Ripley Sewing Centre

H-U-G-H Floor Stock Sale ....on now

At age 8-12, children have the mental capacity to learn the basic concepts and sufficient manual dexterity to operate a sewing machine. It’s actually the perfect age at which to learn. Sewing is an ideal creative activity for children. It develops their manual dexterity, hand/eye co-ordination, and encourages focus and concentration. Completing a sewing project from start to finish fosters a sense of accomplishment that can boost a child’s morale and self-confidence. And it’s really great fun! Plus, it gives them a huge sense of achievement and self-worth. Because they’re having such a great time, they don’t actually realise how many valuable sewing skills they are learning which will stay with them for life.

Have you ever found yourself gazing at the ceiling and apprehending something weird? Or looking outside the window and pondering about several known and unknown issues? These automatic and not so important thoughts that appear suddenly can literally blow your mind and make you question anything and everything. They are called random thoughts. Some give clarity; few render challenges while others are thought provoking. “Random Thoughts” is also a fabric range created by Marcia Derse, an established modern fibre artist and fabric designer for Windham Fabrics. She brings a completely new vocabulary of colour to the quilting world. The world is her palette as she draws her themes from the seasons or her travels or sometimes simply as a new texture found in her environment. She applies paint with abandon, exhausting the cups of colour, trying every combination. Each piece of fabric is a fresh and innovative arrangement of colour in a wonderful mix of small, medium and large prints. Random Thoughts quilt kit is an abstract kit using the Random Thoughts fabric collection and is suitable for a confident beginner. This is but one of the exciting activities that Ripley Sewing Centre has on offer for the second half of 2022.

Quilting: Stitching through all three layers of the quilt (the quilt top, the batting, and the quilt back), typically in decorative patterns, which serves three purposes: To secure the layers to each other, To add to the beauty and design of the finished quilt, and To trap air within the quilted sections, making the quilt as a whole much warmer than its parts. Long Arm quilting involves placing the layers to be quilted on a special frame. The frame has bars on which the layers are rolled, keeping these together without the need for using a spray adhesive or pinning. These frames are used with a professional long arm quilting machine mounted on a platform. The platform rides along tracks so that the machine can be moved across the layers on the frame. A long arm machine on a frame is moved across the fabric. In contrast, the fabric is moved through a home sewing machine or sit down long arm machine. We use the HandiQuilter “Amara” ( https://handiquilter.com.au/product/hq-amara/ ) for both our free motion and computerised quilting. Edge-to-edge (E2E): E2E is where a design is placed over the whole surface of the quilt, irrespective of the pattern used to create the quilt top. This produces a beautiful quilted appearance while being cost effective. Primarily we prefer to use quilting patterns created by Anne Bright with over 300 of her designs in our E2E Library. Custom quilting: Custom quilting is where different quilting patterns are used in different sections of the quilt top depending on the piecing design. Custom quilting is very labour intensive, costly and quilters will often limit the number and type of custom projects undertaken. You may have heard the phrase “every quilt tells a story,” but let’s face it—some quilts seem like they come from a horror novel. There are occasions when patchworkers decide “done” is better than “perfect”. At this point two of the most common challenges that raise their head are wavy borders that are too full for the quilt itself and that dastardly villain known as the “open seam.” Ethical quilters will reserve the right to advise that they are unable to complete a project if any/all of the quilt parts i.e., top, batting & backing are of a standard that would be prohibitive of a quality outcome. They will also offer advice and encouragement in ways to rectify any challenges presented s-e-w that together your work will become your masterpiece.