Quilts, cooking and craft
Students may work on a variety of projects. Classes are technique based with support in colour and design. Each lesson is tailored to the individual group.
Please contact Cottage Quiltworks directly to book into a class on 9997 4661
Semester 2 – 2017 Dates
Saturdays
19/8/17
21/10/17
18/11/17
Wednesdays
6/9/17
As part of the Quiltsmith Summer School series I will be teaching my new Swirly Gig quilt pattern at Quiltsmith on January 20th, 2016
Stay tuned for further details or keep an eye on the Quiltsmith blog!
Swirly Gig Quilt – Lorena Uriarte
Opal Essence is Lorena’s original quilt design. The finished quilt is 83″ x 84″.
In this one day workshop you will learn the techniques and tips to make this stunning quilt.
You will learn how to applique and machine piece the curves, sew accurate y-seams and construct your quilt top with the various setting triangles. Class notes also include bonus instructions for a smaller baby size quilt measuring 41″ x 48″.
Make this quilt in a variety colours or tones to make it your own!
Cutting is done with an acrylic template set available to purchase from Lorena for $30.
More details to come or contact Quiltsmith for any queries.
Wingdings: A Variety of Symbols by Lorena Uriarte. Inspired by the back side of Chuck Nohara’s Symbol Quilt.
Oops, it’s only when I saw my quilt in Quiltmania this week that I realised a massive oversight on my part. Seems I forgot to write about my most exciting quilty event of the year! The Quilters’ Guild of NSW’s annual Sydney Quilt Show, a member’s show with over 400 quilts in various categories and displays was on 17-21 June. It’s now months ago but it’s probably a good idea to document the event, especially since I won something and so did many of my friends.
There was a spectacular Red & White Challenge this year, over 140 Red & White quilts hung together in a brilliant display of ability and creativity. I had worked diligently to complete a quilt I’ve been wanting to make since 2012, a red & white version of Chuck Nohara’s Symbol Quilt. The original Symbol Quilt is double sided, with the red & white blocks on the back (see photo below).
My quilt really was an adventure, I’ve never made a two colour quilt before and I found it challenging. I was glad when it was finished and very grateful that Michele Turner was quilting it. I really needed a break from it. And it took months for me to pick a fabric for the binding. In the end I was really happy with how it looked and it won First Prize in the Machine quilted Category of the Red & White display. Hooray! Thank you to the sponsors Quiltsmith, Sew Easy, Tech2Home and Nestle for my amazing assortment of prizes.
Some photos of Windings: A Variety of Symbols. Not great ones. This may be why I haven’t written this post before!
I also entered a second quilt in the Modern Category, Under the Sea a variation of my Opal Essence quilt pattern. There’s an embarrassing amount of teal and aqua in my stash. This quilt documents much of it!
Like most of my quilts, they all end up in use or display around our home. Adding some colour to gloomy days or a warm wrap when it’s chilly!
More on the Sydney Show soon… in the meantime you can see all the prize winning quilts in The Quilters’ Guild of NSW Gallery.
Yes, you read right. Thircles. You may already know that a squircle is the shape somewhere between a square and a circle but what’s a thircle?
If you’ve seen my Opal Essence quilt you’ll notice that all the circles are made up in thirds. The first quilt was made by appliquéing the third of a circle on to a diamond shape. A simple way to make sure you get a smooth circle is to use a template under your appliqué piece. The great thing about using this technique with a thircle (tee-hee, it still makes me giggle!) is that you can easily remove your template and reuse it.
My template of choice for this technique is a really smooth, bump free freezer paper template. You trace your pattern piece on to freezer paper and cut it out very carefully.
My cheaty applique thircle how to…
1. Press your freezer paper template to the wrong side of your fabric. As you will be folding the fabric over the template to appliqué try to place the curved edge on the diagonal grain. The stretch that lies here on the bias helps to create lovely soft curves with less bumps and folds.
2. If you are fussy cutting and placing the paper on the bias isn’t possible, consider using the fabric in a larger thircle. A larger, gentler curve is more forgiving with stiff fabric.
3. Next, use a ruler with a 1/4″ marking to add your seam allowance to the straight edges of your thircle shape. Cut with a rotary cutter or scissors. I love using an Add-A-Quarter ruler for this step. Using scissors cut a generous 1/4″ seam allowance around the curve.
4. Use a fabric glue stick to keep the seam allowance tucked under. Use a fine line of glue, about 1/8″ away from the curved edge of the freezer paper. That will help when it comes to sewing the shapes down and will also reduce the chance of your fabric fraying along the raw edge.
5. Match the seam allowance of your thircle with the corresponding point of your diamond background. Pin or lightly glue your shape into place. I like to pin along both seam allowances where there’s no freezer paper.
6. Using a thread colour that disappears appliqué the piece down. Use small stitches and pull the thread a little to hide it.
7. Once the shape is appliquéd down, trim away your background with scissors leaving a generous 1/4″ seam.
8. Finally, whip out your freezer paper template to reuse. The less glue you use, the easier it is to remove and reuse the papers.
Now that your thircles are appliquéd down, you can piece your diamonds into a hexagon and fan your centre seam.
I’ve been teaching workshops using this appliqué technique as well as the machine pieced thircles and most students are surprised by how much they enjoy the process. The smaller thircles are definitely less stressful if you appliqué them. The larger thircles can be rotary cut and machine pieced pretty quickly and painlessly. You can even mix both techniques in your quilt, maybe stick to one technique in each block though…
Hope that helps someone out there too afraid to try appliquéd curves. Let me know if you have any questions!
So many exciting things happening around here lately, I’ve fallen behind and so I’ll start with the release of my Opal Essence pattern in Jane Davidson’s fabulous book, Desert To Sea. The book was self published by my clever friend Jane and is available to order right now from Amazon and Book Depository. I know there are a few local fabric stores who are stocking it or taking pre orders too, in most cases this can be a slightly cheaper than paying for the book + overseas postage. Contact Quiltsmith, Material Obsession, Cotton Factory , Patches Indooroopilly and QuiltJane for more information.
Desert To Sea Book: 10 Quilts from Australian Designers
There are 9 other gorgeous quilts in the book by Jane Davidson, Danielle Auckens, Betty Kerr, Cathy Underhill, Charlotte Dumsney, Rachaeldaisy and Jeannette Bruce. The book has well written patterns, wonderful photography and even colouring pages to help you plan your quilt.
You may have seen some photos on Instagram taken whilst teaching this pattern, it’s proving to be a very enjoyable day class and students are learning lots. Take a look at the #opalessencequilt hashtag to be inspired! You’ll see photos of my two other versions of the quilt too #undertheseaquilt and #pinkchampagnequilt.
I’ve had acrylic templates made to help speed up the cutting for this pattern and will be listing sets in my shop next week. The acrylic templates set includes 6 pieces to help cut the diamonds and arcs for machine piecing, I’ll also include a full size A3 template sheet and a packet of pre cut freezer paper shapes to give the applique technique I teach in my classes a try. That will be for another blog post!
Template sets are $35 plus postage. I’m also getting 20 copies of the book to sell together with my templates for those who can’t find them locally. The set will be $70 plus postage.
Please contact me if you’d like to pre-order a set as I expect delivery in the first week of July.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Social Tote Workshop at Material Obsession Saturday 27th June
Chuck Nohara Class at Material Obsession Friday 10th July
Chuck Nohara Class at Material Obsession Saturday 10th July
Lorena presenting at Friday Showcase at The Quilters’ Guild of NSW 7th August
Opal Essence Class at Quiltsmith 26th September
Opal Essence Class at Material Obsession Saturday 24th October
It’s so exciting to finally have a pattern and some dates to teach my Opal Essence quilt! Writing instructions and coming up with something semi original is even harder than I had imagined. And very labour intensive. I’ve got some workshop dates booked and I will list them here once they are confirmed. The pattern will be published in a book of Australian quilters soon by Jane Davidson. The lead times for books are so long, but everything happens for a reason, there’s always another typo to correct.
Opal Essence was displayed at last year’s Sydney Quilt Show, since then it’s lead a fairly quiet existence on our sofa. It was in good company and much loved.
What a surprise to then see my quilt on TV as part of a news piece about the quilts hanging at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne this weekend. What a thrill and honour it was for it to be selected to hang in a curated display showcasing where Australian modern quilting stands today. This was done via the MQG and much work from the Melbourne MQG and Jules McMahon from Canberra MQG. Thanks from those of us who couldn’t be there to help. Kathy Thorncraft also from our GWSMQG has her striking Subdivison quilt hanging too. Lots of great modern quilts, yay!
A bit about the pattern, my original quilt here was needle turn appliqued and then machine pieced using a y-seam construction. But I have also made this quilt with machine pieced curves. There are acrylic template sets available to help with rotary cutting all the pieces.
Below is a machine pieced version of Opal Essence that I have called Pink Champagne, it is a baby size quilt (41′ x 48″) using just 18 blocks.
I’ve got many more ideas for my Opal Essence template, stay tuned for the possibilities.
Workshop Dates:
May 30 Patches, Indooroopilly
May 31 Patches, Indooroopilly
June 7 Wandoo Lane, Gold Coast
June 13 & 14 Cotton Factory, Ballarat
September 26 Quiltsmith, Annandale
October 10 Fairholme Quilters at Cottage Quiltworks, Warriewood
October 24 Material Obsession, Drummoyne
I’m also happy to travel to your quilting retreat or guild to teach a workshop.
Please contact me for fees and available dates.
Lorena 🙂