Charlecote Park

Upton House

On the way back back from FOQ we spent the day visiting two very different National Trust  properties, Charlecote Park, where the Lucy family have lived continuously for 900 years, and Upton House,  Art Deco home of Shell heir, Lord Bearsted who seems to have been a very good egg! I got something of the flavour of the man through reading his diary left out for anyone to peruse.

Rag Rug in the servants' quarters at Upton.

Pietra Dura table at Charlecote

And today I've completed two more
"Bonnie" blocks and am in the process of framing and quilting them and the previous two.

A lot of pieces in this



A lot of inset seams in this!

543 Four seasons Sampler by the Paper Piece Group (8 in all)

543 detail

543 detail

543 detail

Here is my Visitor's Choice quilt made by the Paper Piece Group. Many of their designs came from Maaike Bakker's book which I bought. I already love her strip piecing title. I looked for Makke's quilt in the Art section but there was a blank there. Speaking to her later I learnt it had been stolen by someone armed with a screwdriver. If you check out the photo section of her website, the stolen one looks

like/is (?) the one pictured on the bottom left.

Maikke's book

 

Sunday at the Festival of Quilts

I had a long full day as I stayed to the end to collect my quilt. Today I'm including some general views to try to give an impression of the special nature of this show, particularly the white wall gallery lit areas. My friend, Judi, had the the privilege of her work being selected to go on show in a gallery alongside some other London MQG members. The Quilters' Guild is also setting up its own specialist group for modern quilters and Helen Howes and Heather Hasthorpe seemed to be busy signing up members. .


Heather and Helen manning the Modern
Quilt Group's stand

 



A gallery




Judi's quilt facing and another near left



A gallery



Quilted Creations category



Philippa Naylor's winning quilt in the Traditional section
attracting admirers.

FOQ

"Gargantuan"

Here at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC where I have a quilt on show for the first time. It's my "Gargantuan"  square quilt so called because it's 90" square and seemed a major project. Here I was surprised by how small it seemed. Quilts are well displayed at this show, most on white walls I was at one end of an aisle and friend Tracy's wonderful quilt made from Liberty Fabrics was at the other but hers was in the Traditional category and mine in the Two Person because it has been machine quilted by Maggie Kingston.


Tracy's "My Love for Liberty" quilt.

Before I set off my daughter and family came to visit and Isla asked after the quilt she had started and I promised to finish; I was pleased she wanted to take it home with her.

Mother and daughter

Isla helped to make this!

Lovely Day

at Lower Hardres where I worked on my
Bonnie block and admired my
companions' projects.

Ingrid's quilt

 

Jill's, made with a jelly roll.

Jill's again using Liberty prints

Detail

 

More done

Cushion using Simple Marks fabrics

I finished the cushion I started in Tracy Aplin's handsewing class. It's quite big and perhaps I overstuffed the pad. I'm now sitting on it to try and squash it a little bit.
I've also made a second Bonny block and struggled with this one too. I should remake it but probably won't.

A tricky block

I have been  preparing things to do with the U3A next term which I'll show then. Yesterday I embarked on the next set of Bonnie blocks. I decided to have a change from  templates for the complex block Trish chose for us. I traced the whole lot onto freezer paper, numbered and cut out each piece finished size and ironed them onto the wrong side of my fabrics. I paid attention to grain. The same shape could be on a different grain for different fabrics. Now I am sewing around the shapes and as far as possible leaving them in.
I took a break after writing the above and finished the block which was quite laborious. I had cut the outer white pieces bigger so I could trim the completed block to the correct size only to make a stupid mistake, trimming one side to 6.5" and the other to 6" . I'll compensate to some extent when I frame it.


Freezer Paper block

Here you can see the pattern I'm working from

My (mis) completed block.

Wicked Wednesday

Wicked being slang for "great". The day was spent teaching the second batch of U3A students: we were doing "Patchwork by Hand". Both were a lovely days and everyone got on so well, laughed and worked hard and were very appreciative so I was very pleased. I'll post pictures of our litlle projects in a future post. I'm behind because once I'd put my stuff in order after these days it was time to get on with other plans.  On Wednesday evening it was the last meeting of Quay Quilters. I'm ashamed to say I was so jittery about judging the challenge which was "trees" that I didn't take any pictures of the entries but they will all go on display at our show next year.  We missed our "chair", Vanessa, who couldn't be with us but the theme of quilts/needlework with a story turned up some gems. First off though was Show & Tell and one or two folk impressed me by  putting the Seminole kits from last time to good use.
The Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games is on tonight and I have a homemade curry ready to go . . .

U3A group hard at work

Bag by Pauline??

Valeries Seminole Book Binders

Jenny's bag

Bid's bag with machine embroidery

Other side of Bid's bag

Pauline 's quilt for a student

Bonnie Blocks

Yesterday and today I've pieced my Bonnie blocks and quilted them too. I find making these a very enjoyable task and the quilt should go together relatively quickly. Just two every two weeks or so is pretty easy to keep up with and we prepare a lot of the fabric patches at our gatherings. I like to see the other interpretations.

My blocks laid out

Trish's

Fran's

As I was sewing with white  thread
I sewed leader ender HST's for the
Quilt Show Bom from a few years ago.

Quay quilts

My workshop project from the TQG weekend.

I am a bit behind with posting as I have been out and about notably to Nymans, the home of the Messel family, where the extensive and beautiful garden was created over three generations. I've also been on a walk with a women's group which passed through Howletts Zoo, affording a glimpse of elephants. I have completed the setting squares to my workshop quilt, however, and think I've decided on a border  I wasn't sure whether to add one at all but bigger is always better! Mainly though I've been preparing for my patchwork by hand days with the U3A. The prep. could go on for ever but I've now drawn a line and it's just handouts and kits to go. The other photos are Quay Quilters' Show & Tell.

Mary Barnes' quilt from Maggie Kingston's workshop for Oast.

Pauline's piece from a workshop.

Mary I. with Africa quilt for a niece.

Elephant walk

Nymans: the rockery