Melly & me

100th Post Celebration!!!!

100 Posts!!!  Time to celebrate, would you like a cup-cake??  We certainly would so we visited our favourite cupcake bakery, Crabapple Cupcake Bakery. 

I'm sorry we can't really share our cupcakes with you, however, we have put together a beautiful gift package to send to one of you.  Please leave a comment to help us celebrate and you will be in the draw to win this surprise package.  We will draw a lucky persons name on Tuesday 2nd October.  Good luck, the kettle has boiled and we are off to enjoy our celebratory morning tea. - Melly & Rosie.

Stitcher's Dream Day Out

I have had the most fantastic weekend in Highfields, near Toowoomba in Qld! I was lucky enough to be invited by Marion Marshall of "The Quilters Angel" to be one of the tutors at her fabulous Stitcher's Dream Day Out.

I was honoured to be in such fabulous company with Lynette Anderson, Natalie Bird and Leanne May - some of Australia's leading designers!

My good friend Gail Pan (another leading designer) was in Highfields and also spent the day with us on the Sunday. It was so good to rekindle friendships with many of the women who came to the event and to meet many gorgeous stitchers for the first time. I felt so blessed to travel and teach and meet you all! (have I ever mentioned that I love my Job!!!)

The theme was friendship and that certainly describes the feel of the day.

Here is a look at my project "Springtime".  A little sewing bag and needle case with punch-needle design.  Look out for the pattern at your local patchwork store soon.

As much as I loved being away, coming home to my new home was very exciting! I have just completed the finishing touches on my new "Rosalie Quinlan Designs" block of the month - "Home Is Where My Heart Resides". Here is a first look at it, remembering that it has not been quilted yet!  

It is off to Melinda's at "Around the Block" quilting this afternoon.

By the way, this is our 99th post!!  Can't wait for the next one!

Don't forget there are only 5 days left of our Etsy Sale!!  For the remaining 5 days there will be a gift with every purchase.  There are still some great things to be had. 

Only 4 weeks to Houston, scary :-}

May the floss be with you - Rosie x x 

Bag makeovers

Today I realised that we have been a bit slack and a lot of days have gone by between posts!  Sometimes we forget to blog when there isn't a lot of craftiness going on as it feels like there isn't much to show and we love having a nice photo on every post.  This last week we have run two Monster workshops at a Melbourne Secondary College, created a new pattern catalogue and Rosie has been working on a gorgeous new "Rosalie Quinlan Designs" block of the month quilt.  Rosie is off to Sunny Queensland this weekend for a retreat that I am sure we will hear all about next week and I have decided to update a few of our patterns - to give them a little bit of a makeover.

When Rosie and I started with Melly & me we were not exactly sure where it would all lead.  We had a style in mind and our first 10 patterns really reflected this style.  It is funny how with time your style may change or go in different directions!  In the 16 months that we have been working on Melly & me our choices of fabrics have really changed and we find ourselves more drawn to a fresh, bright and fun palette.  Now when we look back at our initial 10 designs we start imagining them in different fabric combos and wish for the time to remake them.  So that is what I have decided to do with a few of our first designs.  Today I decided to remake our Keiko bag which was one of our very first designs. 

We have always loved this bag, it is a really cute little bag that is perfect for when you are travelling light or for the younger girls in your life.  The even better thing about this bag is that it uses very small pieces of fabric so it is great for using up left overs and scraps - that is what I did today with a few of my favourite left over fabric pieces!!  I love the way that this new Keiko has come together - so bright and fun!  It makes me very eager to get started on a few more makeovers.  I think I need to go fabric shopping - any excuse will do!!!!! - Melly.

Winners & the Grand Etsy Sale!!

We are so sorry to keep you waiting that extra hour or so for the draw!! We did say morning, but if any of you are like us, Saturday morning goes from about 10:00 to 3:00!!!  So here is a gorgeous photo from Red Plum linen to make up for the delay - eye candy, or what??

This morning (hmm afternoon) we went into the trusty Random Number Generator and the three lucky winners of our pattern giveaway for today are.........Jessi, Robyn Brown and Jill!!!  We also got very excited this morning to see out neo-counter reach 50,000 visitors so we decided to add another winner (any excuse will do!!!) who is...........Thimbleanna!!  So congrats girls! Please email us with your pattern choice and postal details and we will send your winnings out asap!

There are only five and a half weeks to go until our huge Houston and Netherlands trip!!  The tickets are paid for and the nerves are growing....time keeps ticking by, and that is a bit of a worry as we have not been too good so far at organising ourselves!!  To free up our time a little and to help with the trip we have decided to have a "Grand Etsy Sale"  We want to try and empty as much of our shop as we can in time for our trip so we have decided to hold a 2 week sale which has begun today!!  All of our bags, toys etc have been reduced by between 15% and 40% and we are also offering a surprise small gift to anyone who purchases 2 or more items.  So this is a great opportunity to grab some gifts for Christmas or a birthdays or spoil yourself with a new bag.  We will be closing the shop before our trip and have no idea when it will be restocked so grab a bargain!

Have a great weekend!!!  Melly & Rosie.

You know the drill, new patterns = giveaway!!

The pattern are written, so here goes!!  Please leave a comment on this post and 3 lucky commenters will be chosen on Saturday morning to pick their choice of pattern from the three new designs.  Good luck!

Magoo......

Dilbert......

Sarah.....

I have been having the most awesome week settling into our first home!!  It is so great finally being "home".  One of the most exciting things is that I finally have a studio all to myself.  This is a first as I have been running my business out of half of a room for the last 10 years!  As you can imagine the studio was the first room unpacked and I felt in a "Rosalie Quinlan Designs" mood.  I started sewing and a sweet little angel named "Sarah" materialised (pardon the pun, LOL!!)   

Sometimes I feel a little bonkers as I try to create for both labels but I genuinely have two very different styles I like to express. Sarah definitely says "Rosalie Quinlan Designs" and not "Melly & me"... lucky Melly has been so busy on the Melly & me front.  Stay tuned for our giveaway post any day now.

Until next time, Ive got more boxes to unpack - yuck!!  Rosie x x

How Exciting!

You can just imagine our delight over the last week as we received copies of two fabulous Australian magazines in the mail.  We were so excited to see that both of them contain an article on us and a project from us!!!!  It was just so exciting and we are so thrilled with these great articles.

We had such a blast working with both of these amazing magazines and thank them so much for this great opportunity.

Country Threads contains a project from us to make a gorgeous "Melly & me" bag and Homespun has a pattern for our Flossie, "Fab Fishy!"

They should both hit the stands in the next week some time so make sure you grab a copy!

Now I am going to escort "Dilbert" and "Magoo" (the name I have given my new monkey friend) off to their photo shoot and then get stuck into writing their patterns.  They should appear in pattern form very soon and of course this will be followed by a giveaway celebration. 

May the floss be with you!! - Melly