Bonnies are back!

Fran with her quilt top



My Farmer's Wives



Mavis's blocks

Three of the four Bonnie quilters met today and the most recently completed Farmer's Wife blocks were set out and Fran showed us the top she has been making which will be an imminent great grandchild's floor quilt.

Usual Suspects Day

Tracy and quilt

Tracy and her Kaffe quilt

The Usual Suspects came to my house yesterday. We had fish and chips (chips courtesy of my husband) and lots of chat and impressive Show & Tell especially from Tracy who has finished several massive projects including a huge quilt started in a Kaffe Fassett diamonds workshop  and which all bear her hallmark of bright colours and joyful combining of patterns and some very clever piecing.


Another Tracy quilt!

Valerie had been to a weekend with Barbara Chainey and was pleased with her quilt top when it was held up to view and Judy has been making blocks in William Morris fabrics, very subtle and pleasing. Me I did a spot of handsewing binding down on my bags but with all the chat and hostess duties got very little done but finished in the evening. No photo yet.

Valerie's top

Judi's William Morris blocks



Royal Wedding Fever

Watching the wedding

Out for celebratory lunch

Our table

Farmers wives 24-29



Bag making

 It's been a lovely long weekend (tomorrow is still a bank holiday). On Friday we had a joyful time watching the Royal Wedding. While the palace photographs were being taken we had a tasteful lunch of smoked salmon and potato and green salads preceded by a Kir Royale and accompanied by champagne. There was enough left to toast the couple as they came out on the balcony. In the evening we watched it all again and the next day somewhat spruced up we along with other neighbours had a celebratory lunch in aid of the chirch. Our table was rather renegade being hatless; other guests wore some impressive creations and sadly there are no red white and blue decorations in this shot either. Again a toast of champagne to close.
In between I have been sewing: Farmer's Wife blocks and two bags at once as fundraisers for our show in July.

Antimacassar

Having made an antimacassar for my husband's chair I've made a companion piece for my own.

Linus squares top

At the Guild AGM there was a room given over to the Linus project and I spent Friday morning there and started on a set of squares. It gradually dawned that they were NOT all cut to the same size so this is not a masterpiece. At home I did some trimming and concentrated on getting the beginnings and endings of rows in the same place and not stressing about the other seams. I also lost the correct sequence at some point and because the pale fabric had directional trees  I felt resewing would be too much. However whilst I was counting this as a completed top I don't think 36" is wide enough so I shall add a border..

Crab & Winkle meet again

Country Roads

Contrary Wife



Marion's further sample








We met at Pam's for our Crab & Winkle get together last night and among other things Marion showed us yet another sample in very pleasing pale colours she has made for the Stack & Slash workshop which I am planning to do. I cannot resist these quick and easy (I hope) projects which I usually do as charity quilts.

Mary has made a superb quilt for the batik challenge at Sandown but I won't show this till nearer the time. Meanwhile I have still been distracted by Spring sitting outside and reading Alan Bennet's "Not like other people" for book group, much enjoyed and rereading Sara Davidson's "Loose Change" a book about herself and friends at Berkeley in the 60's and the decade that followed. I found I had less patience with the protagonists than the first time - crusty middle age.  However I completed Contrary Wife and Country Roads blocks for the Farmer's Wife project.



Marion's tessellated quilt

Distracted by Spring

Bluebells peeping forth

City Centre cherry tree

Farmers Wife 21 & 23
We are enjoying very warm days here in Kent UK at the moment and this is a very colourful time of year in the countryside and in our gardens. A sight everyone should see if only once is massed bluebells in dappled shade. We went to Rye to see friends yesterday and left early so we could go for a walk in the woods. The bluebells are only just emerging so a later trip is called for. Because of the weather I have been sitting outside and not sewing but today I did my homework: courthouse step blocks for a group quilt and these two Farmers Wife blocks. When I got back from Exeter I spent the whole week getting papers and files in order. I am an inveterate keeper of records and had allowed a backlog to build up. I can no longer keep the runs of magazines I used to so am tearing out the bits I want to keep and these are all filed under various headings. And then there the records of my own quiltmaking plus workshops, group activities, design inspirations and all the attendant photos. At some point these will all have to be thrown out willy nilly but in the meantime they are important to me.

Group days

Valerie's latest block




Marion's latest project

 

Cut and slash class sample

Before the Conference The Usual Suspects met and Valerie showed us her latest 18" sampler block made in a class with Jenny Hoyle.
Valerie has chosen to hand sew.
On Monday I drove straight from Exeter to the Crab and Winkle sewing day where we are working on a second group quilt but no photos yet as it is in a rather messy state at the moment. I chose the general layout so I'm very much hoping it will be all right on the night. It certainly threw up a lot of logistical problems.
Anyway Marion has made a playful sample for the requested stack and slash workshop which I plan to sign up to and she's made a mini version too not shown here. The other quilt was prompted by a gift of unused triangles and lots of scraps. I hope she'll lead a Crab and Winkle session as I too have lots of strips.

Guild Conference

B/W Gala Dinner

Gallery - here, Susan Denton

Redwork sample in class

Lecture - early quilts by Pauline Burbidge (L) and Michael James (R)

Campus with Cathedral in the distance

I went to the Quilters' Guild www.quiltersguild.org.uk/ Conference in Exeter this weekend and had a great time. The scenery I drove through was wonderful especially when Stonehenge loomed into view. Joen Wolfrom http://www.joenwolfrom.com/ was the guest after dinner speaker and was startled to find herself standing to speak at 10pm. I attended a wonderfully thorough class with her on Sunday and have come home enthused and eager to try out colour concepts.
I also went to a half day redwork class where Jeanne Stetson, http://www.swq.org.uk/articles/200908amyemms.php the tutor, had designed a project with a West Country theme, a famous Dartmoor landmark though I opted for apples.
One of the best things was a talk on the history of the Guild by Jenny Hutchison of Strawberry Fayre http://www.strawberryfayre.co.uk/ and founder member, not a promising subject but so many memories of past times we all remember, gentle humour and some wonderful quilts including two by early givers of classes, Michael James and Pauline Burbidge stll prominent today. Photos brought home how we pass from youth to maturity and then age.
The traders were well chosen. Cowslip Workshops fabrics were to die for and I bought two books from the Home Workshop, Two for One Jelly Roll quilts  http://www.quiltroom.co.uk/acatalog/The_Quilt_Room_Books.html
 and Bonny Hunter's Scraps and Shirttails Quilts II. http://quiltvil.startlogic.com/store/page5.html
Now I'm putting everything away but plan to finish the Linus sewing I brought home with me as soon as possible and to apply colour theory to the next bag I make for our Quay Show, starting small!

Courthouse steps

Crab & Winkle are making a lap quilt with panels and Courthouse Steps blocks. To check our measurements I made a little prison baby top 24" square. The measurements were right!

Busy Day

 Tonight was Quay Quilters AGM. Helen brought in the quilt she'd made in Ann's machine applique workshop and another for a wonderful friend.

Helen's quilt for a friend



Helen's hearts and  circles



Alan's antimacassar

I completed this earlier in the week and then washed it to remove the felt tip markings and it's finally dried and in place on the back of Alan's chair. One I made a decade or so ago had worn out and this is the replacement - same pattern and intended to blend in. Although the design looks simple the execution is a bit tricky and it was good to have some handquilting to take on holiday.



This is the 36" square top resulting from last Thursday's workshop. It is for a Prison Baby but will stay as a top for some time yet.



Spinning Stars



Oh dear oh dear oh dear

I have made three pennants/banners as part of an Olympics project for 2012 mainly because I'm an inveterate joiner and as part of a Janome Club project and it was as ever a chance to practise stuff on my machine. However given the size of competitors' goodie bags and luggage allowances I suspect my efforts will be left in a corner of an hotel room or Olympic Village accommodation.
We chose subjects redolent of Britain. The London fabric (designed in NZ!) was a gift in this respect, a nice cup of tea is another aspect and the stairs of the third piece relate to the winners' podium and to London Cockney slang where apples and pears (which grow here in Kent) is an expression for stairs - "Going up the apples and pears".....

Spinning Stars




Mine  - the orange spikes will form further stars when other blocks are added.

 

















On Thursday I took a Quilters Guild class with Terence Gilbert who used to belong to a group I've been in for 15 years or so. They hold beginners classes from time to time and although they now include rotary cutting etc originally the emphasis was on drafting, templates and blocks. I always look back with gratitude to these classes as they underpin everything I do now though I rarely resort to templates. Did I just say that? - well I forgot I am making my farmers wife blocks using just these methods though lazily I'm just drawing round the ones friend Trish has already done. We'll have more than a 100 by the time we've completed all the blocks.
Anyway Terence holds true to the Quay Quilters' path and just loves those templates, the quilter's wheel (everybody should have one!) but also devising new ways of using them and with the Spinning Stars developing more and more takes on the original idea. With the original publicity I'd seen a photo of one of the quilts, took a photo of it myself and took fabrics accordingly so that was what I chose to do though with all the chat and demonstrating I only completed one block set - eight or nine more to do to complete a Linus quilt. I cut several layers at once with scissors  (drawing and cutting 192  separate shapes did not appeal) and perhaps that is why my block is not as accurate as I should like. I think I would abandon the template route and opt for foundation piecing  for any future attempts.

Terence's sample

Spring Start & Finish

I went to a class yesterday and was able to hand my Lilac  Linus and HST quilt over to a participant who is in the same group as our local Linus lady but unfortunately I still had a bit of binding to sew down on this one which I finished last night. It's made from 10 blocks collected from the Linus stand at Festival of Quilts here in the UK to which I added the pelican and the lighthouse both from Quiltmaker magazine (109 & 110). It's number 103 (d) on the Quilts of Mine list. I group smaller quilts and quilts others have had a hand in under one numder but make sure the total adds up to a good size bed quilt equivalent. This one measures 44 by 58 inches.

As for the Spring start? I went on a farm visit with 8 other U3A members this morning and saw this second of twins being born very quickly. I also show a cleaned up version. It was a perfect warm Spring day and we learnt a lot and got the chance to bottle feed the orphans.

New life

Mother and child

Madeiran inspiration

Just back from a lovely 10 days in Madeira. The weather was mixed but there was so much luxuriant greenery and brightly coloured flora. I may even make a small wallhanging based on the photos I took of many different varieties. I found lots of inspiration for quilt designs in the pavements and other architectural details. I shall go again next year and catch up on some of the ones I didn't get round to photographing.