Material Needs

Recycle, Reuse & Revamp

Many sorries for the delay in postings. Master Chris has beat me up the side of the head and I am now back on track.

A topic that I should have blogged about ages ago is the Material Needs Op. Shop Shirt Challenge. Here Material Needers were challenged to design & make a patchwork quilt using only shirt fabric from our local opportunity shops. The results were amazing and I've put them here in a photo album.

Although this was a local challenge, I've noticed that the reusing of material for patchworking and the like is becoming a bit fashionable. Of course some patchworking was initially was founded upon recycling & reusing fabric in times when material was scarce or expensive but these days it seems people love hunting for fabric - vintage or new - in charity shops and garage sales and then turning them into lovely pieces.

Take Melly & Me for example. Here they blog about finding a pair of shorties at the op.shop and matching them with some new fabric and then creating a fab bag.

and here are just a few other things from around the place.

www.craftlog.org

www.threepinktrees.com

Caroline Sharkey Exhibition

Last Friday night, Material Needers donned their Sunday best to attend the exhibition that featured all the projects completed at the recent Caroline Sharkey workshop. Barbie and Chris displayed all of these works which were impressive in variety and technique. It was easy to see that the creators had been inspired by Caroline and her methods. Here are just a couple of the projects, you can see many more here.

By Chris:

By Linda:

By Anne:

The projects are still displayed this week in the store so if you missed the formal exhibition, nick down and take a look (although you have missed the fancy spread Barbie provided on the evening).

R.

A new machine for Daphne - jealous much?

Daphne and Linda are by far the best quilters in my sewing class (besides Master Chris). These two start quilts one week then roll up the next with the darn things almost finished. Now as a new crafter who has trouble even aligning plain squares, these ladies are unknowingly taunting me. Especially Ms Daphne who has been working on this huge, but beautiful, quilt for her grandaughter, bless her! But the quilt I can handle, it's the fact that Daphie has gone and got herself a new machine - as if I wasn't disadvantaged enough! I'm happy for her really, after all this was Daphie's old machine:

Now this is Daphie's new machine:

The Janome DC-3050. A computerized machine with stitches for heirloom sewing and especially quilting. Daphne bought this machine from Barbie at Material Needs and seems to be quite impressed with the quality.

Now, I just need to convince my husband to throw some dosh my way for an upgrade - blood out of a stone my friends!

R.

How good are Melly & me? Part 2

I have just cleaned up after the Sangsang ravers and have decided to publish another post about Melly & me. I have previously discussed that their patterns are easy to understand and are great for Material Newbies (crafters who have only just started as opposed to Material Needers who have a few more threads in their sewing baskets). But Melly & me also have an excellent tutorial on their blog called the 'Scrappy Challenge'. This tutorial has allowed me the courage to tackle a quilt bigger than a drink coaster. Now I hear the diehard patchworkers out there shouting that this is just a log cabin block but Melly & me make it look so easy and incredibly cool with all those excellent fabric scraps - very important factors to a crafting newbie!

My sewing sisters & I have only encoutered one problem with this challenge - we are sewing innocents, therefore we have no scraps! We have embarrassed ourselves a little bit, scrounging on the sewing classroom floor for pieces, begging more experienced sewers to spare us a few little bright cuttings. Although we share most of the time, I know Annette keeps a few of the good ones for herself - dieb!

Although I have sewn hundreds to choose from (true - mean it - honestly Chris I have been doing my homework!) here are just a couple of blocks so far:

I know quite a few new ladies who are participating in this challenge, so if you have any scraps to spare please email the shop. Any scraps will be greatly appreciated and fought over the same way a flock of seagulls fight over a single chip (aka french fry).

R.

How good are Melly & me? Part 1.

The other night at sewing class I was talking to Annette (who is German and wears funky Birkenstocks) and Annette made me sew my quilt binding wonky. Although I insisted that Annette should be the one to correct this, Chris banished me to the front of the shop to unpick the wonky binding. Anyhoo, I started to follow the instructions given but then I noticed a little face staring at me. It was the face of little Sangsang – one of the fun patterns from Melly & Me. Chris was still busy in the work room so I had a little flick through the rest – Sangsang, Freya, Hooty & Tweet, Lottie & Little Lady, Mrs Perkins - all patterns and more sitting right on the counter at Material Needs. Although new to everything crafty, these patterns seemed easy to read and quite achievable for all skill levels. Yay for Melly & me and their simple instructions!

 

Myself and a few other Material Needers chose to bring some little Sangsangs to life and with the help of my Eddie Spaghetti as chaperone they all had a nice Friday evening that didn’t get too wild & crazy. Here are some memories:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now don't look at my Eddie Spaghetti's dirty beardy. Also, don't be fooled by the white maltese breed. As a puppy, I had visions of him matching my beautiful shabby chic bedroom, but he is in fact a filthy creature and seems to find it amusing. He did like the little Sangsangs though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this was later in the night when the techno trance & raving started:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As more of the Melly & me little ones come to life, I'll post their pics too. I think Freya & Mrs Perkins want tickets to next week's gig.

 

R.

Caroline Sharkey - what a workshop!

A couple of weekends ago, Caroline Sharkey conducted a workshop where quite a few Material Needers attended. Everyone who attended seemed so excited to talk about Caroline's skills and what projects they had created. Chris said that Caroline had brought along the most exquisite examples of her work and all who attended couldn't help but be inspired. Everyone was so eager to continue their projects that they barely ate their lunch...ok, well maybe a few treaties were consumed but really quickly. Here are just a few WIP (Apparently in the crafting community this stands for 'Works in Progress' - all the cool kids are using it)

by Barbie Davis

Freya, 14 yrs!

It's difficult to see in these photos but the detail in these works is amazing. All little tiny pieces of material make up the backgrounds. Go check out Caroline's website and you'll see what I mean.

Of course there was plenty more to come out of this workshop - so much in fact that we are holding a viewing night at the store.  Friday 6th June student viewing and then on Saturday 7th June the exhibition will be open to the public. Come along and be inspired (or just plain jealous like me!). Call the store on 02 6643 5366 for more details.

And for those of you in other countries reading this, I should think you will do your best to attend this exhibition but if you can't I'll keep you posted!

R.