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

Saturday at the Quilters' Guild Conference

It has been a very packed day today which started with the AGM itself which included a presentation by the curator. After lunch I attended lectures by Gillian Clarke whose work is inspired by medieval times . I saw her quilts based on the work of the months pictured in a magazine more than a decade ago and  it was lovely to see then in the brighter colours of real life. On a sad note she had made a stunning wholecloth cloth using red thread on cream fabric. When on show there was a leak in the venue and the thread ran - something to bear in mind when embarking on a project of this nature. Karin Hellaby followed with an excellent talk on her quilting travels. Her Sew a Row  book with the cover quilt shown here is a very good introduction to useful techniques and her illustrations and explanations are second to none. I had a quick wander round various displays (photos later) before getting ready for the gala dinner which was in the Nottingham Conference Centre with lovely food and one of the best after dinner talks ever from the Chicago School of fusing - we laughed, learnt a lot and burst into song with actions and poured out to climb on the shuttle bus in joyful mood.

Museum presentation

Gillan Clarke's quilts depicting monthly tasks, male and female versions.

A cautionary tale

Karen Hellaby's Sew A Row quilt featured on the cover of her book

Karen Hellaby with another of her quilts

Lecture by Freida Anderson and Laura Wasilowski at the Gala dinner

Quilters Guild AGM and Conference in Nottingham

I'm spending the weekend in Nottingham, stopping off at NT property Belton House en route. It was jolly cold so I pinicked in the car.

Welcomed by Maid Marian and Robin Hood

and by Morris dancers - note the quilty waistcoats.

Part of "Chequered Fish" exhibition from the German Guild

Mind the gap

Because of fading fabrics no longer proceed from darkest to lightest

I think I've left too long a gap between posts so here are two pictures from  earlier. The log cabin was on my bed in March. The fabrics have faded and having been made in the mid 1990's it has a very dated look but it's a very comfortable soft quilt so it still gets its annual turn.

Quilt by June Barnes

On another note entirely is the June Barnes' prizewinner on a friend's living room wall. I love the subject of pots and urns and admire it hugely and having heard about it it's good to see it on display. By contrast the log cabin has never been on display as it has a mistake in it which might be glaringly obvious when hung up. Now I wouldn't be self conscious about such things but the time has passed. It is stitched in every ditch and looked like corrugated iron on completion. I felt obliged to iron it.

Back from Madeira

Following the levada

We're back from a lovely week in Madeira where we came across a painted lady taking it easy in the Hortensia Tea Gardens. We stopped off there while on a levada walk, levadas being the water courses which follow the contours of the mountainsides and make for virtually level stunning walks.

Since coming back I've finished the mitres on the ladybird quilt and sandwiched it with a red and white spotted fleece fabric. This afternoon I took my partially completed bag to a Bonny Quilters gathering and started hand sewing the sides and I finished it this evening.




Next time we meet we will revert to working on the next border of our medallion quilt. We have to finish the applique by then. Mavis has already done hers.

Mavis' quilt top so far

My bag

Remaining beginner blocks

I made two of most of my beginner blocks, one completed and one in progress so the students could see the construction process. After the class I finish off the incomplete ones. I still have to make a second "Hovering Hawks".

Dutchman's Puzzle

Whirligig

Ladybirds - nearly home

I've made good progress with my ladybirds quilt top. I decided to add borders and it is now a respectable 53 x 71". It was made "just because" and will either sell or go to a charity. I just have the mitres to do but decided not to rush them