Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Perfect Bliss - Latest Quilt and Academy!

Well here it is the first day of June, and first day of Winter for us in the southern hemisphere and wonderful Summer for those in the north - lucky you, Summer is my favourite time of the year.

Well as always we have been working hard on Simon's Perfect Bliss quilt as seen above. It is absolutely spectacular and was made as a gift for our friend Peaches' 40th birthday - she just is such a pink girly girl.

Simon has literally spent over a month perfecting the designs which he has made for the 350mm x 360mm, 200mm x 360mm and 200mm x 200mm size hoops, so everyone can make his Perfect Bliss quilt. Not only has Simon created the designs to fit these three hoop sizes, but he has created 'actual size' PDF's of the designs for each block and center medallion which can be printed (in black and white or colour) and then the pages stuck together to form a design placement graphic, in actual size, to be used as a guide for placement templates to be accurately placed over. This ensures that you have accurate combination templates to be placed over each block to be used as embroidery placement guides.

Once again as with all our Special Editions, we have all the directions and pictures to make Perfect Bliss as well as 180 designs (adaptable to the three hoop sizes) on the CD along with lots of step-by-step pictures so it is easy for anyone to follow. How wonderful is Simon sharing his talent in such a way as anyone can achieve glorious large embroidered blocks in such a user-friendly way.

Hi to all our registered 'Accredited Academy' ladies - we are so excited and happy that you have chosen to do this course on-line - we are all in for a fun time. I will keep you posted on special offers and things to do prior to the first webinar by personal email as well as in my blog - yes I know I will have to do it more frequently than at present!

By the way, CE31 is running a bit late (especially in Australia) and we are expecting it here in the next week and in the US before the end of June - thank you for your patience, trust me it is worth waiting for.


I am now off to work on my next project - A Place in the Sun quilt - this quilt will make it possible for everyone to not only embroider and applique like a pro, but quilt as well - this will be our next book!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Academy, Wins at Paducah and more!






Oh boy am I in trouble - little did I think when I mentioned the up coming Jenny Haskins on-line accreditation, did I think anyone would read it let alone click on the link! I awoke the next morning (after posting my blog) to a frantic email from my web master saying: 'Please tell me you did not post the link for the academy - the web enquiries has just gone off and I am not ready.'



On top of that both Simon and I have received emails as well as the Jenny Haskins products web site in the US. Whoops sorry everyone and thank you also for your over whelming interest.



The link will be active on the 20th May and you will be able to register at that time until the 15th of July, at which time registrations will close as we have limited space. We also have to allow time for everyone to receive their JH on-line AAT package and to do all their homework before the opening Webinar on 1st of August.



We are obviously as excited as you are and look forward to sharing all our knowledge with you in the up coming months. So thank you for forgiving me and you will receive an email blast once the registration link is active.


























Congratulations to Frieda Grischowsky on her third place award in the longarm/midarm machine quilted class in Paducah this year with her Sharman's Vintage Garden Quilt and also to Ken Berg for an honourable mention for his Summer Wine quilt.



I believe there were only four machine embroidered quilts accepted into this prestigious quilt show and two of them won awards - this is just fabulous and the two quilts look glorious. The work in these quilts is quite amazing (and Simon, Robbie and I are only too well aware of the time, effort and talent it takes to complete them) - this is quite a feat in itself, with the awards being the icing on the cake.




Incidentally both of our books, (Summer Wine and Sharman's Vintage Garden) are still available, so if you have not purchased these books (which include all the designs to make the quilts plus much more) you are missing out on a treat, they are real value for money.




The May Webinar with the Jenny Haskins Educators was held this morning and it was great to talk with Paula and her team. These amazing women are some of the most talented and creative in their field, (machine embroidery and quilting) in the industry, being trained by Paula (along with Simon and myself) in the many uses of stabilisers, battings, threads, embroidery and quilting techniques. In a time when machine companies are pulling back on education, the Jenny Haskins team are forging ahead keeping avid machine artists motivated, educated and inspired with fabulous new design CD's, projects, products, techniques, threads, books and magazines. Email: bramwell.paula@gmail.com for more information on up coming presentation chedules so you too can be part of the ever evolving world of machine embroidery and quilting,


Trusting I am now forgiven,


Jenny

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Where did April Go and our first On-Line Academy










Where did April go - it just seemed to be there and then over and when I check my last posting I noticed that I totally did not recognize April at all. Our major project in April was getting everything ready for our first JENNY HASKINS ON-LINE ACADEMY OF ACCREDITED TUTORS. This has involved days of video taping, elaborate Power Point presentations, printing, photographing and heaps more - this has taken up most of our time in April. How great is it going to be for you to be able to become an Accredited Jenny Haskins Tutor and not have to travel or work under pressure - and not only that all the teaching preparation for your future class will be done for you - all you will have to do is keep the class in order!



April is one of my busiest months with over six family and friends birthdays, and this year in Australia we had an extra long Easter as ANZAC day holiday was tacked tacked on giving us nearly a week off. Simon arrived home from his six week tour of the US, Zoey turned one - how quick that year has gone, my nephew Niki had is 30th birthday, (he has just returned from Cambridge England from a three year scholarship and Sam (my daughter turned 32.















The most important birthday however was my dad's he turned 98! That was another long week-end out of April. I went up to Brisbane to see my dad, sister, Niki and Cri (my two adorable nephews) and Katherine - Niki's beautiful Canadian girl friend. This is my sister Sue and my beautiful Dad - 98 years being the most perfect person I know.












Another exciting thing was that Harvey had his first sleep over with Simon (Dada) and me - we had a fabulous time up at Toowoon Bay, and my gorgeous little friends Britt and Kyle looked after Harvey like little guardian angels.



Robbie, Simon and I have been very busy in the studio also with three new fabulous techniques on their way - you are just going to be blown away by them - will give you some teasers in my next blog - and yes we all will live that long!


More news in my next blog - promise it will be this month!















My daughter Sam is in Boston US at present, (having just been to Vegas and then she is off to NY - all shopping stops. She is having a ball and getting some well deserved R&R.

















Robbie and I are working on CE 32 - due out Aug/Sept - and then it will be Christmas - and me another year older - won't talk about that it is too depressing!
















Well that catches us up a bit, and will promise to have pictures for my next blog.