Little Gems

At the Festival of Quilts which I attended last weekend the Quilters' Guild held a "Little Gems" tombola where you had the chance to win an A4 quiltlet donated in aid of the St Anthony's Quilt Centre and Museum. Someone I met had won four including a beautifully quilted, trapuntoed and corded one by Philippa Naylor. Mine was by Carol Mowat someone whose work I have noted at Quilt Shows. I also won one for friend Monica by Margaret Cooter, a presence on the British Quilt List. I'm going to deliver it to her today at The Dragonflies Show in Deal, Kent, UK. The organisers started with 1600 pieces and more came in as the show progressed; they were divided up into the four batches one for each day and all were gone by the end, a super way to raise money, enjoyed by makers and winners alike.

Block redone

The comment on the previous post hit the nail on the head. I thought about leaving it as a teaser but feel the quilt will be so OTT anyway in terms of fabrics, colours and variations in value as my lights range from medium to very light and the darks likewise from medium to very dark that further complications would just be annoying as well as confusing. So I've redone the block.

One step forward two back

Look at my latest KG block when set with earlier ones. Something is wrong.

Katherine Guerrier block

I made another Katherine Guerrier block partly as a leader ender while working on the U3A quilt.

Patchwork Party 03

I made my third PP party block yesterday afternoon - a slighly odd design which I changed slightly as the green and coral corner blocks should be in alternate positions but I decided to maintain the diagonal look.

Patchwork Party in the Log Cabin

We met in the log cabin yesterday and produced the blocks we've been working on, Alison's in pretty pastels, Trish's in purple and green, mine in orangy colours and Mavis's in green, green and more green!

Patchwork Party

Last week we met in the log cabin to cut out our next Patchwork Party block a real stinker! It was designed by Marti Michell for use with her tenplates and I have the basic set which makes things easier. Choosing fabrics was not so easy and I have enough rejects for a couple more blocks so lets hope these shapes repeat themselves later in the project. As for sewing I didn't have a plan except to do the four side centre squares but otherwise just kept going till it all went together. Now I like it and visit my sewing room to gloat.

Group Garden Party

This week I went to a garden party of a group I visit every other year or so to sew and work on charity projects which I set for them. So it was nice to be invited to a lovely lunch and share some time with them. They make friendship quilts and the lucky winner is pictured here with her quilt. Also we tried to decide whether the turquoise or fuchsia background was best with these super stars. I think the turquoise harmonises better but the vote seemed to go to the fuchsia pink.

U3A Cherrywood piece

I've made a start on combining the blocks the U3A novices made into a quilt and created problems for myself in the urge to "get on". I meant to quilt the blocks individually and join into horizontall rows with vertical sashing pieces and then join these with horizontal sashing but somewhere along the line forgot so I now have sashed squares and oblongs. I can manage quilt as you go but it will be tricky. I shall still use this method as the blocks will still be easier to quilt this way.

Longarming our raffle qult

Last night we went to Alison's of "Smart Frog" to take the Oast Quilters' raffle quilt to be longarmed. We chose pattern and thread and look forward to seeing the result. Once it's bound and been shown at the Oast Quilters' Open Day I'll post about it. Reactions to the top haven't been particularly enthusiastic but we like it very much. It's been very well made and is in classic country colours.

Quay Quilters' Quilt Show 02

I've spent the last three days wrapped up in our quilt show, setting up, enjoying all the visitors, a day in the kitchen and taking down and now at home storing stands and unpacking bags. Was it worth all the work and worry? YES! Lots of nice comments, getting to know members better and realising what super people they are as lots worked their socks off. We judge our show and the winner of the Silver Thimble was Valerie with a beautifully stitched blue sampler quilt, first was Vanessa with an amazing optical illusion quilt, second was me with my Christmas Silent Stars sampler and third was Mellony with a quilt of squares and appliqued 3-D silk flowers which also won Visitors' Choice. This year's winner of the Silver Thimble will judge the next show in two years time if we have one. We rely on free use of the hall as part of the Swale Festival.

Quay Quilters' Show 01

I have been storing items for the QQ show in my spare room for two or three weeks and when I entered would find this shameless hussy a disconcerting presence. She's sitting up now, legs crossed and fairly decent. We set up the show today with conspicuous lack of leadership from me and after chaos mid-morning, order materialised at lunch thanks to stunning efforts of our members. I think this will be one of our best ones, in part thanks to our newer members, one of whom won the "Silver Thimble".

Usual Suspects 02

Speaking of lunch, here is lunch and my efforts of the day, 6" blocks for my Katharine Guerrier quilt and some handsewing of U3A hexagons. This Mellony finished for me with exquisite stitches.

Usual Suspects 01

We had the inaugural meeting of the "Usual Suspects" on Thursday, a newly formed group who are to meet for a day every two months to sew, show and tell, chat etc. I think of us as the Ladies who Lunch as the hostess prepares a lunch for everyone but no pressure; the point is the good company. Anyway Belinda brought her Katharine Guerrier blocks along, the best yet. Definite stirrings of envy as her fabrics were super, lots of Fassetts, batiks and brights but wonderfully combined. Alongside this she was beautifully handsewing a traditional eight pointed diamond piece. Mellony finished her curtains made from lovely autumnal colours.

A Finish!

This week I've been sleeping under my latest finish which has been in the works for over a year: Josy's Quilt. I always planned to make a quilt for her but always got sidetracked and it was supposed to be a lap quilt but it got bigger. I used the sandcastles pattern from Teri Christopherson's Black Mountain Quilts book or the picture anyway. I like the fact it looks as if made from fourpatches made from four different fabrics joined with narrow sashing whereas it's really a block of four identical squares with a central cross of "sashing". I thought buying four identical Moda Jan Patek charm square packs was a good wheeze and I made up the blocks in Ocean Shores NSW where we were house swapping. It was a very quiet remote spot so I had lots of time and was very grateful for the use of a sewing machine. Putting the blocks together came later, then a period of agonising over how to border it especially as the fabric line was now defunct but this turned out to be a good thing as the completely non coordinating red and gold lifted it. Then it took a long time to hand quilt. I've just sewn on the label today another first as the lettering is the alphabet on my Janome. I knew it had an alphabet but didn't really believe in it. It was very straightforward though I expected the machine to work across rather than up and down. Anyway it will go in the show and if Josy attends it will be the first she knows about it.

Goodbye quilt

I made this quilt at a Crab &Winkle day tutored by Maggie. 36" square it was intended as a charity quilt but I was too fond of it to give to a stranger. Now its moment has come as my daughter's "sister in law" is expecting a baby boy and she would like a quilt, this one, so it has a good home to go to. So it's "Goodbye quilt".

Patchwork Party

Yet another new project! We Log Cabins are now missing our Houston Stars project and have embarked on a new set of blocks which we also plan to assemble using the quilt as you go method. We are using a set of blocks seen in an advert. No longer available on the web we are drafting them ourselves. I was determined to use fabric from my stash but have already weakened as the coral colour was only a fat eighth so I've sent to Oakshotts for more. I'm not sure I will have enough and have had to resort to calico for my background and alternating quilted squares. It will look very old fashioned. The main fabric was bought when my son was in his first year at university. His university days are more than a decade ago!
This is the first block. We are being issued them one at a time to keep us all together.

Katharine Guerrier workshop 03

The pair of blocks are mine and I assumed all our blocks would look the same but I hadn't bargained for the difference in our scrap bags and the desire to coordinate. It shows how the same pattern or way or working can accommodate different personalities and why this craft of ours is so endlessly fascinating. Just fascinating as the video said!

Katharine Guerrier Workshop 02

Here is Katharine's book and the first 12" block I made in the class. It has a 6" star in the centre made from high contrast brights and is surrounded by 3" HSTS made from piles of scrap squares sorted into light and dark piles and placed in pairs right sides together, a line drawn diagonally across the light square and seams sewn 1/4" on either side then cut in half along the drawn line and pressed open. My squares were cut 4" and then trimmed to 3.5 once sewn and and cut.

Katharine Guerrier workshop 01

Last Saturday Katharine Guerrier came to talk to us at Oast. Her quilts from the very first hexagon effort were very distinctive and all had a special something. She's written several books but my favourite is her latest "Scrap quilt sensation" as the quilts are stunning though shapes and technique are accessible to beginners and they really are made up of SCRAPS not FQ collections like so many and it's the multiplicity of these that gives her quilts their look. She did 3 workshops for us and I went to the Monday one to make or rather embark on this star quilt. The photos are of Katharine's quilts! I've included one made from half square triangles as well.