We have a thing for circles!!!!

By now we have realised we have a thing for circles at Max & Louise Pattern Co!!

Seems we see circles in very cool places.

Today a lovely afternoon was had in the sun down at St Kilda Pier.

And guess what............. there were circles!

Love the lace work up the top.

Which is probably why our "Unknown Quilt" had so many circles and our new quilts also have circles.

They are in progress at the moment so will post as we go.

And we can't get enough of that windmill. So lucky a trailer was not a companion on the road trip.

One day though there will be one in the garden!!

What's your favourite shape???

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Lisa & Lou

New York Beauty Antique Quilt Blocks

We have paid off our lay-by!
You may remember that Quilts in the Barn had some very special guests this year.
Mary & Joe Koval from Bedford, Pennsylvania had a fantastic array of antique quilts, fabrics and blocks for sale; as well as some of Mary's reproduction fabric for sale.

We bought twin New York Beauty Blocks.  A first antique quilt purchase for Lou and a welcome addition to Lisa's collection of antique treasures.
They are circa 1850.  They have obviously been stored out of direct sunlight as there is very little fading evident.  The cheddar is rich and the greens and red vibrant.  There are a couple of small stains, but we love them..

               We hope you like them too....
                                                    Lou & Lisa

Magic Patch Quilting, Tyabb

Yesterday saw us take a road trip to

Magic Patch Quilting at Tyabb.

What a lovely shop!!

Carol , the owner, is really lovely; and she is now a stockist for our patterns. 


A few treasures followed us home.....
Lisa's.....

 Don't you just love the tin!! Carol will habe more in November for all you crazy tin lovers.

Lou's....

 Pinks and greys for her version of our new quilt and some extra bits that she "had to have!!"

 So if you're down Mornington Peninsula way, call in and visit Carol. 

We will also be doing a Cherry's Hall workshop on Saturday January 19th. Can't wait!
 Contact Carol for details.

Hope you have had a great weekend stitching too (or gatherings and road tripping...)

Lisa & Lou

Baby Janes show and tell

Friday night was Baby Jane's night at Lilly Patches. 

We had a productive night last night which was a change!!  Our normal night involves lots of chatting, laughing and yummy food aka chocolate, which keeps the energy levels going to get lots done...I think!

We worked on our centre and corner blocks for our next quilt coming, hopefully, the beginning of January.

Will have some progress photo's shortly.

The girls were working on Jelly Roll Quilts.......

Apple cores from Spring Fling...

And an assortment of projects from Rose who's doing Corliss from Threadbear's Caswell Quilt, just gorgeous; Divna finished her sampler quilt; Robyn has nearly finished her version of 18th Century Stars and Kaye is making a scrappy 21st quilt.....

A great night with great friends. We are also going to run a one day workshop for the Unknown Quilt in December. For info call June.

Will post tomorrow our great trip to Tyabb to visit Magic Patch Quilt Shop. We can show you the treasures that followed us home ( really they did follow, we had no control!!)

Off to our Sandlyn group tonight, what a wonderful weekend of stitching.

Lisa & Lou

Dove in the Window Antique Quilt

Today's Antique Quilt is "Dove in the Window"

This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted.

The doves are made up of diamonds. Tried to get a close up to see if you see the piecing.

It has some really nice fabrics in it too!!

The quilting is on the diagonal in two rows.

It has a few water stains on it but I love it!!

Would like to draft it up one day for a pattern.

There was a quilt of the same block, but larger at Linda's Quilts in the Barn show. It was lovely. Take a look at her blog to see it in the second photo.

Hope you enjoyed show and tell.

Tomorrow night is Baby Janes at Lilly Patches so will have some photo's over the weekend.

Saturday's road trip is to Tyabb to visit Magic Patch Quiltshop. I'm sure some treasure's will follow us home!! Will take some photo's for you all.

Hope you have a fun quilting weekend too.

Lisa & Lou

Spring Fling

Today was Lilly Patches' "Spring Fling".

What a day! 

 We had great company, great food and great fun.

We had a wonderful day teaching with a fantastic group of ladies.

There were so many different personalities and it shows it the many different fabrics and colour ways people use.  Here is a sneak at what everybody was working on.

Clam shells and apple cores were the most popular mini quilts being done today.  But we noticed that lots of ladies bought papers for hexies and the clover yo-yo maker too. Elaine's sashiko and Liz's applique students were busy stitching and enjoying the hints and tips on offer. 

We hope you have all come away enthusiastic about another new project to work on. 

 

Have a close look at the pic on the top left.  This is a travel sewing kit created by one very clever lady.  It includes a pair of nail clippers (to clip small bits of fabric), steri strips (to help with those sore spots that we inevitably get when doing too much hand sewing), a clover thread cutter, a magnifying glass, an emary board, a thimble, a golf tee (for turning out points, turning under seams & guiding fabric).  Nothing that airport security doesn't like!

So raid the golf bags and add a golf tee to your sewing tools.  

 

Special thanks to June for hosting a wonderful day. 

To Karen for helping make the day run smoothly.  To our other teachers Elaine and Liz.  To the ladies that made or bought morning and afternoon tea to share (YUM!).  To Anne-Marie for popping over for a social visit and looking after the shop with Tanya and Heather; and of course to all the wonderful ladies that came along today. 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and look forward to doing it again some time.

Lisa & Lou

 

 

A new book and Homestead Hearth

The postman came today with a new, well second hand book!!

Wow what a book. This is a must have for any Antique quilt lover.

Lots of very inspirational quilts and they have patterns at the back also.

There a quiet a few well known quilts that have been reproduced over the years and really nice to see the original quilts and why they where chosen to be recreated for us to all make and enjoy!!!

If you "need" a new book consider this one you'll love it.

Our next news is that Homestead Hearth in the U.S.A will be selling our

Unknown Quilt.

We are very excited.



We have our Thursday night class tonight, will post what the girls are up to tomorrow.

Lisa & Lou

A new header and a new shop

We have a new header for our Blog!! We just loved the photo's of our quilts in front of the canola fields and the writing is the Max & Louise signature.
(proudly created by I.T guru, Lou!)

We are also proud to announce that....



in Sydney will be stocking our patterns. We are very excited.

We will be doing a road trip to Geelong on Saturday the 17th November to teach a workshop of

The Unknown Quilt

for Zoe at the Blanket Box.

We are also very excited about this.

Today we went to Quilts in the Barn.

We met up with lots of friends and had a great time. The quilts are just amazing. Linda and her helpers always do an incredible job. Well done!

Mary and Joe Koval were there too. And also the Quilted Crow girls and yes we made purchases.

 Lisa came home with...

even Mary's paper bag in the bottom corner is cute.

And Lou came home with.....

The applique blocks are dated 1920 and Lou's pieced block is dated ( oopr forgot to ask mary and Joe!)

We also have 2 Big New York Beauty blocks that are just to die for, but our bank account said noooo!

So a few weeks of saving and they can come home with us.

Thanks Mary..... so watch this space.

The fabrics are for our new quilt we drew up while in Adelaide.

For everyone who went to  Quilts in the Barn we hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did. For those who couldn't make it Linda will be posting pictures on her blog shortly.

Thanks for dropping by

Lisa & Lou

Small things come in small packages!

 Today I called in to see my friend Bev after work. She was showing me all her new treasures she had to take home with her from a talk with Mary Koval on Tuesday night at Linda's. (Which we sadly missed as we were on our way home from Adelaide)

She had a lovely quilt, a pillow case both from the 1800's and the most gorgeous piece of Antique fabric.

She also has Jo Mortons new range which is always a must have and another antique quilt that belongs to her daughter, who is taking after her Mum collecting Antique Quilts!!!!

She also had this little box that she gave me and said please don't drop it????

In the box was this..............

Under her was this........

How precious is she and her little quilt.

Bev thinks she is between 130 to 150 years old. She came with a little note also

And just look at her petticoat and pants just beautiful

She is just the most gorgeous little doll and Bev is just so proud of her. She's so excited she is now hers.

A bit blurry that one sorry!!!

Hope you have enjoyed Bev's new little doll.

Lisa & Lou

Home from Adelaide

We passed field after field of beautiful canola on the way to Adelaide but it was raining on Friday on our way over.  Today was a perfect spring day and the blue sky and canola fields were calling us.

We found an old fallen tree and it was a perfect quilt hanger.... 

 

On the way home from Adelaide we stopped at Lola's Garage in Nhill to pick up our purchases and took the opportunity to take a pic of some of our cool "junk".  And we managed to fit everything in the back of the car!  If you're out in this part of Victoria, drop in and visit Tanya & Pauline.

It's always wonderful to get away, but there is nothing like coming home.  Our children greeted as with hugs and kisses and our Max's (Lisa's German Shepherd & Lou's Doberman) were soooo excited to see us after 5 days away. 
Can't wait to sleep in my own bed...

                                                Lou & Lisa

PS Don't forget Quilts in the Barn show this week...
                                                    We hope to see you there on Sunday.....