Podcast Interview with Juliet van der Heijden, The Tartankiwi

Juliet van der Heijden lives in Christchurch, New Zealand but is originally from Scotland, hence her alternate name, The Tartankiwi.  Juliet has had careers in archaeology and radiography but has now turned her skills to quilting and, in particular, the exacting art of designing and creating wonderful foundation paper pieced patterns.

Juliet's patterns are available for PDF download from her Etsy or Payhip stores.  We talk about how she got into foundation paper piecing (FPP), why she loves it and how she believes everyone can find a way to make it work for them.

Juliet will be teaching two classes at the New Zealand National Quilt Symposium in Christchurch in October this year.  A beginners class for those just starting out with FPP and an intermediate for those wanting to tackle something to stretch their skills.

Juliet began designing FPP patterns using Quilt Assistant, a free quilt design software.  She used her pattern income to save up and purchase EQ7, which is now her design tool of choice.

Juliet is active on social media and we discuss how much of an influence technology has had on helping her find her 'thing', grow her community and develop her business.

Pieced by Juliet, quilted by the talented Leeanne of Quilt Me Kiwi

We also touch on copyright and I urge you to check out Juliet's blog post called Copyright/copywrong.  Juliet is not only a talented designer, but writes thoughtful and insightful articles.

Oh, and the book!  Did I mention the book?!  Juliet has been working away on her very first book.  It will be released this October and I learn all about what it will contain.  Preorder it here!

Juliet's favourite tool for FPP is the 'add a quarter' ruler that has a little lip to help you trim your FPP seams to a neat quarter of an inch.

Find Juliet's blog here:  http://www.thetartankiwi.com
And her Instagram feed here:  https://www.instagram.com/tartankiwi

Thanks so much for chatting with me Juliet!

Click play below to listen to Juliet's interview, or click on the link to download and listen later.  You can also subscribe to my podcast via iTunes or any other Podcast service.  If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving me a comment below, a review on iTunes and telling a friend.  Thanks!



Download this episode (right click and save)

Holiday Roundup

So I haven't burnt the dinner, overflowed the bath or left the kids behind at the shops for a while (I've never actually done the last one, just fantasised about it).  I figure I'm over my jetlag.  And I worked a night shift on Thursday night and managed to not drop any babies, even a slippery new born one!  I'm patting myself on the back.

The reason I'm supposedly jetlagged is because I flew to Brisbane and stayed for two weeks to help my brother and beautiful sister-in-law, as they were having their second child.  Their first boy is only 22 months old and they had only just moved to Australia a few months ago, so they haven't really established support networks yet.  And I had an ulterior motive - I wanted to be the first Aunty to hold the baby!

The quilt I was hurrying to finish before I left was for the new baby and I did manage to get it all done bar the label.  I'm glad I didn't do the label as they decide to swap the order of her names after the first day or two!  I used a light cotton batting as I thought they might get more use out of it that way, Brisbane is rather warm most of the year.

I had more of a holiday than I thought I'd get.  The toddler was almost angelic and easily amused by playing outside.  I was a bit leary of all the insects and I thought I saw a snake once, but it turned out to be a big brown lizard instead!

My sister and my self holding the angelic toddler.

My sister flew up from Sydney for a few nights and my Dad, Stepmum and baby brother visited a couple of times - they live about an hour and half away from Brisbane.  I got to explore the local walkways and parks.  We visited Southbank where they have created an artificial beach next to the river.  It also has a great area full of fountains for kids.  I explored a few shops and ate more than a few goodies!

During my stay I managed to get down to Sydney for a night to see a friend.  She is a brave and beautiful young woman who is battling cancer.  It was good to share a hug.  I was really impressed with the public transport in both Brisbane and Sydney.  I was able to make my way there and back totally unaided.  Easy and efficient.

I took hand sewing in case I needed something to do and I got a bit done here and there.  I used up some paper pieced squares I had leftover from another project and sewed them up into some little pincushions.  I also hand stitched a curtain for my brother and SIL - I'm pretty good at hand sewing a blind hem now ;).

My brother even kindly took me to a quilting store, but I only bought a half metre of a red batik.  I was a little overwhelmed by the selection and had visions of not being able to stop once I started.  Then I found a place called simply 'The Fabric Store' in Fortitude Valley.  It was filled with the most beautiful silks and linens and I took away a lovely piece of indigo coloured, striped linen.  We also visited Ikea.  I've wanted to for ages to find out what it's all about, but we don't have one in NZ. Wow - what an experience!  It's huge and very cleverly set out.  I was especially impressed by their clever designs for storage.  And I couldn't resist a lovely heavy cotton fabric - I took three out of the four colour ways available!

I was glad to be heading home after two weeks.  My brother kindly woke me up at 4.30am when I missed my alarm, I had the quickest shower I've ever had and didn't miss my taxi.  Thanks bro - lucky their wee babe decided she needed a feed just at the right time!

The travel home was uneventful, just long and boring.  I was positive I was going to be in for an excess baggage charge but according to the scales I was lighter than when I left NZ.  My kids gave me the biggest hug and then demanded to know what I'd brought back for them.  Hubby was also very glad to see me - he's told me next time we'll have to get a nanny!  It's nice to be appreciated.

And to finish up, here's a pic of  what my house looked like the night I came home.  It took me about three days to get it in order.  It was an impressive mess!

Sand in my stitching.

Hubby had to do a few hours work today, so I packed up the kids and went with him to Paihia.  Kids and I went to the beach, Hubby went to work.  Hmm, who got the best deal?

Fish and Chips - a kiwi tradition.

This gappy wee boy has made a killing from the tooth fairy lately!

Don't play with your food!

I took my paper piecing.  It's so portable.  I made the little snap-closed purse from a tutorial by Rashida Coleman-Hale, I just enlarged the pattern.  This one fits a small pair scissors, a couple spools of thread and my little needle book.

The kids played happily in the sand for ages.  They went for a quick swim but it's cooling down, Autumn is on it's way and Autumn is my favourite season.  What's yours?

Work in Progress Round Up

I thought I'd do a little round up of all the projects I'm working on at the moment.  Mainly so that in a year's time I can look back and gasp at how much I achieved is still a work in progress! ;)

My current project that I'm working on almost exclusively.  It's called "I don't feel lonely" and is an entry for the Beneath the Southern Skies exhibition.  Must be finished by the 25th of January.  No pressure or anything!

My 'night shift' quilt.  This is slowly turning into something that I really like.  And the vast majority of it has been done in the quiet bits of night duty.  All the rows except one (the one with little bits of paper pinned to it) are sewn together.  Now I just need to work on setting triangles.

A couple of bassinet quilts for the maternity unit.  A friend made the tops and gave them to me to baste (check), quilt (check) and bind (yet to finish). 

This sucker is just so big, it takes up my whole kitchen floor.

My big blue and white quilt.  No hurrying on this one.  It sat for a couple of years without even being touched.  Then I did a little flurry on it last year.  A few more flurries and the applique on the sides might get done.  Then it will be a marathon of flurries to quilt it - it's huge.

This is my hand-piecing.  I last showed this to you in a completely different layout.  I decided I didn't like it that way, took out all the squares that were part of the design and turned the diamonds into doves (or turtles as most people think they are).  Recently I've decided that I liked it better with the squares but I refuse to unpick all that hand stitching so one day I might cut a whole heap more diamonds and do another of the original layout.....one day.

I need to add another round on both these medallion quilts for a round robin sort of thingee I'm doing with my sister.  No hurry on this one, it's taken us a few years to get to this point!

I have a project that I'm enthused about that is still in the design stages and will use lots of my native bird and plant applique designs I've drawn previously.  I also want to make a quilt using some beautiful Japanese fabrics that my sister in law brought back from Japan with her.

There are other WIPs I have floating around, but writing this down has made me realise that I'm never going to finish those ones so they may as well get donated/chopped up/re-purposed.  It sounds like it's time for a UFO purge!

What have you got hiding away in your cupboards?

Blue and white with a touch of madness

Last weekend found me sewing my little heart out at our guild retreat.  We hold these two or three times a year.  We start on Friday morning and pack and clean up on Sunday after lunch.  In between, all we do is talk, sew and eat - bliss!

I got my applique block (it's a pattern from Material Obsession Two) bordered and sewn into my blue and white quilt top.  I also added a lilac border around the whole thing and am very pleased with what I see so far.  However, it's not quite big enough so I'm collecting light blue fabrics for a eight inch wide border and will be subjecting myself to more applique in a similar style.

And here is how my paper-piecing project is coming along.  Sorry about the dark photo - is was taken at night at my friend's house where I go for my 'stave off insanity' Wednesday night quilting session.

And, just for fun, here is one of the causes of my budding insanity!

Where I confess I am a dork.

So last post, I talked about how I was frustrated because I wanted to work on my big blue and white WIP (work in progress) but couldn't find a few pieces.  See the missing sets above? 

To make a nice square quilt I was missing two sets of three blocks.  My good friend Sue suggested that maybe I had never actually sewn those sets and would have to sew some more.  But I knew I had finished every block for the quilt!  So I searched my WIP pile.  Then I searched my boxes of miscellaneous fabrics.  Then I searched my scrap box.  I was even contemplating searching my fabric stash.  Grrrr.  Then I looked through my old pictures to find one of my layout to convince Sue (and myself by this stage) that I had actually finished all the blocks.

Oops.  It's not a square quilt.  It's a rectangle and I had all the pieces in my hot little hand, I just couldn't see how to lay them out.  Doh.  Sorry Sue!

I'm off today to find some white on white print fabric to match for setting triangles. 

And this pic is for Cathy from Cabbage Quilts who is also doing a paper pieced quilt with diamonds and squares, but a different layout.  She wanted to see my layout and a picture says it better than words.  Cathy's is a beautiful Kaffe Fasset pattern and she has the most delicious sense of colour.  Go check her out.

Little Projects.

A while back I signed up for a Round Robin with The Patchwork Place.  A good friend of mine takes classes with them and told me about it.  I've never done a proper Round Robin before so I thought I'd give it a go.  I've finished my first block and am ready to post it off - it's flying away to Aussie.  Our instructions were to make a 12 1/2 " block, on-point, representing our favourite feature about where we live. 

Mine represents the bush gully with the creek flowing through it that hides at the bottom of our block of land.  The colours are for the NZ bush and the dawn skies that I love and the koru has four buds on it for the members of my family.  The green border symbolises the greenness that surrounds me everywhere I look. 

Looking forward to receiving the next set of instructions!



I'm also going to admit that crumb quilts and me just don't go.  I made a start, and that's about as far as it got.  So I've found a new way to use my scraps (maybe not teeny crumb scraps) and have a handwork project to do in those moments as well.  I'm paper piecing a square and diamond quilt.  Because I want to organise a colour wash layout, I'm basting everything first and will then stitch them together when I have them laid out how I like.  So it might take me a few years, but all good things take time right?