When I headed off to Sewjourn last Friday evening for a weekend workshop with Kellie of Don’t Look Now! I really didn’t realise just how much hard work it would be!  I anticipated that there would be wonderful company, and there was.  I anticipated that we would be completely pampered and well-fed by Jan, and we were.  I anticipated that Kellie would be inspiring and encouraging, and she was.  I even anticipated that there would be inadequate sleep, and that certainly was the case.  But boy, learning a new skill was difficult!

Our evening began with introductions and a trunk show by Kellie, where she outlined her quilting journey and the path she has travelled to the style of quilting that she does today.  Fascinating!  She showed us numerous quilts and quilts-in-progress from the first lot of quilting fabric she bought (still not made up into a quilt!) to recent quilts and cushions.  Kellie is quite intuitive and the styles and colours that she loves to work with are reflective of her personality – she uses the fabrics and colours that sing to her and resonate.  I think that this is why they are so beautiful – she is true to herself with what she makes.

We then headed over to the studio to choose which practice piece to work on – Kellie had three simple cushion designs to choose from.  Coincidentally we all chose the same one!  Fabrics were chosen, the applique design traced, and eventually we all headed off to bed (somewhere around 2.30am, gulp).

After waking up early for a brisk morning walk and some delicious breakfast we were back in the studio learning how to do raw edge applique.  This is when I began to realise just how much I had to learn.

The applique is attached with a fusible product then with free motion stitching as close to the edges as possible. When done well, the two or three lines of stitching that secure the edges are pretty much on top of one another rather than beside one another. I found this incredibly hard to do properly. So mine is a more “sketchy” style of stitching (since I couldn’t manage to do otherwise)!

Once all the applique was in place, Kellie showed us how to do a few different styles of free motion quilting.

These photos are Kellie’s quilting by the way, not mine! Just look at how perfect those stitches are – all even, and done without a stitch regulator – and how precise the curves are. We focused on learning one type of quilting design over the weekend, this one with spirals and curves.

By mid afternoon I was about ready to pull my eyelashes out individually as I thought it would be less painful than quilting.  I just couldn’t get the hang of it, and I REALLY wanted to! I had a try on Kellie’s super duper sewing machine to see if it was all user error or whether I could blame my tools. Some of it was my tools (my old Pinnock was never designed to do what I was trying to get it to do) but there was plenty of user error taking place too. Eventually instead of getting more frustrated I went to bed for a nap, and as it turns out that was the best thing I could have done.

After a nap, dinner and conversation I was back in the studio doing more practice. I made up another three practice quilt sandwiches and just kept on going until the process felt more comfortable. I finally listened properly to Kellie’s sage advice on how to hold the fabric and how to move it and slowly and gradually it all began to fall into place. I quilted well into the night with Jan and Kellie keeping me company. Even when I went to bed I kept on tracing out quilting designs in my head! The next morning I was into the studio early – I simply HAD to get it figured out.

Finally I moved onto the cushion front and began quilting away. A number of hours and a lesson on constructing the cushion later I ended up with this.

Although it comes nowhere near the perfection of Kellie’s quilting and I still have quite a way to go with the raw edge applique I am actually quite pleased with my first finished cushion!

So for me the weekend had a little of everything – lots of fun, good food and drink and great company, but also some exhaustion, frustration and almost tears. Luckily like many good dramas there was a happy ending, and I have shown myself that rewards can come when you want them enough and work hard towards them.

And what about everyone else’s work? I tell you, this was an extremely talented group of women! Just look at those beautiful fabric combinations and superb stitching. Something that I particularly enjoyed and appreciated was how encouraging and supportive the group was of one another. There wasn’t competition but there was plenty of assistance, reassurance and praise.

Thanks to lovely Leah for this photo – you can also read her account of the weekend over here.  Clockwise from the left we have Jan (the host with the most), Kerry, Mary (who travelled from Canberra to be with us), Kylie, Donna (who travelled from Canberra with Mary), Kellie (holding Leah’s gorgeous project) and me!

I still need to hand-sew the binding in place on the back of the cushion, but otherwise it’s finished. I came home exhausted (hence it taking until now to manage a blog post) but highly satisfied. As well as learning a new skill, I learned a little more about myself. Thanks again to Kellie and Jan and everyone else who was there for such a great weekend.

And now I’d better head off to bed (and dream of a Bernina 440 or even an 820…)