Saffrons Blog

The Australian Quilt Market was held over the weekend as you may know. While I was waiting for three hours for my flight to leave on Sunday evening, which actually went really quickly, I wrote this blog post recapping a very busy 3 days.

I had a ball flying to Melbourne and arrived mid Friday morning. The Skybus took me to the city and from there to our apartment. I dropped off my tiny bag, which was mostly taken up by the quilt I had just finished and walked the 5 blocks to the Melbourne Exhibition center.

Once there Jim, Kathryn and myself set up the stand. Kathy had a clear idea of how it was to look and so we stapled it all together in a couple of hours. Up the ladder Jim called out about 100 times "is is good here?" to which we replied  "YES!"


Once the stand was tweaked to our liking I headed out to have a quick look of Melbourne before Meeting Toni Coward of Make it Perfect for dinner. We found a great restaurant and both ate delicious Gnocchi and it will be hard to risk the memory of this deliciousness by eating it again. Then I took the free tram around the city where I was flooded with memories of Uni and the 4 years I had partied in Melbourne some time ago.

On Saturday I woke up at 3am wishing for the day to start. With a 5.30 start I got to the exhibition building early to watch some of the "show and tells" and I am so going to do one next year.


Over the 2 days we had so many people visit our booth, which is always a complement. We found many new customers while our existing customers reordered stock and bought my new ranges. PHEW!

It really is so exciting to sell my fabrics! We now have a couple of New Zealand shops as well as stockists in the Northern Territory, Adelaide, and a few shops in Melbourne and beautiful Tasmania.
All our customers are women, which is so inspiring to me. Meeting successful business women really got me asking many questions and I discovered and learned a lot about their customers and their businesses which in turn will help me with my designing. I also met fellow bloggers and people who make amazing things with my fabrics from bed linen to bags, softies, patterns, quilts, you name it! Ohh so much did I chat.

On Saturday night we four, being Kate Conklin, Bec Johnson and Toni Coward, visited St Kilda for a meal and to capture the vibe of Melbourne. What fun to be around such amazing women. The three of them chatted until after 2am, which was wildly impressive considering Kate and Bec left at 3am from NSW that morning.


I just took the 70 or so photographs from the last three days off my camera. Most of which I asked Jim to take. Thanks Jim your a star so are you Kathryn. I have uploaded some of the photo's to Flickr - most are out of focus and a bit under exposed as it was a bit dark inside but by all means have  a look here.


Thanks to all of you who I chatted to over the last three days. I hope my fabric sells well in your shops.

If you would like me to blog about your business then please send me an email. In that way we can all learn and help each other.

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I have made up a sampler pack with 9 of my designs in fat 8ths (25 x 50cm). You know in the spirit of Christmas giving and all that. A bit from each range to go together! Especially for you who visits me all the time and has yet to be tempted. Or as a gift for your craft friend for Christmas. You might as well get them something they like? Right? Ummhmm, did I say that? No that was your thoughts! Cheeky me.


Oh and then I was chatting to a customer and I thought that these would look nice made up into stars and love hearts stuffed and looped  in the Christmas Tree. So here is a bundle of Christmas festivities. I am going to make a table runner.


I have my dutch Mother and Father in Law arriving very soon! The count down started weeks ago. I am looking forward to seeing their faces on Christmas day when they get to wear a summer frock or shorts and head to the beach. No freezing for them this year, just sweltering and long days and so much food. I am cooking for the whole family. Actually that is in my head. Patrick will end up doing most of it and I will have my feet in a bucket of cold water.

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Magical Lands is a homage to my love for Kata Tjuta, or as it was known, the Olgas. In the 90’s I wrote my thesis on Australian Woman’s fiber arts and I took a month to drive form Melbourne through Central Australia to interview and research Aboriginal women in Central Australia.
In between the different regions are vast areas of land. I really appreciated how huge Australia really is. On those long drives I stopped at some amazingly beautiful places.  I also did a lot of walking through the pristine wilderness and deserts and the occasional oasis.



I saw Kata Tjuta the first time from a distance of maybe 100 kilometers. It rose out of a flat desert in lovely bubbly shaped mountains changing with the intensity of the sun. In my heart I knew that I was witnessing a sacred place, especially to me, it is a place that I have returned to many times in my meditations. Kata Tjuta  holds a serious place in my heart and its vibration is one of  beauty and happiness and translated into this fabric with a playfulness, lots of patternation and bold colours.

Magical Lands consists of six designs: Magical Land, Snowy Woods, Tree Pods, Magical Trees, Magic Spot and Ginkgo Blossoms in green.



Magical Trees—this was the original tree and the first element that I re-drew form my sketch book into Illustrator. A very graphic print and I am so loving the Ming green.

Tree Pods is a large scale print of mountains with trees growing on them in a cut-out style. I cannot wait to start using this design!

I loved channeling the essence of Kata Tjuta while I designed and refined these fabrics. The serenity and focus I felt will hopefully translate into the fabrics and then again into the products that you make with this range.

The strike-offs arrived just recently and I was thrilled. I enjoyed every moment of designing this range and it came about quite quickly. It is another bold bright range that really feels very “me” but at the same time it's quite different from what I have previously designed. It comes in a red colourway too and I  hope to post a sneak peak of that soon.

This range is due early 2011 and we will be taking pre-orders at the Melbourne Quilt Market next week. I will be sure to send out a newsletter once it is here so if your're not already reading my monthly news you can sign up on the right.
 
I always value your thoughts so please leave a comment.
Which is your favorite design out of the above? Have you got a story about visiting Kata Tjuta?

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We will be showing samples of three new ranges as well as our current ranges and we'll have special wholesale bundles of our fabrics for sale on site, but only a few so please come and see us.

This is a trade only show and I am excited to meet new people and put names to faces and shops.

We hope to see you in Melbourne next weekend!

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This design uses the slash and stack method. Every time I make a quilt with this method I get more ideas. It really is a terrific way to make a quilt.


Using 3 x 50cm of fabrics which I cut in half width-wise and length-wise. The fabric pieces measured 25cm x 56cm, I stacked the fabrics on top of each other so they were exactly the same shape. Then using a rotary cutter and ruler cut through the layers of fabric on a bit of an angle and at different widths from about 4cm to 6cm.

The layers were shuffled within the cut piles of fabric so the top rows of fabric looked how I wanted the quilt to look. I wanted it to have a arty random feel. Once I had the fabrics arranged in a pleasing manner I sewed the top layer of each pile together. I repeated this until I had sewn all the piles of fabric together to make one continuous strip or block.  Yep I made about 20 trips form my cutting mat to my sewing machine, ironing as I went.

Did I get confused? Well a bit. But I just trimmed the mistakes away when I cut it into a 25cm wide block.  It is a good idea if you trim the blocks to top-stitched to prevent it fraying or falling apart before it is sewn to the quilt top.

Once I have three blocks of equal lengths i sewed a white border between the blocks. This determined the size of the quilt. I could have made the quilt double the size with longer blocks.

I was tempted to sew the three strips or blocks together with no white in between them but I changed my mind and will try that in another quilt. I chose to put a white border around the strips to give it a modern, clean feel. I will try to make a completely patterned quilt again using this method with another range of fabrics I have. Just the thought makes me want to stay up all night.

I have been holding onto this quilt, It does have a home to go to but there is something that makes me just want to keep it nearby.


I am a hand quilter so the entire quilt is hand quilted with white Perle thread. I find it so relaxing to hand quilt and I think I will add a bit more stitching to it still.


We are lucky enough to have a Mulberry tree in our back yard. It is huge and full of fruit. Every time I visit the compost bin, or washing line I gorge myself It is soo yummy. I think I have eaten about 3 kilos in the past week. I get very red stained hands! Not good for photographing this quilt! Oops. I have even been making pies with all the fruit. The neighbour's children had a lovely picnic with its lush fruits too.




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This quilt started with a sketch in my Moleskin. I made seven blocks in a sort of log cabin feel using the Bird Tree range in purple when the fabrics arrived a few weeks ago. I was just so eager to cut into my new fabrics and have a play. All the blocks were different shapes and sizes, I had no plan for a quilt top, I was merely enjoying making blocks.

Then I sewed all the blocks together with wide pink borders to make up a quilt top. I let it sit for a few days but didn't really like it, just too much pink. So one day when I was in a reconstructive mood I went crazy with my cutter and cut out each block of the quilt leaving behind only a few centimeters of the pink fabric. It was quite therapeutic actually.

Then to my favourite part, the hand-stitching. Sewing the three layers of the quilt together running a needle through the layers, I just love it. I wanted a quick straight line approach for  this quilt. I put very wide (7cm) masking tape over the quilt in random zig zag lines and stitched around the outside of the tape. Lovely easy stitching.


I bound the quilt using 50cm of the Blossom Patch fabric because it forms a nice stripe as a binding.


I asked my sculptural dolls what they thought. Quietly they said they thought it's all right. Having no arms they can't quite put a finger on something that seemed so familiar? 

How about you? Do you like it? I am keeping this one.


I have the same fabrics in another colourway if blue is more your thing.



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Funny how the universe seems to act in ways that make me smile. I have been noticing a bit of a street uniform, an a-line skirt worn with a t-shirt and flip flops or clogs. I have found myself being asked by friends and family for a different take on an a-line skirt. Said friend asks "I love a-line skirts but I need a change"?

And you know, here it is—a great variation on the a-line skirt! Toni of Make it Perfect has created just such patterns, the A+ skirt. Who has been whispering in her ear I would like to know?

See the a-line skirts shape is really flattering on most of the population's figures of all ages, it just looks funky and fashionable and it is slimming to boot. It is soo good, it really is! I have already made two for myself. I love the A+ skirt with the pockets so I have somewhere to put my things like keys, phone, toys. In fact I don't buy clothes these days without pockets but that's just me. I am the creative type that is very much in the moment. And pockets help me with those moments! Somewhere to shove stuff into.

These are the skirts Toni made. And thanks Toni for using Saffron Craig fabrics. We really appreciate your support.



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So, I'd like to introduce the Bird Tree range in indigo, morning dew green and sky blue. Lovely fresh harmonious colours. It's actually the original colours I designed these fabrics in, but we decided to get the purple colourway printed first as it coordinated so well with the Forest Elementals. If you're not familiar with our Bird Tree fabric range you can read about each design in detail here from my previous blog posts.

The Bird Tree's second colour way is here, its lovely and soft and ahh I am so happy to have it to play with. Actually a small quantity of sampling has arrived and we'll have an exclusive pre-sale next week, so stay posted on facebook and look out for a newsletter.



Tree Forest is a large repeat design. I have been hanging to sew this one into so many things. The small tree forest clusters over big circles of colour and is especially striking in the red. This design has numerous elements to play around with. I love the indigo and the bright red and I designed it so it could mix in with many of my other of my designs, such as the Owls and the Trees Mignon in particular.


The Little Birds in indigo ( I am so loving the indigo) with yellow birds is such a fun fabric. I really love the depth of the indigo. I am pleased with the freedom the design creates. This design changed so many time before I decided on this being the final choice. I wanted the entire range to have a sense of space that you can feel in Australia. I think this fabric captures that.


Bird Spot in morning dew green with a tiny grey spot and the yellow birds. Funny I nearly did not include this design in the range and it is the one that has sold the fastest in the first colourway. In fact it has nearly sold out. So lucky I did include this design at the last minute for all of those who are young at heart. Or have a young heart to create for. Like I do.







As always, I'm keen to read your comments on these fabrics as after all I'm designing them for all the happy homes you live in! Now for me to get sewing! Or even better pack some off to your homes! Yippee.


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