Macaron success!

One of the highlights of my weekend was a successful batch of macarons!
Thanks to your tips and some further online research, I cut my mixing time to 5 minutes rather than the 10 minutes recommended in the recipe, I used aged eggwhites, I perfected my 'folding' technique by copying the french chef I saw online (but can't remember where) and I left the piped macarons to sit for 45 minutes before baking, rather than the 20 minutes recommended in the recipe...

The question now remains as to whether this is a repeatable event or just a 'lucky break'... Guess I'll just have to make another batch soon in order to see...

Quilting in two phases

I think I've mentioned before that I usually quilt my quilts in two phases - once the quilt top, batting and backing fabric have been pinned together I ditch-stitch the quilt (i.e. sew along all the seam lines).
Then I bury all those thread ends before carrying out further quilting. The second phase of quilting generally involves stitching images or text into the background and adding texture where necessary.
This week involves burying threads from phase 1 on a number of quilts so that I can continue with phase 2 and finish them.

How hard can it be? (Or: Quilt photography with a toddler)

TASK: to photography completed quilt (hooray to finally making a dent in that large pile of 'nearly finished' quilts) to share with bloggy readersSTRATEGY: place quilt on floor, place self on stepladder, hold camera up in the air, aim and shoot. Review aim and shoot again. Negotiate with toddler. Take aim again. Straighten camera a little. Shoot and hope for the best. Bribe toddler as required. Aim and shoot again. Repeat as necessary until you have a nice straight photo of the quilt, or until insanity threatens, whichever occurs first...Thankyou to those who responded to my last post about workshops. I'm still keen to hear from you if you have any workshop thoughts. (I won't be holding you to attend any of my workshops, I just like to hear some ideas). I can say that at this stage I won't be running beginner workshops. I would aim to make my teaching specific to my own style of quiltmaking (seeing as that's what I know best) and would expect workshop participants to be reasonably competent with a sewing machine and possibly have at least some experience in quiltmaking too.

Workshops: your thoughts?

OK, today I am wondering if some of you dear readers can help me out. I am considering taking on some teaching, and in order to developing some workshops I would love to hear from you.

If you might be the least bit inclined to join in one of my workshops, what sort of things would you be interested in learning and doing? For example, would you like to see techniques-based workshops where you learn skills to take home and apply in your own projects, or project-based workshops where you come home with a completed (or near completed) project? Would you be interested in the designing side of quiltmaking, or the construction side of quiltmaking?
Of course I have a whole host of thoughts myself - a two-day workshop focussed on quilting images into your work, or one on screenprinting, or a 'design and start making your own botanical quilt' workshop'... There are so many options that I would like to know what you would hope to get out of a workshop or what you would be interested in learning about?

I would love to hear from you via the comments, or by email to ruth{at}ruthdevos.com

Seven year old celebrations

OK, I've been a bit slow with blog posting - sorry. We had a birthday in the last week - for a big seven year old girl! Complete with rainbow cake......and badgemaking......and presents of course - with an overabundance of handmade gifts this year (I wouldn't normally spend so much time making gifts, but her birthday wishlist consisted of a 'completely soft' doll, a quilt, and a hug and kiss from Dad and Mum... and she also loves all the princess dresses she sees in the shops but didn't think I would want to by her one... so how could I resist?)

Here they are: a princess dress (beats me why a patternmaking company like McCalls can't at least get the neckline right - it comes down almost to her belly button)......a 'completely soft' doll......and a new bed quilt, extra for winter (backed in light blue which is her current favourite colour)...Caleb wants to know when the next birthday party is. Thankfully not for a while yet!

Fotch, eat, nummy!

If Caleb and Daniel see my mixer on the benchtop, they quickly pull up stools in order to 'fotch' (Daniel-speak for watch). Of course, we all know what they are really after...
My favourite thing about these photos is the springcleaning list you can see on the blackboard in the background. That was our holiday project (lucky kids!). All crossed off except for 'wash windows' but that's so far down the list that you can't see it anyway!

New energy

Thanks to Phil's parents who babysat all four kids for the weekend, I got to make an escape for three days to join Phil in Kuala Lumpur (he's working there at the moment). What a treat - eating out (including a delicious meal at this Lebanese restaurant), shopping, and enjoying the Royal Botanic Gardens. And catching up on sleep. Even though I was exhausted before I left, and there was a 10 hour journey (door to door) each way, it was a wonderful break.

Coming home to four small children and a new school term means there is no such thing as 'easing back into things'. High on my list of priorities this week is the quilt-in-progress that was causing me a bit of grief last week.It's getting there, even if it's been all about perseverance and determination this time round...As you can probably tell, it's a bit of a departure from my other 'childhood' quilts. I'm still contemplating whether to do some screenprinting on the background before finishing the piecing.