WHO LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG?

Who said bags are for carrying things?

Tracy's cats immediately knew their real purpose .... cat mats.

I first saw this bag on the internet and loved it. So with some lucky guesswork, I managed to make it without a pattern or any measurements.





I then did a workshop teaching a couple of quilting friends that came to Japan with me, and these two bags are the result of that workshop. Betty's bag is made from Batik material and she added some extra clips to give it a stylish shape. Janice's bag has the tumbling block fabric (which I love!!! thanks for the gift Janice) and a lovely embellishment for the closing flap. I'm proud of you ladies - what wonderful creativity and fantastic results - your bags are beautiful.















This little cutie was the same bag done with different dimensions. I gave it to Angie, our son Brett's girlfriend, and enjoyed making this colourful, playful bag - definitely for the young at heart.

Happy 50th Libby. Thanks for your support of Mya and myself at Manningham Park Primary. When Loretta saw this bag she said "I don't believe it, I bought this material for a quilt for my daughter in Law Jen last Christmas. Thank goodness she did, because I was missing 2 inches of fabric to complete the internal finishing and I returned to where I'd bought my fabric a week ago and all stock had gone, yet Loretta returned to where she'd bought it before Christmas and was able to get me the material to finish the last little bit.

Coincidnce??? well he's one you can't beat.

An unbelievable story about Libby. I was sitting outside the school reception office waiting for Libby to finish talking as I needed her to do something for us. Libby was talking to a personal friend. I wasn't really eavesdropping until I my radar picked up she'd said that her son worked at Athlete's foot (an eavesdropping until I my radar picked up she'd said that her son worked at Athlete's foot (an Australian multi-franchise selling sportswear) and I smirked knowing that of course the coincidence was about to happen. She mentioned her son loved working at the Chadstone store. I just knew it! Of all the stores in Australia and Asia, her son works where our daughter Jodie works and our daughter is Libby's son's boss! What are the chances of that!!

This bag was made for Tracy. Tracy was my neighbour in the UK, we lived 2 houses apart. Both our husbands worked for Rolls-Royce and both of us left the UK on the same day to do an international posting for RR. Tracy and Mathew went to Japan (lucky things) and we went to Singapore (lucky things). I stayed with Tracy for a couple of nights after I went to the Yokohama Quilt Show and then stayed with them during the Tokyo Quilt Show. The bag at the top with the cats was a thank you bag. Tracy came with me to the Tokyo show - it was her first quilt show and she was awestruck -----weren't we all! We all bought Kimonos and Obi till there was no more luggage allowance, even if we wore them all on the plane.

Tracy also made us all learn to pronounce Obi properly. She made it clear that the way we all pronounced it was like scraping fingernails on a blackboard. By the way OBI rhymes with Lobby not like Toby.

She saw this bag on a stand and I offered to make it for her. The only problem was that for the first time when I got back to Singapore I got the jitters. Why the jitters??? Firstly, I was worried "What if it isn't right", I couldn't just go to the shop and buy more material and remake it. The shop was five and a half THOUSAND kilometers away. Secondly, the directions on how to make the bag were all in Japanese, and even my two resident Japanese friends/translators couldn't exactly understand the instructions (what's new - that often happens with English patterns!!) and thirdly the diagrams on the instructions didn't resemble the finished product as I recalled it.

So what did I do. I made the bag 3 times before I did it with Tracy's precious material. Once in mini form, about 3 inches tall - I'll never do that again - the size made it almost impossible to manipulate. However our Mya coveted it, and it became her toy bag for her dolls. One attempt was the right size and looked like the instructions drawings, but nothing like the finished product as Tracy and I had seen it. I gave that one to Penny in Thailand - my old friend from Dubai days. Eventually I made it exactly as we remembered it, then confidently cut into the precious material. I also quilted around the leaves and fruit to accentuate the pattern of the print that Tracy loved so much.

It doesn't look that complicated, but the Japanese had a very unusual way to turn the bag inside out and finished the handles, it was so convoluted, I don't even think I could replicate it again.



This is my all time favourite Japanese Material that I bought from Fumiko in Singapore. Sawako introduced me to Fumiko who has everything Japanese that you can imagine from fabric to furniture in her enourmous home. So of course I was in seventh heaven and when she heard I was a quilter she went up to her loft and brought down this glorious material. It is a shiny fabric with embossed hexagons which I "stitched in the ditch" and around the stunning gold and white cranes. In Japanese and Chinese customs cranes symbolize love of parents for their offspring, the cycle of life, and longevity. How beautiful.

This handbag and the matching carry bag were given to Andrea for her birthday. Andrea is a very special friend (George's colleague) because she is very gifted (speaks English, Mandarin and Japanese fluently - was there German too Andrea??) she also has grace, tact, competence and willingness to help beyond any friend's expectations. I'll never forget the help you gave George to assist Mya with her Mandarin homework whilst I was playing tour guide in Japan. Thank you -Andrea. When Mya says her months - I will always remember it was your wonderful Hanyu Pin Yin translation and phonetic transliterations that got George and Mya through that week.

I was really happy to make something from my precious Japanese material for Andrea as she has a very strong connection with Japan too, having visited there numerous times through her family's friendship with a Japanese family. Thus she loves Japan as much as I do, and would appreciate the fabric and it's meaning.

Rachelle - yours is coming darling - a certain life event has put some distance between me and your almost finished bag .

This reversible bag was for Mya's teacher in Singpaore. Julie was a great asssitance to our family when Mya had such a difficult time making the separation from UK and adjustment to life in Singapore. I'll never forget her telling me that Mya said to her - "I want to go back to England" and Julie just said "Yeh, I'm form England, I miss it sometimes, but i'm happy to live in singapore now."

I know that Julie can be quite quirky and has a great sense of humour. That's why I put the diamond patterned centre panel a bit off-centre. And the following story confirms my suspicion:

Julie took her handbag back to England during the holidays. Her friends commented on the bag and Julie responded with "Oh I have my own personal hand bag designer making bags specially for me." The next day, she turned the same handbag inside out and walked in to hear more OOHs and AHHs. Julie who is very quick witted said, "Yes, the same designer" and walked out. What she should have said was "Yes the same handbag!" but she never let them in on the secret and they thought she had two bags from her "personal hand bag designer!!!!!" Go Julie.











This bag is still not finished, it's waiting my return to it in Singapore. It's a chenille bag made from four layers of cotton fabric.



What I love about chenille is that you can have the most interesting or disgusting fabric and you never know exactly what it will look like until you cut it and freyed it and put it together.





A LESSON IN BAG MAKING WORKSHOPS!






Here is my Japanese bag - I'VE KEPT THIS ONE for myself for a change, and soon you'll know why.

Believe it or not, I went to learn how to make this bag and it ended up costing me $150 for the 3 one- hour lessons, $180 for the fabric and pattern!!! I nearly died, as the pattern was simply a hand drawn outline on an A3 sheet of paper with no instructions. The lessons were conducted by someone who had 15 words of English - thank goodness those words included "cut here and sew there". At one "lesson" I didn't know to bring my own batting and she sold me less than a metre for the princely sum of $60 which she didn't tell me until after she'd cut it. I would never have imagined that cost, as I had the same thing at home which I'd paid $5 for in England. It certainly wasn't worth it and it taught me to keep bag making workshops reasonably priced and let people know what's needed - up front and they can bring their own if they want or buy at the shop that has reasonable prices.







Here is my beautiful Mya modelling the bag. I'd rather look at Mya really.











The strips in this handbag were made from scrap offcuts from a lady who makes Japanese clothes in Singapore. the blue Indigo on the sides and the middle have a story.



I bought some very expensive shashiko patterned material in a very well know shop in Singapore. For years, I had wanted to try Shashiko (which is a wide variety of Japanese stitches traditionally done with white cotton on plain blue indigo material).

So what does every good quilter do the minute they take their fabric home - they wash it to pre-shrink it and iron it in readiness for the project whenever that may start. (One must remember that fabric is often bought because it is beautiful, not necessarily that it is for a current project - therefore fabrics can sit for months, years until its number come up!) Especially for those of us who have no memory, we therefore know that all the fabric in the house is ready and prepared for sewing- and there are no doubts if the preparation has occured



So that's what I did. I washed each piece of fabric I'd bought that day in hot water and as I was ironing, I thought - "I didn't buy any plain blue material today!".



Yes you guessed it, I'd washed off the pattern. I wasn't told it wasn't printed on - it was simply dusted on!!!!!!!!!!! So that's how I ended up with this very overpriced plain blue indigo.



Anyway, I enjoyed trying out various treatments to the material - the wide quilting, narrow quilting and the wavy pin tucking. Each side of this bag had different strips and different quilting treatments.



I gave this bag to my husband George's "old" friend Esme for her 90th birthday - she's a handbag girl too.











Tracy's tote bag- sans cats. She's a teacher, so I made it nice and big to bring home the work for marking. Rosie who sold me my favourite Bernina the Aurora 440 QE taught me how to do this stitching on my machine - it's just an elongation of a variation of a zigzag. I still remember furiously stitching away on the underground train between Yokohama and Tokyo, trying to finish this bag before arriving at Tracy's home. The Japanese are very well behaved, respectful of others and orderly - they don't even use their mobile phones on public transport for fear of disturbing a fellow traveller.

So how they saw this Gaijin doing something as conspicuous as quilting I'll never know - as I can't read people's minds when they think in Japanese.......







This is a handbag, done in the same design as Tracy's School Teacher's big Tote bag. This bag was for Sharon (Maggie's friend) who at very short notice allowed me, a complete stranger, to stay at her home in Yokohama.

I'm good at meeting strangers through my crafts aren't I Pam in Geneva???? who I met through an embroidery bulletin board when I lived in Dubai and ended up staying with twice in Switzerland (again we were complete strangers apart from our internet friendship) and then she came to stay with us with us in the UK. Come to think of it I also met another wonderful friend through that Bulletin Board - Corrine - who I look forward to meeting in person when we visit Canda - our next trip.











This is a little tote bag given to Mya's little friend Natasha, in Singapore for her birthday. The material was from Spotlight in Australia. I'd had it for years and never quite had a project for it, but liked it very much. I used a rainbow print on the binding - cut on a bias to accentuate the colours and bring in the multiple bright colours on the motif print of the bag. On the reverse, I did rows of hearts embroidered in rainbow thread, interspersed with Natasha’s name done in single colour threads in the colours of the rainbow. That little bag took 8 hours to make.

These 9 bags were made as a farewell gift for the girls at Mya's school when she left to go to another school in Singapore. Each girl had her name embroidered around the top edge to personalise it. The embroidery also includes little hearts.

They are simple little tote bags whipped up the night before the last day of school.

You will see Cindy's (my UK quilting student's) first quilt when you scroll down further on this weblog. Cindy and I met because she was the only person at the nursery school who ever smiled at me when I came in. SO I started talking to this delightfully optimistic and lovely lady. Because she looked so young, I assumed her grandson was her child and when I told her, we were instant friends!

When she finished her quilt, she had a lot of irregular shaped scraps left over. So as you know a quilter never throws out any pieces of material that are larger than an inch square -JUST IN CASE!!!! So I gathered all her scraps, cut them in strips and made this bag.


I love it because firstly it reminds me of my dear friend Cindy and the great time we had making her first quilt at my home in West Sussex. Secondly this bag holds ALL (yes I mean ALLLLLLL) my cutting boards, rulers, templates, cardboard, and every piece of large equipment to do with all my crafts.

Its one-continuous-piece handle means it can take all that weight. I often hang it behind the door and it hides what normally makes for a messy craft room - I have enough other things to fit that bill.

Thanks for your left over scraps Cindy!

Bags Glorious Bags, Magical bags, Wonderful bags, Marvellous bags, Fabulous bags, Beautiful bags, Glorious bags !

Adapted from Oliver Twists Food Fabulous Food (I happen to have that passion too!)

I'VE ONLY MADE ONE QUILT (NOT REALLY)

The first quilt I made....

The other day someone asked me "How many quilts have you made?" Without thinking, I said "only one for Mya... apart from the one I made when I taught quilting". Later on, I was going through my photos and fortunately, (as I don't have a memory any more , at least I have photos) and found lots of quilts I've made over the time.


It's true that the first quilt I made from beginning to (almost) end was in Jakarta when I started a group of women quilting. "How can this be?" you might ask. Well as with all things I "winged it". I had done some quilting 100 years before. Well the truth is I started it, lost interest and gave it to my sister, who years later turned it into a beautiful quilt for me - at least the colours were me- red white and black.






My sister is "The Real Quilter" in our family. So, after watching her for years, (I was more interested in boys really at the time she was quilting... ha hum!) I'd actually learned a lot about patchwork and quilting...and boys. Well enough to teach a group of "beginner quilters" anyway...as if I was anything more than a beginner myself - I was better at boys.


So, about the first quilt in Indonesia. When we lived in Indonesia in 2000, things were quite dangerous there; Bombings, attacks on Expats, demonstrations and so forth. Sadly we lost a cousin in the Bali Bombings. The one thing that I loved was the social life, and being so dangerous, expats did find any excuse to get together as a sort of "normality" to the bizarre life we led. George being the security officer for BMW (who he worked for a the time) was constantly on red alert being the contact person with the security company and the Austrlaian Embassy. We received all the government and Security Company alerts to our computer daily and sometimes hourly (especailly when our dear Prime Minsiter would put his foot in it) we were often told to "lay low" for a week or so - it wasn't happy reading. In fact I stopped reading them after a while. I knew the situation, but being who I am (let George tell you one day about the day I went strolling outside the Dubai World Trade Centre's concrete footpath on the 32nd floor without any barriers or guards stopping me from falling) I decided to be very naughty and ignore all the warnings, I went to a place called Tanah Abang. It was a market place, very busy, very dangerous, very crowded and very flamable (both physically and politically). My friend Lyn had taken me a few times before the security level was raised on the area.





It had a few material shops and two that stocked very cheap but good quality quilting fabrics. But it was a rabbit warren. I'd learned the quick way in and out and never deviated. So I got it into my head to go and get some fabric when the security level was heightened. I asked our driver to promise not to tell George and he took me secretly. With mobile phone hook up constantly I was in and out like a flash. I'd bought material in colours I didn’t really like and would never normally chose, but the range was particularly lowthis time, but they were the only ones I could see would somehow work together. So that was the beginning of the Indonesia quilt.




The sad post script is that a few weeks later Tanah Abang was up in flames, and people were killed, because it was such a rabbit warren, and so cramped - they had little hope really. The fire went on for days. During this time, George and I sat in a restaurant which overlooked the billowing clouds of smoke in the distance that used to be Tanah Abung - you can guess what secret event I didn't disclose over dinner!



Well, over the weeks (with Lyn's help) I showed my friends how to make patchwork quilts and a couple did extremely good work. But when I’d finished my sampler quilt I hated the colours so much that I put it aside and left it in a box for years. The exercise had been accomplished' I'd shown the group how to quilt and that was that.


Later my sister " The Real Quilter " and her friends had made over 85 quilts for the "Youth Off The Streets" charity. Youth Off The Streets supports chronically homeless and drug addicted young Australians as they work to turn their lives around. She and her friends made quilts for these young people, to keep them warm and to show they were worthy of these beautiful hand made treasures- often the only possessions they had. So I donated my quilt to my sister and one of her friends turned my (what I thought) horrid quilt into a quilt that some young homeless youth will treasure as their own. I think you'll agree, it’s not so horrid after all.



As a further post script to this quilting story. I was doing voluntary work at an orpahange in Jakarta at the time primarily working with two little girls who were severely disabled due to Cerebral Palsy -training staff, massaging these two little sweeties, helping them excercise and trying to get one to walk. The oprhanage was a real dump, and I asked all my friends to come and help give the nursery a face lift it desperately needed. As all the women in my quilting group had been coming to the patchwork classes for months without paying, I had the courage to ask if anyone wanted to donate time or money to the orphanage. All but 2 donated not only money for the paint and wallpaper, but many of us took all our staff - drivers, nannies maids and some 18 of us gave the nursery a brilliant face lift in just over a week. Guess who the two were that didn't donate anything - neither money nor time. The two women who were millionaire's wives in our group!

On a happier note, one of my friends an Indonesian lass who had an eight year old partially blind child had been trying to get pregant for years. Both of us say that it was her total immersion in orpahange volunteering that continued after the nursery face lift that led to her getting pregnant again - she now has three lovely girls. Ironically she recently sent Mya a quilt.









My favourite design the Blue Willow. A quilt top I made in Uk for Sue in Australia.

















A Christmas quilt I made in Australia for Mya's German "Grand Parents".
































A denim Winter quilt I made in Australia for Mya and one of her little friends Laurence in Australia.




A quilt for a sofa, for Maragret a thank you for letting me stay with her in Singapore.





A quilt for Helen who loves Irises for her 60th Birthday., also done in stained glass technique

A queen size quilt I made in UK for Issy (Mya's "English Grandma") for her 80th birthday (unfortunately I didn't think to take a photo) The back was signed by all her friends who came to the party at our house.




















A pillow I made for Mum in the UK, done in stained glass technique.

One of my student's in the UK - Cindy's first quilt. ( notice the colours?? - she asked me to chose them - these were not her colours either)... laugh. Maybe I've set a trend with first quilts.

FOR FRIENDS IN SINGAPORE AND JAPAN

This was origianlly made for my good friend Cecilia. I’ve known Cecilia since 1987. We met on a Contiki tour in New Zealand. To my horror I noticed that no other Australians would talk to the Asians on the Tour. I of course invited myself to join the 6 of them for breakfast one morning and from there we have had a wonderful friendship for 20+ years. They’ve visited me wherever I lived. I’ve stayed with Cecilia and her hospitable family innumerable times in Singapore. My wish was always to live in Singapore, as it had become my second home with my Singapore families. I eventually got my wish.

Cecilia is a bank branch manager and she takes her lunch and drink to work. This replaced her lime green plasticized mesh one. The outside fabric is a Furoshiki, bought recently whilst in Japan visiting a quilt show. Furoshikis are a type of traditional Japanese wrapping cloth that are frequently used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods such as lunches and I even recently saw a major painting being transported by a tiny man half its size. I bought the Furoshiki at Asakusa Bashi Market in Tokyo, it was dark and night and I could hardly see what I was buying but I recognized the Mon (family crests) and just loved it. I’ve stippled stitched heavily around the Mon, and they appear puffed as they are not stippled. (unfortunately the photo makes the Mon look quite flat)
The bag is fully reversible. The inside fabric of course is batik from Indonesia. Not bought when I lived there, but bought years ago as a sarong, when I was a tourist in Medan Indonesia with Teresa another of my Singapore sisters. The sarong was a great purchase because I didn’t buy it from a grumpy merchant who was so unpleasant, but I walked on and got it from a pleasant woman offered to me at half the price of the "grumpy (not-so-) old" man.

With the same piece of Furoshiki, I made two more of these bags and gave them to my two Japanese friends Kumiko and Reiko that I had met at the Yokohama Quilts Show last year. They are members of the Quilt Association of Japan. I still keep in contact with them and they met my tour group at the Tokyo quilt show this year, when I returned to Japan in January. Kumiko displayed one of her quilts at the Show. Reiko is a fashion designer and makes beautiful quilted clothing. I humbly gave them my little bags which was followed by much appreciative bowing. (Japan is my first love and 3rd home!)

FABRIC: Japanese Furoshiki (lighweight but very strong cotton) and Indonesian Batik (also lightweight)

BAGS ARE SO MUCH FUN

This was given to someone whose mother was in a choir. It took 38 hours just for the stitching and knotting the ends. It was supposed to be a commissioned piece, but I decided to give it to her. Unbelievably, after I spent so much time making it for her, she asked me to give her money when she bought me a $2 chocolate bar!

The quilting on the back was different from the front, it had staves of music. Inside the bag I made special removable and adjustable sections to hold her sheet music, eraser and pencil holders as well as her name and phone number in case she lost the bag!!!

The notes on the front read the music for the famous verse “Alleluia” Which in retrospect was a bit how I felt when I finished it.

FABRIC: Navy Drill, Colour 100% cotton, lining Calico.

*********


I made 6 fans at a workshop with Brigitte at Quilts n Sew Forth in Singapore. I had bought the pattern some time ago from her, but never attempted any. The class was interesting, and I still dislike hand appliqué. So I machined as much as I could.

This was supposed to be made into a quilt, but I just have too many quilts, so after lots of thought, I decided to make a bag. Having just bought my new Bernina QE 440, I decided to use the bag to learn stippling. The back of the bag was also used to learn to use my spacer, so I have varying distance horizontal lines and what looks like perspective lines starting at the top and middle of the bag splaying out to the base. I really enjoyed making this bag because I learned so much, it’s full of imperfections, but is still ok.

The irony is that when I was at the Yokohama Quilt show, I was stopped by a Japanese photojournalist and asked if she could take a photo of my two bags that I was carrying (this one being one of them) A few months later, I received a copy of a Japanese quilting magazine and a post it on the page where yours truly appeared - I was the only pale face person featured – the Japanese are hand bag crazy and unlike mine, their work is always perfect!!!
This is one of my most used and comfortable bags- especially when travelling it holds sooooooooo much.

FABRIC: Bag Calico, Fan Japanese Prints 100% cotton

"START 'EM YOUNG" I SAY

MYA (@ 5 and a half), PROGRESSES TO A MACHINE FOR HER SEWING.

WELCOME TO OUR CRAFT QUILTING WEBLOG.

First, let me introduce you to the youngest crafty chick in our family, Mya's 5 and a half, and today she started her first machine sewing - a chenille bag we're making together.

Apart from photos of works that I have completed, I'll be posting links to photos of exhibitions I have attended recently. There are photo from the Melbourne Quilt Show 2006,the Yokohama Quilt show 2006, the Tokyo International Quilt show in 2006 including the group I took on tour of Japan in Jan 2007, the Royal Women's Hospital Quilt Show Melbourne 2007,The Melbourne Quilt Show 2007 and the Eltham North Quilt show for Motor Neuron Disease 2007 .


Mya's love of quilting started when she was 18 months. I was making her an "I spy" quilt with wonderful colourful children's designed material. When I was trying to put it on the floor to place and arrange the order of the blocks, along she would come, chose her favourite blocks and run off with them. With me chasing her, it only encouraged the activity.


Every time I brought the finished cover out, she would wrap herself in it, so little quilting was done during daylight hours. However it was really worth it because when it finally was finished we had hours of fun playing "I spy with my little eye, all the blocks with stars/chickens/puppies/kangaroos or balloons " etc. And so she knows this quilt intimately now and still enjoys it. It has one of her Mickey Mouse sheets on the back for the backing material and it too in itself is colourful - just right for a child.


I am sure Mya will be a quilter, whenever I sat at the sewing machine, she would climb on me and stack reels of cotton one on top of the other on top of the one I had threaded in the machine - and of course, when I started the machine she would squeal with joy as the reels went flying all around the room.


She also liked cutting the fabric, drawing the lines on the material to cut the pieces and threading any leftover triangles onto a needle to make a necklace. The other thing she loved doing was colouring hexagon templates on the internet.