I can't believe it is nearly Christmas! 1 more sleep to go. There is the last minute wrapping of presents and of course the tidying!

I finished my flannel quilt for homespun - It was of course in the mid 30's as I was binding it! I wasn't sure how big to make the blocks. Steve chose the size they are. I think guys don't like their quilts too fussy. It is a simple project based on fat quarters.

Dont forget today is the last day to get your pictures in of your quilt as you go (QAYG) projects to win the 20 Christmas fat quaters and All thing Christmas Pattern Set. Just e-mail a QAYG hexagon project you have made to prizes@busythimbles.com.au. There is a pattern below if you are looking for inspiration!

I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Designer of the Month Part 2

It's time for Part 2 of our chat with Sue Daley from Patchwork with Busyfingers.

With the hexagon designs taking off Sue grew fond of English paper piecing and with a little encouragement from her friend Kay Haydon it became a large part of her business and she now supplies patterns and pre-cut paper packs all over the world.
“Paper piecing has taught me to view fabrics through different eyes, fabrics I would never had considered using I now grab with both hands because I know they will work within this form” Sue says. Can you see how she has fussy cut the fabric above into the pieces below?


She goes on to say “Fussy cutting these small shapes can create the most wonderful designs and it never ceases to amaze me what a not so nice piece piece of fabric can be turned into with this technique.”


Sue has designed many, many beautiful patterns using a combination of English paper piecing, needle turn appliqué and fine hand embroidery.


With her business in full swing and the huge year she has planned for 2009, travelling all over Australia and overseas to Europe and the U.S. it is amazing that Sue can find the time to come up with so many new and interesting designs.

She pays credit to the wonderful team she has behind her and particularly to her husband Jim who keeps her on track by managing the business.

One final thing that Sue said was
“Our lives are so busy and I think that this is one area we do have control over and it is great to be able to step away from our day to day stuff to enjoy the patchwork journey”

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Christmas Hexagon Pattern & Giveway

As promised, here is the pattern from Sue for a wonderful Christmas Quilt as you go hexagon. Don't forget we have a wonderful giveaway for one lucky person - just e-mail your quilt as you go project to prizes@busythimbles.com.au

We have a winner plus the next competition.

Following our giveway competition last week, Kerry (Forever Friday) was the one selected from the draw. Can you please e-mail me your details so I can sent the pack to you. Our next competition - in celebrate of Sue's quilt as you go hexagons is to send us a photo of your quilt as you go hexagon project. It could be a Christmas decoration, a bag or a mat - just e-mail to prizes@busythimbles.com.au If you don't have a pattern - check back soon - Sue will be posting a special one up. We will have some great prizes to give away just in time for Christmas.

I have been busy this week working on a quilt for Homespun. I love working with flannels. This will be a very simple mens brick quilt - warm and snuggly. It is always strange though working for the magazines as they need the quilts so far ahead. Summer is a odd time to be working with flannel!


My lovely Thomas turned three this week, so I had the weekend "off" so to speak and spent the weekend preparing for the birthday party. Note the shirt change between making the cakes and eating them!
How are you going with Christmas ideas? I loved this pattern from Material Possessions. - embroidered with the saying "People who don't believe in Santa get underwear for Christmas".

Designer of the Month - Sue Daley

It's time to meet some of the faces behind the patterns. Our inaugural Designer of the Month is Sue Daley from Patchwork with Busyfingers.

Sue is the face behind many so many beautiful projects. She loves creating quilts and associated thingies.

With each project she finds comfort in the beauty of hand worked creations.
It is no surprise that Sue started sewing at a very young age inspired by her mother who was a dressmaker and fine hand embroiderer.

In the beginning her patchwork journey began as a “Mad machine piecer” but later found her passion in handwork. Her forte now is English paper piecing, needleturn appliqué and fine hand quilting.

Sue’s quilting interests made a natural progression towards creating her own designs and teaching others. She went on to open her own business “Patchwork with Busyfingers”. It travelled along well until she came up with a design that propelled her business into the unexpected realms of chaos which was very exciting times. The “Hexagon Bag” pattern turned her life upside down and for 5 years Sue and her family lived and breathed Quilt as you go Hexagons. The bag became the launching pad for many great things.
People were hungry for designs made from QAYG hexagons and Sue found herself filling those needs as she came up with many and varied designs. Her book Hexagons from the Guest House contains many beautiful and decorative designs:


Still today she comes up with other treasures using that technique:


Next time you will read what happened next in Sue’s amazing patchwork journey. Don't forget we have our threads pack giveaway which includes one of Sue's patterns. Just post a comment to go in the draw.

Christmas Craft Ideas

I can't believe how quickly the year has gone - The latest edition of Handmde arrived this week - quick Christmas Crafts edition. Where does the time go! Thomas and I had fun today making Christmas snowflakes to decorate the house for Christmas.

It got me thinking about other fun things to do with him as I love doing craft with him. Post your favourites as a comment!

I designed a Christmas Table runner inspired by one of the projects sheets from Hot Ribbon. I love this stuff. You can just iron it on! The central design is made using double sided fusible web and the hot ribbon (no sewing). I was making this while demonstrating the hot ribbon at the Darling Harbour Show in Sydney.

Thomas (2) and I also made this Merry Christmas Banner from felt. He loves his alphabet and so we had a lot of fun sticking this together. My nephew Callum made the pinecones below. I was sooo disappointed that they were not correctly attributed in the magazine.

Coffee's (nearly) Up

I have nearly finished my coffee quilt with the yummy bistro fabrics. Just the binding to go. It has been made especially for my wonderfully hubby Steve, who makes the best coffee. The quilt is easy to make with eight little coffee cups around it.

It will be a perfect quilt for the coffee lover or just a rich tablecloth in the home dec. colours. The pattern will appear in Country Threads 9-6.

We will have kits on sale in the next week or so.

I used the red panel on the back with the red border - doesn't it look great?

We have been busy this week with more and more yummy stuff from Moda and Nutex arriving.
I am quite addicted to Jelly Rolls. I loved the colours in Fresh by Deb Strain. Too many wonderful fabrics, not enough time. I have told myself I have to finish a couple of projects before I open another Jelly Roll.

Don't forget about our giveway. Just post a comment anywhere on the blog for your chance to win this great Threads Pack worth over $35.

In the Mailbox - for me and you (Giveaway)

I have been eagerly awaiting the latest edition of Country Threads (Vol 9 Issue 2). Sally Giblin' s latest project - a beautiful wall hanging is featured there, along with a profile. Sally is the self confessed queen of embellishments and you can see them adorning this project. We are thrilled to be offering the embellishments as a kit for this charming project.
Also in there is the pattern for my Summer Fresh quilt. This is a great stash busting quilt, with the central quilt made entirely from fat quarters. You can pick it up as a kit here. The fabrics are from Martha's Vineyard Watercolour by Susan Branch. I love this range and was thrilled to be able to make something from it.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, we had a great time at the quilt market and are really excited about the new products coming in. To celebrate we will be have a number of give aways in the following weeks. This week we have a Stitchery pack of including machine and hand embroidery threads, a pair of thread snips and a Busy Thimbles pattern to give away. How do you win - just post a comment anywhere on the blog. We will pick the one to receive the prize on December 7th 2008 (judges decision is final and all that).

AQM recovery

I have spent much of this week recovering from the Melbourne show. There was so much to take in. I have just been sorting through what we brought back with us. So many cool products. Giant yoyo makers, photo fabric and so much more. I can't wait until it all arrives.

It has been a week that has prompted much to think about charities. This yummy queen size quilt picture was posted my way. It has been made by the Wandoan Creative Sew'ers, to support their group. They are raffling it on Saturday the 29th of November when this beautiful quilt will be drawn. So if you would like to support their club, tickets are $2:00 each. For more information contact Kaylene by e-mail kayleneclarris@bigpond.com, phone 0746275223 or 0427462743 or via post to Wandoan Creative Sewers group, P.O box 31.Wandoan Queensland 4419.

If your group has a charity they are working towards, we would love to help.

AQM Part II

Back at home now after another exciting day at the Australian Quilt Market. Rich reproductions, awesome aussie prints, plenty of patterns, a good goss and catchup with friends. Toni from Make it Perfect has some really fun kids patterns that we will be getting in (above). Fun with fabrics - Kathleen had some great ideas for inject printable paper. Here is her stand full of projects!
Kristy and I had great fun browsing the new patterns and habby. Watch out over the coming weeks as all these make it into the store.
The Moda Bakehouse was still going strong on Sunday. We couldn't fit another thing in our bags (in fact we were 3kg over on the way back) - having got an amazing extra 30kg of stuff down there.

The Australian Quilt Market

Kristy, Cameron and I have just had a fabulous (but exhausting) day at the AQM in Melbourne. This is one of our big trade shows. We travelled down last night which was an epic in itself arriving at the hotel at 1am having been booked on a 7:45 flight out of Sydney. Delays cancellations and more delays. Cameron, fortunately took it best of the three of us an fell asleep during takeoff.

We caught up with Sue and Jim of Patchwork with Busy Fingers this morning at breakfast and went in with them to the show. Here is a picture of Sue and I at her stand with the Willowberry Winter BOM at the back and dress it up on the right

I had seen pictures of her latest projects but it was wonderful to see first hand Sue's new quilt Marshmallow Dreams and all the delicious accompaniments.

We saw the CUTEST train play mat I have ever seen. This is put out by RJR. We have been swamped by the response. It will be out in February but if you want to express your interest - please let us know!


What do you think? We will have it in February. I just loved it and if you know train obsessed children you will as well!
We had a wonderful time browsing the patterns. Here is Melanie and Rosalie (of Melly and Me and Rosalie Quinlan designs) with their latest patterns.

Bonzer and Beaut

Freshing up for summer

With the weather definitely spring now in Sydney and trending towards summer it is time for fresh bright colours and pretty floral bouquets.

I recieved my quilt back from Country Threads so I was able to photograph that and pop it into the store. Summer Fresh will appear in Country Threads 9-2. I wanted to design a quilt arounf the fun sayings in the Martha's Vineyward Watercolour range by Susan Branch. I love her fabric designs both this range and aternoon tea make me laugh.

I also wanted the quilt to be fat quarter friendly. I love making quilts you can just dip into your stash for. It is based around a simple rotated block.

Cameron's Christening

Cameron was christened today. My brother Mitchell, his very expectant wife Tania (due the 28th Nov) and our friend Paul agreed to be is godparents.It was a lovely service at or parish Church St Martins at Killara. Our family and friends joined us for this very special occasion.


I had made a smocked Christening robe and coat for Thomas when he was christened (adapted from one o the Australian Smocking and embroidery magazines). I was worried that Cameron would be too big for the romper but luckily he fitted.It was a lovely day and Dad took some beautiful photos at the service of us all. We celebrated together afterwards at Mum and Dad's - It was wonderful to catch up with family and friends.

Charismaic Jelly Diamonds

Judy has just finished making the Jelly Diamonds pattern using the Charisma Jelly Roll. Isn't it stunning! We will be offering it as a kit in a range of fabrics. It makes me want to make my own (but I have more than enough projects on the go at the moment.)

I have almost finished the top to the boy oh boy quilt. Two more blocks and then it is time to assemble.

Creation Showcase

It is always fun putting fabric orders together and wondering what people are going to make with them. Even better is seeing the finished product. We have had an I made it section on the website since its inception and we now have 30 beautiful creations showcased there. From first quilts to award winners we always love seeing what people have made.


Here are a couple of the latest to come in from Danielle. Aren't they so pretty. They both won awards in the local show.

We got the slideshow working on the blog a couple of weeks ago and today it is working on the shop site as well. Hooray!

Coffee Time

How yummy are these coffee fabrics that have just come in from Moda.


They would be great with as a table cloth (which is what I am working on) or as a quilt for a coffee lover.

There are also these great borders as part of the range.