Sewing day

Every two months the Usual Suspects get together with other friends for a day of sewing, lunch, chat and cake. This time the cake had candles and lunch was accompanied by a small glass of something sparkly to wish a very special member of our group "Happy Birthday".

Hever top in three pieces.

Judi has more or less pieced together the Hever raffle quilt top which five of us made blocks for, batik stars on white-on-white; we think we'll be able to sell lots of tickets.

Hexagon pieces using varying sizes of units.

She's also made modern hexagon pieces inspired by Heather Hasthorpe which will be a Guild workshop project later in the year.
In fact Judi has been very busy, adding more samples of the previous modern log cabin workshop also inspired by Heather and making an envelope quilt.

Modern envelope quilt

Lovely quilting motif

Modern log cabin with a dark bacground

.

.

. . . and one with wider logs

Marigold has finished her centre Stonehouse blocks and laid them out . They very exquisitely sewn and so fresh and pretty.

Cheery rabbit made from suede fabric

and kangaroo likewise

Judy O has nearly completed an African hanging for her husband. There lots of quirky little details and she has some embellishments to add.

Judy O's African piece inspired by Mary I's earlier piece.

 All I did was organise Linus blocks and make one top but others are ready to go at the UFO day on Saturday. Photos to follow when complete.

Stonehouse layout

Hazel Hedgehog

I am continuing with Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Forest quilt pattern determined to look neither right nor left. This afternoon I made two Hazel Hedgehogs. This is a really clever pattern but you really do have to concentrate.
I cut out all the pieces for each block in advance and pin to my soft board with labels.

Some pieces have been assembled and the others pinned and ready to go.
Note that all are rectangular in shape.

They're very sweet

Tu Whit, Tu Whoo

Two owls to join the rabbits - these were quite tricky and used all the colours.

Rabbits

Pocketful of Posies block

Two rabbits from Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Forest pattern.

I've finished the next to the last block shown here for my Piece o' Cake pattern and two rabbits from Fancy Forest. This is for a friend's first grandchild.

Fancy Forest

I have embarked on a quilt for a friend's first grandchild, a boy, using Elizabeth Hartman's "Fancy Forest" pattern. I'm not too sure of how it's going, still less whether the extra piecing effort is worth it. . .First up four foxes.

Spur of the moment

Cherrywood Fabric cushions

On the spur of the moment I decided I should make some kitchen cushions - I made a "Secret Garden" oe some time ago to replace the worst of the bunch but the remaining three were a disgrace. So with speed the essence I quickly pieced three more from my stock of Cherrywood fabrics and walking foot quilted each one from end to end. Today I made zipped backs for them and put them in place. I won't keep them as long and perhaps next time take a little more care with design.
I missed posting one of my Farnham pictures, Cabin Fever by Rebecca Handyside made for son Harry. I made an improv. quilt in similar style - it was fun to do/

Cabin Fever by Rebecca Handyside

A moment of weakness

In a moment of weakness I enrolled for a Liberty Quilt of the Crosses EPP BOM with Sew & Quilt and my lovely parcel has now arrived. I won't be doing it any time soon as I have lots of hand sewing on hand but I did used to have a hand project that I could do when there was nothing else to hand sew before the TV in the evening. In this way I completed my wool felt applique Santa block from a Houston class and combined left over Hexagon rosettes from my very first quilt into a small piece. So my conscience is appeased. This BOM will fill the gap.

Farnham

Last Sunday three of us made the trip to Farnham an annual event where traders sell off surplus stock  and one or two private vendors sell off surplus stash - usually the best ports of call. We were all pleased with our purchases but best of all are the quilt shows mounted by local groups along with demonstrations.
I always look for Brigitte Gillespie's quilts there and we usually have a little chat - she said everyone would be happy for me to post pictures here.

This is Brigitte's Patchwork of the Crosses which she was demonstrating last year. I like the
larger format.

Detail - longarmed by Brigitte herself 

Another quilt by Brigitte called Circles of
Life based on one seen on Instagram.

detail

Frisky Frogs for Zebedee by
Valerie Lillie

Ruth Harrison - Cottage to Castle. I love the soft muted shading. Design by Pam and Nicky
Lintott.

Linus quilts on a maritime theme

A lovely quilt by Brigitte: Polkadot Garden, a Minick and Simpson pattern. This quilt
won several prizes at Sandown

Dot Darrell: Sylvia's Garden. The Village Quilters held a Viewers Choice vote
and this got mine.

Fiona Moss: You are a hidden star. I loved the restrained setting

Back with the U3A

Blocks from my term of blocks last year made by Bid - great colours.

First meet up of the New Year and members shared Completed projects, mainly the bag taught by Margaret.

Bid's with embellishment

Rosemary's

Sylvia

Georgie's

This term's projects are a runner led by me though most seem tempted by the table mat variation.
Margaret is doing a reversible quilt as you go block. Her method is intriguing and I plan to give it a go.

Margaret's quilt

Detail

The reverse

Detail

Margaret#s T quilt variation

Steady as she goes

I have been making steady progress with my applique blocks. I'm doing the top row and have just finished block 1 and number 2 will follow shortly.

Block 1

The layout so far with block top right

Doing the laundry

The blue fabric in of the quilts we made in Judi's Abracadabra workshop ran so today I washed the quilt with a handful of colour catchers to pick up excess dye. It's emerged looking good while the colour changers are blue - perhaps I should have taken the opportunity to dye some pieces! I hung it in my boiler room to dry - you can just see a colour catcher on the side of the wash basket. Now it's been ironed and is lying flat on the carpet. The lovely quilting is by Judi, an expert. The technique is one where you piece a simple 4 patch then cut it and reassemble.

Hanging

Lying

Quayquilter night

One of our members along with her partner does a lot of professional photography work and we are lucky to have them take pictures of our raffle quilt for publicity purposes. I took in my quilt stand to hang it on and many of us took the opportunity to take pictures. It's Gwenfai Rees Griffiths' "Houston Stars" pattern which appeared in British Patchwork and Quilting magazine a number of years ago (2003?) as a part work. Trish masterminded it and Mavis and I were her assistants but everyone in the group has contributed blocks. It's the first one not to have been hand quilted. We shall be selling tickets and displaying it at our quilt show in June in aid of a meningitis charity as we lost a dear member to this illness last year.

This is my photograph. I have another full on one but the colours appear garish in it which they are not!

Quay quilters Raffle Quilt

Hilary showed the quilt she made in time for Christmas - we loved the rick rack and the use of printed pictures and Pauline showed a charity quilt her daughter started using scraps backed with a fleece throw. After the first three rows it was down to Pauline to complete it! On which subject Mary B. bound two Linus quilts for me over the holiday which I collected. Pictures to follow anon.

Hilary's Christmas quilt which I'm sure will get a lot of use over the years.

Quilt for Linus, cuddly and soft.

Table Mats

Mats with central square

Vice versa  reverse side of mats with strips backing whole pieces. 

On a similar theme to double sided runners I decided to make a couple of table mats so that U3A members could opt to make a smaller project. I got rather carried away and made six and the two simpler ones on the basis that if we all get together there are more than six of us.
I learnt some useful lessons:
1. that fabrics in the same line do not all play well together
2. More blenders and backgrounds are required than stars
3. More of fewer colours is best
4. Each side can  need not two but three fabric groups allowing for the previous point.
Now I have to bind them all and look out for some of the pale gold print blender type fabric at Farnham on Sunday.

Just a simple square and side strips

Reverse side - I needed to add a bit of extra quilting to
 this version.

First Finish

My first "finish" of 2017 is yet another Linus picture play quilt. It's 159(f) in the inventory of quilts I have made. T he smaller ones and items like this in which other makers have had a greater or lesser share only count as part of a work.

Back with matching faced binding.

36 by 48: alternature framed and unframed 12" blocks.