Bags packed and ready to go!

Our bags are packed. Cathy, Aimee and I leave for London then South Africa in 30 minutes. It is very exciting as we will be meeting up with my parents and many old friends that I have not seen in 25 years. Our dogs Zoe and Marley have been sad for the last couple of days. They always know as soon as I get out the suitcases. This morning I think Zoe thought we would not notice her if she crept into our bags. At the last minute we are all still grabbing projects just in case we run out of handwork. Can you believe Aimee followed suit. What a gal! Wendy my sister will be blogging for the next 4 weeks. It will be fun to hear from her side of the country. I will be blogging about our trip when I return. Keep creating Sue

The Big Outdoor Quilt Show - Sisters, OR

Early Saturday morning was spectacular. Just gorgeous and crisp. Sally, Gwen and I were one of many groups in town at 6.45am to help hang the quilts. Within 2 hours 1300 quilts were hung. What a feast for the eyes! On the side of the Stitchin Post all the staff quilts were hung by the firemen. I just love all the quilts they made. So colorful. Many visitors as well as the ladies from Gees Bend enjoyed all the quilts as well as two patchwork cars parked in town. It was fun to see one of my patterns 'Folklore' hanging in the show. What a great job of making this quilt her own. This quilt caught my eye being birds taken from Charley Harper paintings. It really looks like a fun quilt to make. My head is spinning. Not sure what I want to stitch next. I decided to take one large project on vacation so I have been preparing my Robin Run the Hedge borders. I am sure I am taking more than I can stitch but who wants to be without a project! Keep stitching Sue

Quilters Affair Friday night Picnic

The challenge this year for the Stitchin Post staff was to create a quilt in the Gees Bend style. What a wonderful job they all did. Here are a few of the quilts that were shown at the Picnic in the Park on Friday night. The guest speakers were Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran who had just collaborated on their second book. They were very entertaining and shared quilts from there new book. There quilts are very colorful and fun to make. The picnic was concluded with singing from the Gees Bend ladies. I am so inspired that all I wanted to do was come home and sew. Take care Sue

Quilters Affair

What a treat! At Quilters Affair this year they had 7 ladies from Gees Bend visit and give mini workshops. I was very fortunate to be able to spend an afternoon with them. They shared a few of their quilts which were amazing and then spent the afternoon piecing with us. I am so drawn to their freedom of design. Anything goes in wonderful shapes and colors. No rotary cutters just scissors and a sewing machine. As you can see many use old clothing and each piece is hand quilted. Some of the students managed to make quite large pieces in the couple of hours. Using old clothes and scraps. Sally, Gwen and I decided to hand piece. I used these fabulous colors from Sally's stash to piece my sample. It was an inspiring afternoon! On the last day I taught my Vintage Duffel from my 'Urban Sacs' book. It was fun to see all the great color combinations coming together. It is always good to see young girls stitching. Lindsey was the youngest student in my class and was making the tote to use as a school bag. She worked with different fabrics, appliquing her design and couching her stems. This was a fun filled week. I was exhausted but enjoyed every minute of it. I will be posting tomorrow about the picnic and the outdoor show. Take care Sue

Colaboration!

This has been a fun project to work on. My good friend Sarah Fielke from Australia and I have been collaborating on a project for the past few months for the October issue of the Australian quilting magazine Quilts Down Under. Is it not amazing what you can do through email these days! I pieced and appliqued the center panel and then sent it to Sarah and she pieced and appliqued the borders. Did she not do an amazing job! I just love it and can't wait to get my borders so I can also have a little of Sarah's work. We will be kitting this project on my website in October www.suespargo.com Thanks Sarah for the fun experience. I am spending the day preparing a new project so I will have enough applique to do on my vacation. I just love days like this. Happy Stitching Sue

Altered texture Class at Quilters Affair

I just love teaching this class. Each student gets to make their own version of this flower basket and I am always impressed with the cool variations we get during class.

Each student comes with a pre-appliqued piece from a kit I send them and then we spend the day making each piece unique. We start by writing in our journals then putting our ideas into action.

We use many embellishment ribbons, beads and threads. Learn many different stitches and share new ideas.

One of the fun techniques that I love is couching and you can see from these pieces that wonderful fibers were used to enhance the block.

Hand dyed wool is a fabulous medium. It is so easy to cut into different shapes and then stack to form dimensional pieces. It is also like butter to needle.

As you can see we had great fun and I can't wait to see the finished pieces.

I have been working on a a special project which I am going to blog about later today so don't forget to return soon.

Take care

Sue

A Week at Quilters Affair

I love teaching at Quilters Affair in Sisters Oregon. Jean Wells and her daughter Valori along with all their wonderful staff and volunteers put on a fabulous week of exciting events in this very special place. It starts on Monday with five days of classes. The first evening we are treated to a teacher dinner at Jeans home. Jean and John had just moved into their new home and this is the fabulous view from their back yard. It is catered by a local catering company. The food and the company is always wonderful. What a great way to meet the 20 teachers who teach at this event.

The first two days I taught blocks from my quilt Magnolia. We had a full class of twenty enthusiastic students who played with wool and embellishments.

This flower block was made with a wonderful old striped sweater and velvet rick-rack and the leaves were couched with hand dyed yarn.

I love the bright and clear colors used in this flower block especially the fun cotton stem.

I also had two wonderful ladies form England in my class and they needleturn and embellished this great flower block using cottons, wools and velvets.

This is a fun house block using this great polka dot background and rick-rack trim.

Here is another great bias stem and couched flower.

It is always great to see all the creativity developing in my classes and I can't wait to see the finished products. I will be posting all week about this event so visit soon to see more. You will be in for a treat.

Creative stitching

Sue