Another trip

This is the second Trip Around the World which will be used to demonstrate sandwiching techniques.
And I'm all packed up ready to lead a strips and strings session.

Lesley's top finished by me - didn't have any more rust squares for border.

detail

All packed up

Still busy

Bonnie Quilters yesterday and Trish has finished her applique border. I've finished mine too but hadn't taken it. The next round is Churn Dashes, 36 of them plus four corner Ohio Stars. My Churn Dashes are all cut out and we started to sew them. We have to have got that border on for next time which is a long way off because of holidays etc.

Trish's quilt top so far

At home I've been moving along a  couple of Trip Around the World quilts started for charity by U3A students. This one will remain like this with one mitre done as a class teaching sample for our finishing quilts session next month.

Trip Around the World top with mitres

Usual Suspects get together

Great day today - we laughed a lot and admired each others work though I didn't take pictures of everything. It's a time for finishing up as the Oast Quilters' Showcase is looming. Anyway Judi showed us some free pieced pieces, a patriotic quilt for a US veterans' hospice and her sister's  first quilt, a fantastic technically accomplished piece for a beginner. Belinda's lovely Quilt Show BOM has been magnificently longarm quilted by Maggie K., a tour de force.

Judi's still in the making.

Judi's for a veteran.

Joy's super first quilt.

Belinda's Batik Stars

Detail

Crab & Winkle Sewing Day

Maggie's African quilt quilted on her longarm

Half of Marion's stack'n'whackery blocks

The other half of Marion's stack'n'whackery blocks

Pam's hexagon blocks coming together

Yesterday morning on TV

This morning I surveyed a scene of chaos in my sewing room but out of this chaos order is materialising in sets of compatible strips for various sections of the U3A workshop day coming up. The stars with strips featured mainly blue strips with orange stars and the string pieced squares have a mainly autumn theme with a bright yellow diagonal strip. I have a feeling all this will provide me  with hours of pretty mindless sewing for a long time.

What a mess!

Setting all in order.

Last night it was Quay Quilters and a member who does professional photography work brought in her partner to take a good picture of the group tulip raffle quilt. I took a less good one too. Show and Tell brought forth a double sided quilt-as-you-go from Vanessa. How did she do that?? Another quilt of hers displayed phenomenal machine quilting, white thread on navy, free motion on a domestic machine with nary a wiggle. It's a BIG quilt too and not QAYG. How did she do that? Valerie brought a needle  worked cushion which matched her clothes and Margaret had made the sewing tidy from Trish's demonstration earlier.

Tiptoe through the tulips

Needlepoint cushion

Check out this quilting.

Margaret's sewing tidy

Reversible QAYG

And here's the other side.

And I demonstrated Judy Johnson's way of layering and cutting fabric to create stacks of identical squares. Group members are combining these to make a quilt for charity, our task for the first meeting of every term.

Fishy

Hard at work

Using up

I am continuing to use up strips and strings, leftovers from two decades of quiltmaking.

Quilt as you go string square

Strings

I learnt this way of making stars and strings from Marion who in turn learnt it from Judi. It will be a charity project. I have drawers and bags of strings and plan a few projects and hope the pile will go down. I may steel myself for a cull. I've chosen to add framing strips to either side of the star point.

Chicago School of Fusing

I did a wonderful 3 hour class with Laura Wasilowski learning a very nifty way of fusing as well as lots of other stuff. The class efforts were very impressive. There were no less than five Marys in the class including me.

Laura with class samples

Jan did an owl

I liked this one

I think this bordered one must be Laura's

Laura's piece in the Teachers' display section

Another super one

This one by a Mary

This one by another Mary

Good day out

                                          
              


Gwenfai Rees Griffiths' Houston Stars quilt

I really enjoyed the Detling Show. There were lots of bargain fabrics and the quilt displays were lovely. Sally Bramald's quilting was amazing and I love seeing Gwenfai Rees Griffiths' body of work including the Houston Stars quilt patterned in British Patchwork and Quilting magazine 2003 and which the Bonnie Quilters all made.  
In the evening it was the Crab & Winkle get together where we admired the balloon quilt which Maggie's mother had started and which Maggie was completing.I always like to see Mary's wonderfully ornate hanging on her wall.

 

Bonny bags

Bonny Quilters met this afternoon to work on our current medallion project and to show off our completed bags to Fran who has been away. We made one with charm squares and one by Christine Thomas in an old Popular Patchwork magazin. Trish is holding the original Bear's Paw version and she drafted the Ohio star variation we've just done, me in the middle and Mavis by the window.


Bag by Trish from PP magazine October 2012

Fran with her top so far



The bag  ladies

Bryn's Quilt

Day out with the grandchildren today; it was lovely to see Bryn's quilt on the bed. It's suffered some spillage but wear and tear is very acceptable to me. I'll replace this with another one in a few years.

Coming home

The bed is enclosed in a glass and controlled environment.

Beautiful embroidery by a former lady of the house.

I stopped off at National Trust Property Calke Abbey on the way home where I saw wonderful embriodered hangings which had been rolled up in linn and left in a chest to emerge just as they were when first stitched. Another bed too displayed beautiful work.
Later I lunched in Weedon where there is the most wonderful fabric shop, Bramble Patch, with a fantastic stock of up to date fabrics and superb workshop space. I spent. It's just off J16 of the M1.

Parking outside and on the street

Workshop seen from the mezzanine above

The serving area and a fraction of the stock

Class with Frieda Anderson at the Quilters' Guild Conference

Looking over shoulders

Class work

Frieda and our project

Today I did a great class with Frieda Anderson though for some reason I proceed slowly. None of these pieces are mine. We were making Dancing Trees with a pattern and a kit though with elements of choice. Most essentially we were learning ways of doing things we could apply to our own research.

Class participants hold up their work