In the post

I've been receiving beautifully made Siblings Together blocks. I'm looking forward to assembling the quilt. Block instructions are on my post for 30th August

Gillian

Angela

Jo

Nathalie

Mags

At home

Jan's quilt

On Saturday at Oast we had very good talks by novelist, Liz  Trenow on the Joy of Silk and in the afternoon Jan Hassard showed us her quilts made over many years of teaching. No one went to sleep her quilts were so dazzling and her talk so down to earth and enthusiastic. On Monday I went to  her Scintillating Scraps workshop, easy shapes but lots of sorting according to value and colour.

My first block and I had to unpick!!
Can you spot the misplacing?
Uses light dark and medium fabrics.

Detail of Jan's quilt
Truly scintillating

Jan's inspiration board

Student work

More student work

Finished

I sewed the last stitches of my Map quilt while here. It's been very nice having it on our bed. I call it Map Quilt because the fabric reminds me of the contours on a map - a "proper" map. The original Westminster fabric is framed on the back. I layered 4 repeats and cut them into identical squares or strips. I am making myself use up leftovers once I've completed a top.

  

The back

Preamble

I had a walk round St Marie aux Mines to reacclimatise myself  where everything was. I felt I knew it quite well. The tourist office was open and I was pleased to see the patchwork event programmes available in three languages including English so I got one to read and make good preparations for the various exhibitions. It's the displays of vintage quilts that I like best though.
Some of the windows already had quilts in them and the theatre had a no parking from Monday notice to facilitate the setting up of exhibits.

In the tourist office

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And this is where we are staying. We drove the car through the double doors into the courtyard behind and our second floor gite is very quiet as it overlooks the car park. Although the building is very olde worlde our interior is very fresh and modern and we're very comfy with superfast broadband to boot.

Quay Quilters

Excellent colour and fabric choices from Sheila

The first week of September was the first meeting of the autumn term for Quay Quilters as well as for the U3A and after the success of the summer show we have a new beginners' class so Sheila  brought out the sampler she embarked on two tears ago. Melinda showed one she made for her daughter who is now grown up. So she is no longer a beginner.I took the one I started with Quay in 1995 and finished a few years ago - eventually.

Melinda's quilt again different but super colours.

A moment of reflection.

Commonwealth graves in Saint Imoges
churchyard

On the way to Alsace we stopped in Saint Imoges and shared a flask of coffee on a bench opposite the Mairie. We walked around the churchyard which contained so many graves, both French and British all dating from a few days in July 1918  - the last great push which helped bring that war to a close a few months later. So sad to think of so many lives on all sides cut short.

The headstones marking the graves of British war dead are so beautiful, carved out of Portland Stone.

Empty that box

The Quilt Show BOM has been sitting in a box for several years and even when I finished the top there were lots of units still in the box plus fabric. Just a few more pieces and I made an extra top about 61" square. I'll try to sell this one. It's now sandwiched and ready to machine quilt. I'm not looking forward to the quilting.

U3A Needlecase project

This time Margaret started us off on a needlecase project. A semi- circle with appliqued half Dresden plate will fold in half to make a quarter circle "book".
We had fun drafting 12" (6" diameter) and 11" (5.5" diameter) semi- circles using a compass or drawing round Margaret's patterns.
The 12" template is for the outer of the case while the lining will be sewn in two quarter 12" circles but with a seam allowance as the two halves will be sewn together with a gap in the middle for turning everything through.
The 11" semicircle is for the Dresden plate to decorate the front of the case. The paper is folded into half then quarters then again to make the petal template. The top is levelled off and the bottom trimmed and a quarter inch seam allowance added.

12" card template which 'll bring next time. The 12" paper folded semi-circle is to cut two lining fabric pieces but with an added seam allowance for joining.

11" semi-circle folded to yield eight template pieces. You
could use paper but I used freezer paper - I'll stick all eight pieces onto my chosen fabrics and cut out adding a quarter inch seam all round.

Note the top curved edge has been straightened and the bottom point snipped off. Then a quarter inch seam allowance needs to be added to all four sides. I stuck my paper template onto card, cut it out exactly and then drew round the card with a quilter's quarter circle but you could just use the lines on your ruler.

I used my old school compass to draw circles - dates from when we sharpened pencils with a knife. On the left is  rotary cutter compass which can be adjusted to various diameters. Margaret had a very natty fold up compass with a cap which she think came from Smiths. It could be tightened so  it didn't slip when using.

U3A Monday Show and Tell

The U3A  patchwork group met this last Monday for the new term and New Year. Many familiar faces and a couple of very welcome new ones. Some had given away projects as presents but several completed ones were brought in for us all to see.
Seeing the variety made me realise how much we covered last year.

I was so busy admiring
the use of stripes on this
one I didn't note who
made it but think it was
Anne.

Rosemary's log cabin star
cushion made from Australian
fabrics.

New member, Lesley's,
hand pieced hexagon flower
garden quilt.

Margaret's log cabin star

And Margaret's mystery quilt: shadow on some pictures is my camera shutter which didn't close properly.

Stephanie's New Zealand fabric quilt has a woven effect achieved by cutting oblongs say 5" by 7" and adding 1" strips to two opposite sides to form a square. You have to cut directional or picture prints some vertically and some horizontally.

This is Stephanie's mystery quilt with sashing added between the blocks. It's for her husband and he loves it.

Also from Stephanie and  also with sashing are disappearing nine patches which look like figures of eight.

FOQ 8: Contemporary

Rachel Tyndall:
Underground Stripes
Great colour combinations.

Helen Butcher:
Impossible Triangle
This precise, graphic and
complex piece is in sharp
contrast to her improv. work 

Laila Karlamoen:Taking the boys to the cabin
Great diagonal shading with log cabin blocks

Ludmila Badaiva: Tales of the
Southern Night
Love the scale and organic
nature of these designs.

Tori Smith:
Radiant in Blue
Varied theme and scale
blocks unified by colour
choices.

Tatiana Samsonova: Climbing the Stairs
This is from the Art Quilts section and I think it's great:
lowering slightly menacing colours brightened by shots of startling pink. I like the large scale and movement
held in balance. It was a sizeable quilt.

Vincenzo Callea: Hexagons Indiscriminate Group
Back to the contemporary section for this one. I like the sheer oddness of this, particularly the deployment of prints and
randomness combined with symmetry.

Open Day

Sale items

Yesterday I went with two friends to Marion Drake's Open Day. We had a lovely morning. First a foray into the conservatory where the sale items were displayed. The blue and white quilt you see has been taken from its corner to the sofa and was my purchase. It has tiny close quilting and is an English quilt. Later as more people wanted to buy it Marion put it safely in a bag.
Her personal quilts were everywhere over doors, on bannister rails, draped over doors, stacked on shelves and tops of cupboards; christening frocks hung on pegs over the bath. A visual feast. 

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Her sewing building was in the garden and her stash and projects had a strongly reproduction style.  

Sewing room