Class one at Taupo Symposium 2013

My first class was Royal Exhibition (machine applique) with Michele Hill. Seriously I have never laughed as much in a class - ever, as I did in Michele's class. Boy is that lady funny and so down to earth, it truly was a pleasure to be in her class. I have never enjoyed a class so much. The designs are from Australia's only World Heritage listed building - Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building.

For this class we had a choice of making a cushion or a table runner. As most of you know we have recently moved cities and are living in a new house, hence I thought a new table runner for the dining room table might be a good idea.

I had chosen different colours for my table runner compared to others in the class. I love purple and thought I would use the colours that I love especially bearing in mind the amount of work involved with these labours of love. The opportunity to practice my machine applique made this choice of class an easy one. 

The fabric for my table runner.

I was not disappointed. There was definitely improvement in my machine applique throughout this class, although a did a bit of tracing on the second morning due to an ill timed headache. Luckily by lunchtime the medication had kicked in and I could get back to stitching.

Michele and I at end of class, day two.

It was fantastic seeing everyone's projects at the end of the class. Below is a photo of mine at the end of the class.

I now have all the design pieces attached to the background fabric and are slowly getting it all machine appliqued. Yesterday I decided to set up my machine as it was still packed from Symposium and the front room was freezing compared to the living room, so I thought that I would set up on the dining room table. Alas the machine bounced as I sewed, so I had no choice but to set up my sew-ezi table in the living room.

So I am going to keep chipping away at this until I get it completed. As I mentioned before I have seen improvement in my stitching and the tips that Michele gave us has really helped. I took my machine to Symposium as I wanted to use the machine that I would always be using for machine applique. I have previously hired machines at Symposium which has worked well for me for what I needed them for. As you can see from the photo I have a Janome and they have a 5 stitch blanket stitch as opposed to the Bernina which has a 3 stitch blanket stitch. This means that where I stop the machine before pivoting is different - this understanding is definitely helping - although more practice is needed still. I have got the outer curves sorted but need to focus more on the inner curves.

Anyway I will show you close ups once I have it out from under the machine.

Had better get back to the machine - break time is over for now!

Cheers

Donna-Maree