63 days to go!

The clock is ticking… classes are filling! Some are very close to being totally full.

Helen Godden – Liberation from the Ditch is now full.

Unfortunately, Patti Hempen is unable to join us now, so her 2 classes have been cancelled.

Teacher Profile:

Emma Evans has been our official photographer for festival since our first festival in 2010. She has produced great photo DVD’s for everyone to remember & be inspired by and her photos have graced the pages of National & International magazines. This year she is also going to present two classes for you to learn how to take a great photo of your quilt, how to style your shot & also how to use your automatic or DSLR camera, plus some tips & tricks on using Photoshop Elements to enhance your photos.

Emma has always loved photography from a young age. From running into Grandma's garden (which is amazing!!) and taking photos of all her amazing roses and flowers to the fast paced action of her sister's love of motocross.

Even though she loved photography she never thought she'd be able to make a career out of it, so she set her eye on Mechanical Engineering. Doing the necessary classes in her final year at school she still managed to squeeze in photography. In doing so she won the photography award that year, along with winning the design competition where her design was used for the school yearbook. This art piece was created from a photo she took and then spent many hundreds of hours manipulation in Photoshop. It won a major prize for Emma.

This got her thinking....

At the last minute she transferred into a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communications) instead of engineering.

From there everything changed.

She began the course and gained enough knowledge to know that her heart still cried for photography over design. The following year she transferred into a photography course at TAFE SA.

From here she really jumped at her dream. Landing a job in Real Estate Photography meant she was committed full-time to this new passion.

She enjoys every second behind her camera and can only hope you will see that joy when joining her in her classes.

Bell Photography & Design is her business and is where you can also purchase previous copies of our Festival Photo DVD along with pre-ordering 2014 Photo DVD. You won’t want to miss out on having this to be inspired by the amazing quilts in the AMQA Quilt Show and have a reminder of the great times had with like minded quilters!

Emma has also produced a fantastic book – Quilt photography for Beginners – that can be ordered and collected at Festival. Students have the opportunity of purchasing this optional resource at a discounted price when purchasing either of her two classes.

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We also have coloured A5 flyers that we can post to any shop or guild to help us spread the news of all the wonderful opportunities to learn new skills, go shopping & be inspired at AMQ Festival 2014. Please contact us if you would like to distribute flyers for us.

Until next time, happy quilting!

Tracey and Sharon

Teacher Profiles

This week we are showcasing two Australian teachers, Lee Vause and Kathy Adams.

Lee runs her business, Threads and Tangles, from a brand new studio that houses 2 longarm quilting machines, an industrial embroidery machine, a number of domestic machines and an area for teaching - this is all located in Langwarrin, Victoria.  Lee has been quilting since 2006 on a domestic sewing machine and started longarm quilting in 2012.  She loves the modern negative space and geometric quilting and enjoys having the opporutnity to custom quilt in these styles.  Lee gets her inspiration from anything and everywhere including such things as fauna and flora, carpet, curtain, architecture and many of those things that surround us everyday.  Zentangle is one of Lee's great loves and this has been a major inspiraton in terms of her quilting style and she finds it a terrific vehicle for enhancing eye to hand coordination and skills.  Lee has been teaching and public speaking for many years as part of her professional background.  Over the past 2 years she has concentrated on teaching all things that relate to Zentangle, Free Motion Quilting (Domestic) and Machine Embroidery.  Lee loves quilting for customers and is seeking to grow this side of her business wherever possible.  The classes Lee is teaching at AMQF can be found here.

Kathy owns KoolKat Quilting with her husband Geoff and both of them work in the business which focuses on longarm quilting and quilt pattern design; they are located in Toowoomba, Queensland.  Kathy as been a quilt maker for twenty years and has been a longarm quilter for the past ten years. KoolKat Quilting specialises in edge to edge quilting as it is practical, fast and efficient.  Kathy draws her inspiration for her pattern designs from the Art Nouveau period of design and she likes to design for the novice quilter and loves to use colourful Bali pre-cut strip sets; they assemble these sets themselves using quality fabrics.  Kathy has been teaching quilt classes for five years at her sutdio and to groups in SE and Western Queensland.  Kathy's core business is quilting for customers and they are kept busy with 2 Statler machines running every day.  Kathy will be sharing her tips for creating and sustaining a successful business and if you are serious about making a career in this type of business this class is not to be missed; further information found here.

Merchandise
If all goes to plan we're hoping to share a little peak of some new merchandise in the near future.....stay posted.

Until then, keep quilting....

Sharon and Tracey


 

July Update

Over the past few months we have been visiting groups to spread the word about the Australian Machine Quilting Festival and have met some absolutely wonderful people throughout our travels.  Tuesday saw our last group presentation and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their hospitality and generosity and we hope that you are as excited about AMQF 2014 as we are. 

Our Teacher Profiles for this Newsletter are Anita Ellis (Aus) and Patti Hempen (USA)

Anita's quilting studio is based in the leafy suburb of Warrandyte, around half an hour from the centre of Melbourne and she has been quilting professionally for six years and loves to ‘draw with thread’.   Anita describes her style as ‘organic’, gaining inspiration from the fabric and design of the quilt and the desire to create secondary patterns with the quilting.  Teaching has been a natural progression for Anita as she loves to share the skills she has developed and gains great satisfaction from seeing others succeed.  One of her favourite classes is “Tricky Quilts, simple steps to make them work” and she makes this so easy to understand so that you should never have a problem again when presented with those types of quilts.  Anita covers technical aspects on how to deal with quilting issues but the best bit is the role play where the class gets to act out the process of receiving a less than perfect quilt and managing the expectations of the client.  This often results in a few laughs and reinforces the fact that not all quilts are perfect.  Teaching is a change of scene from quilting for others. To see a full description of Anita's classes click here

When custom quilting Anita often uses many different thread colours, which can result in a much more pleasing end result as the quilting doesn’t take away from the piecing so much.  She always says to her clients that the quilt belongs to them and not to her;  she likes their piecing work to shine through. 

Once Anita has finished teaching at AMQF 2014 her and her family are planning a trip the incredibly beautiful Kangaroo Island.

Patti lives in the United States in the very large state of Texas and has been quilting since 1996 and has made over 100 quilts.  Although Patti loves piecing over the years she has fallen in love with fusible machine applique because there are so many possibilities and different directions to take it.

When asked where she gets her inspiration Patti said that she finds everything in life inspiring – what a wonderful outlook!  If she had to choose just one thing she would choose colour…..brilliant colour, the more the better!  Patti has been teaching classes since 1998 and although she used to take on commissions she no longer does this as she finds it more pleasurable to self-design, create and teach her own original pieces.  Patti has a lot of fun in her classes and one in particular, Floral Kaleidoscopes, it has become tradition that the moment each student has 2 flowers put together, I have them all stand up and hold the flower circles on their "chest" and do what I call "The Booby Shoot!"  For a full description on Patti's classes click here

 Patti is hoping that she can get to see as much of Australia as she possibly can during her time here – that may be a big ask as there are just so many incredible things to see in our huge country. 

Until next time, keep quilting........

Sharon and Tracey

Machine Hire - Update

When registrations first opened we were inundated with questions regarding the need to bring your own machines to Jenny Doan's classes.  The primary reason for requesting this is so that everyone would be familiar with their own machine; this way Jenny's class would not be disrupted because of issues that may arise using an unfamiliar machine.
Secondly, we weren't in a position to have a large number of machines available for use.  We have addressed concerns, particularly from those travelling by air, and as many of you would be aware Otto & Penny's Sewing Centre has very kindly offered us a limited number of machines for hire.
We overlooked advising you that those travelling from interstate will be given preference over local attendees.  We sincerely apologise for not stipulating this when we first released details of the machine hire; we are still working on having more machines available and will keep you updated. 
You are more than welcome to apply for a machine, however, as mentioned previously in this post, preference will be given to interstate attendees.


Supply List for Jenny Doan's Class

• Sewing Machine (tagged and tested)
• 1/4 inch foot
• Rotary cutter with new blad
• Thread for your machine
• Bobbins - prewound ready to go
• Ziplock bags
• Washout marker
• Pins
• Preferred ruler for cutting

There will be ironing/cutting stations set up around the room but if you have a travel iron and a foldaway board you are welcome to bring these and have them at your table.


Until next time.........
Sharon & Tracey