Class with Philippa Naylor.

Today I attended a free motion feathers workshop with Philippa Naylor who shared lots of information and taught us all really well. http://www.philippanaylor.com/
My feathers were a bit wobbly but I know I have yet to put in a lot of practice on FMQ anyway. I was reassured that my new Horizon machine performed very well and that any faults were those of the operator.
Philippa had brought her own machine to demonstrate on and a Sew Ezi table seen here.

http://www.sewezi.com/uk/contact.htm

We also got the chance to view Philippa's wondeful prizewinning quilts at close quarters.

A sort of a finish

Before I fell ill I was madly trying to finish the quilt as you go Patchwork Party Quilt. Today I sewed the last two joining seams. Now I need to catch them down by hand on the back. I've cut the binding so I've more or less cleared the decks for the next group project the Quilt Show BOM - a different group and this time we swap. I've collected together some batiks ready to go. I intend to practise my accuracy on this one.

Back in the Land

of the living as I wasn't very well with some bug last week. The good news is I slept a lot, ate hardly anything and lost half a stone in weight. I did rise from the sick bed each day to move a few more things from the sewing room into the spare bedroom as the floor men came on Thursday. They've got as far as the base but will leave the flooring till next week when it's completely dried out. The decorator is coming tomorrow to paint and paper and will take a few days. Anyway I've temporarily moved up into the sitting room and embarked on the Quilt Show BOM beginning with cutting the border strips. The Usual Suspects are doing this and swapping blocks among ourselves according to a protocol devised by Judi. I thought the first swap was in December but have been advised we are to have finished all the elements by then. Shock and horror. However as our December meeting  is our lunch in very nice restaurant I have a respite till January - I'll regard each week as a month and make that my minimum deadline and try to get ahead.
Yesterday was Oast and a super day with talks from Inge Heuber and Phillipa Naylor, both on terrific form  and very different. I have no photos because I was too busy TALKING!

Sewing machine set up

The last post's Patchwork Party photo looks very lurid as the camera was on a scenery setting. I'll take a better one later when I'm a bit further on.

When I got my Horn Cabinet and two inserts, one for each machine, I hadn't really taken on board that the lift has be set at different heights and adjusted with a socket thingy. The height is set for my Janome but I was delighted to realise I could use the same height for my Bernina which I often like for piecing if I set the Bernina extension tray over the insert. Even better I could move the machine well to the left so I could sit directly in front of the needle. The tray covers the hole of the insert. As I don't use this machine for machine quilting it doesn't matter that the set up isn't completely flat. Now I just have to hope this precious 29 year machine doen't give out on me!

Patchwork Party QAYG

I'm trying to finish my obligation quilts (no time for anything else at the moment!) and am assembling the PP quilt I'm doing with Bonnies quilt as you go.

Usual Suspects Day

Met up with other usual suspects today and admired Judi's WIP from her workshop with Gloria Loughman and learnt the construction methods to make it. Meanwhile Belinda and Tracy were given permission to raid Valerie's extensive batik stash. I was startled and horrified to learn ALL the Quilt Show BOM blocks are supposed to be available to swap in December (now January). I thought I had just month one to prepare but now I've recovered from the shock hope to rise to the challenge. Standard of work is a concern, my work that is, though I'll go for various strategies and see what works out best.
There was some talk of upcoming repasts. My mention of the freshly made chips I anticipated eating that evening aroused demands for chips on my menu next month. No way!!!

Patchwork Pennants

The Miniature Group of the Quilters Guild were in charge of the FOQ tombola this year and chose pennants as their project. I won two: the beautiful "scissors" stitchery by Beryl Frogbrook and Jeannie Hainsworth's flowers in well chosen fabrics. At Hever I acquired two more: Mary Hewson's hexagons and Mary Mayne's sewing machine. I've admired the work of these two Marys for a long time.

Crab & Winkle Sewing Day

Four of us met at Maggie's for a full day of sewing - we all got a lot done. Pam was handquilting a cheater Thomas the Tank Engine quilt for her grandson, Melanie was piecing a complicated background for applique for her sister-in-law, Maggie was assembling cottage door stops for which she sells patterns and kits and I was arranging the stars for my second Galaxy quilt and I got the first blocks pieced starting in the middle. I'm doing all one set of alternate blocks with one pressing strategy and then will do the next batch. As I'll be using different sets of squares for each hopefully there will be hardly any same fabrics next to each other. As the HST's have been trimmed to size (tedious task) they are very accurate and the blocks are assembling easily - a worthwhile investment of effort. This time I am framing the stars with light rather than dark triangles.
As I am hoping to have a rotation of small quilts hanging up in my sewing room I noted the nifty hanging system Maggie had for her mother's doiley quilt.

Afternoon at Bonnie's

Spent a lovely afternoon with Fran and Trish getting masses of sewing done. Soon we'll have Galaxy tops virtually complete and be ready for our next project. We all sew the same quilt together. This was my choice in answer to Fran's desire to use up some scraps though this afternoon she commented the box seems as full as ever.  I've now pieced all the stars plus a couple of extras and all my HST's plus quite a few extras. I show the last two stars here and also Katharine's book which is such a rich resource of true scrap patterns.

One Hundred Not Out

I have been making more 6" blocks for a second Katharine Guerrier Galaxy of Stars quilt today. The first quilt shown yesterday I have numbered 100. All my quilts are numbered though smaller pieces and ones contributed to by others are grouped together and numbered, for example, 97a,b,c,d etc. Even finishing one quilt seemed a mountain to climb when I began.

Galaxy of Stars

The block

Last night I sewed down the last bit of binding on my starry scrap quilt which was begun in a workshop with Katharine Guerrier and is patterned in her book Scrap Quilt Sensation. It really is a true scrap quilt and so enjoyable to see the different combinations of fabric as all the HST's are joined. The block is a six inch star bordered by twelve half square triangles and the effect is derived from the arrangement of light and dark. However I have seen more colour coordinated versions and the result reflects ones personal stash and fabric tastes.

Hever Quilt Show

It was Region 2 of the Quilters' Guild's annual quilt show again this last weekend and I helped set up and take down My husband helped with the take down too so I hope he'll join in for local shows I'm involved with. Hever Castle was the family home of Anne Boleyn and in more recent times the home of John Jacob Astor who had the beautiful gardens and lake constructed so it's a lovely day out. Here are my quilts at the show; two were for sale but no luck so far. Online publication of the other quilts is not allowed.

Galaxy Quilts

At Bonnies' we laid out some of our blocks to see the effect - the result is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. The top one is Trish's and the lower one Mavis's and the detail is hers too. I took a photo of that fabric placement on the 8-pointed star so I could copy it!

Patchwork Party

At our Bonnies' afternoon Fran showed her Patchwork Party quilt and cushions she'd gone on to make using the block patterns. Very impressive were the plain quilted squares, marked with a stencil and then machine quilted very effectively using a walking foot. We made the blocks quilt as you go but I wasn't aware it was possible to quilt such an elaborate pattern by machine with a walking foot. One to try. . .

I'm far behind the others with this project - blocks done and no more - but hope to catch up when the others embark on the Farmer's Wife quilt. I'll do blocks for that but not the whole quilt.

Festival of Quilts

This year I only spent one and half days at the FOQ but I marked up my programme circling the traders I wanted to visit, galleries I didn't want to miss. I hadn't booked any classes, not even the one hour quickies and found I easily completed my to buy and to see list. I shall probably do the same next year. Here are a few general snaps showing classes, including Kaffe Fassett's all day one and galleries and displays.

Pot Holders

Trying to tidy up bits and pieces around the sewing room I finished pot holder samples which were illustrating various stages of double sided log cabin, straightforward if doing a pot holder but more problematic if making a larger quilt which would involve lots of planning.