Now, sure, I have harped on about the joys of buying your fabric online from the US lately, and the excellent US stores that are sponsoring Sew It Together, but I’m going to turn back to Australia for a little while. Because I mean it when I say that those stores, as cheap and fabulous as they are, just can’t compete with Australian stores for particular things.
Unfortunately, I can’t walk into Pink Chalk Fabrics or Hawthorne Threads and ask them what sashing they’d recommend for some particular quilt blocks. I can’t walk in and get the feel of a Heather Ross sueded poplin, or Anna Maria Horner’s voile. (I couldn’t understand what people meant when they said it felt like butter, until I felt it in a Sydney fabric store. Butter, indeed). I can’t walk in and wander and just breath in the smell of new fabric (oh shut up, I’m sure you like doing that too…don’t you?). I can’t go to classes in their shop, and meet other women who love to sew too, or attend a workshop with visiting experts, and as much as I love those online fabric shops, there’s no smile as I walk in the door. And I love all that about a bricks and mortar fabric store.
Which brings me to one of the more well-known Sydney fabric shops, Material Obsession. Even if you aren’t from Sydney, I’m sure that you’ve heard of Material Obsession thanks to their two popular quilting books, Material Obsession and Material Obsession Two. They have an online store as well if you aren’t in Sydney, and the blog is always chock full of inspiration.
Kathy Doughty, the owner of Material Obsession, is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to quilting, especially with regard to piecing techniques, and, as her books show, thinking outside the box when it comes to putting a modern spin on traditional quilting.
I’m delighted to announce that Material Obsession will be a sponsor of Sew It Together, Sydney 2011, and whilst you’ll be pleased to hear about prizes and free goodies for your showbags (details to come later), what you might be more excited about, is that Kathy and her team are going to come along to the Saturday Crafting Session and run some small group workshops on particular techniques that you might be interested in.
Now the big question that Kathy and I have for you; is what would you like to learn?
We came up with a few ideas that we thought you might be interested in, but golly gosh, we’d love some feedback!
- Hand-quilting
- Hand-piecing
- Piecing 60 degree triangles
- Piecing Flying Geese
- Using the Wedge Ruler
- Half-square triangles
We’d love it if you would leave a comment on this post, and let us know what you’d really love Kathy and her team to show you at the Saturday Crafting Session. If you’ve got other ideas, feel free to let us know and we’ll find a way to find the most popular topics.
There will be no extra charge for the workshop itself, but there may be a cost if you need particular templates, etc, but of course they will be yours and you will take them home with you. In order for you to get the most out of the workshops, I will probably limit numbers for each session, and reservations will be done on a first in, first served basis at some stage before the day itself.
A huge thank you to Kathy who is extremely excited about not only being a participant at Sew It Together (being a blogger herself!) but also about supporting this fabulous event, which this year turned out to be such an amazing experience.
Please give us some feedback! We’re doing this all for YOU!
Sew It Together 