Bad blogger

From my absence you might think that I haven't been doing any sewing or quilty socialising. The opposite is true and I've been so tired at the end of the day the computer was the last thing I wanted to take up. Here are some more projects from our Norfolk retreat.

Gillian's Stack and Whackery Squares

From Judy O

Lovely framed hexagons from Maggie

Zen Quilting from Judy

More amazing zen

Disappearing 4-Patches from Marigold

Mandy's phenomenal tumblers

M

Heather's visit

Heather  who lives in these parts and who does lots of stuff for the Modern Group of the Quilters' Guild brought their teaching samples for Judi and me which to choose from as the basis for a workshop and some recent work.

Modern sampler quilt

MQG Teaching samples

Crosses quilt

Lovely use of negative space.

Modern version of Dresden Plate

From our retreat

We are all enjoying each others company and time to sew plus a little shopping too. We are making progress with projects old and new.

Ingrid's blocks begun in my workshop

I completed this Linus top

Linus detail

Two blocks done; 28 to go.

Lvely blocks by Judi

Marigold with her quilt top

And Carrie's imono blocks laid out/

Wednesday night at QQ

Aprons with decorative pockets

It was the end of term at Quay Quilters with the bag challenge decided by popular vote and completed aprons (to wear at our show) laid out as well as Show & Tell.

After Ann's demonstration Valerie came up with these zippys

Following a wedding quilt Jan has come up with this
baby quilt

Jelly Roll Race Day

I'm at the far end, Tracy on left, Mary on my other side and Maggie at right.

Having lunch, Belinda at left and no I didn't eat all the home made
sausage rolls.

Sadly Judi couldn't make it but five happy souls gathered to feast and sew. Four of us had jelly rolls while hostess, Maggie, had cut long and short strips which she joined with 45 degree seams as did Mary. I'm a Mary too and I used squares between my strips - I left the plain white strip out and my Annaluna Pop strips from Stof were very bright. Belinda and Tracy joined theirs with triangles which I  now know how to do having watched Tracy. Lunch was lovely. I plucked up courage to try to make a big cheese scone but Belinda also brought some very successful efforts which we had at lunch (we had mine for tea). I have picked up some helpful scone hints. Tracy showed her completed I Love Scraps  quilt (see post for 14th April) which she had quilted concentrically from the central heart shape. I was impressed and now plan to use concentric circles for my jelly roll quilt so all in all the day was as good as a workshop for me. Thank you friends. I should say Mary came to my aid to untangle the mess my first long strip got into. After that I carefully concertinered the strip sets as they came off the machine.

Tracy's

Mary's still unpressed. She wasn't sure about the red stripe and may take it out.

Belinda's usng Modas.

Maggie's  from her stash; I love the pale colours - another thing  to try.

Mine and I am pleased - to sell or for Linus.

One I made earlier

This is another novelty Linus quilt made from blocks sewn by friends, students and myself. Here the blocks are joined using frames. I hope a child will derive pleasure from looking at the multitudinous subjects depicted.

Margaret W. made the sheep - a very different take.

Horrible burgers from Sisters
friends - we laughed. See
above also.

Juggling

As I am doing the Piece of Cake applique along with friends I need to keep up the momentum with that. As I can't get on with needle turn I have to prepare and press patches which is more time consuming and I am prequiling my blocks; both these processes seemed too hard  in my more poorly state but I am now coming out of that tunnel and sat down at my machine for the first time since early May to quilt the triangle pieces which frame the central on point medallion. Choosing the fabric combinations was the most time consuming part though with quite a few rejects. I also had to change out the centre of the large circle on the medallion as I didn't like my first choice. I'll have to be more gung ho when I get to the blocks otherwise the quilt won't be finished in this life!

Framing triangles with fabric pieces laid out and rejections below.

Central on point block to be trimmed to size ready to
join quilt-as-you-go.

Joseph's Coat is much more straightforward though even there I have to unpick because I have two blocks with the same fabric adjoining.

Latest sections

To be joined to the above once the bottom left block changed out.

Joseph's Coat

My handsewn project continues to grow. I was a bit concerned that some of my 9" blocks weren't entirely suitable but spaces were allocated so I've made 3 fresh blocks, all 8-pointed stars.

I love the grey fabric in this my favourite of the three.

Fame at Last

Very unexpectedly I won three rosettes at Sandown - Traditional Patchwork, Sampler Quilt and Judge's Merit. I hope I wasn't the only contender but as I am not able to attend because of the sprained back (very much better now, though) I shall never know and intend to smugly gloat. I like to put traditional/bed quilts in shows because that is what I want to see and I like to take pictures of them hanging up. Friend Belinda kindly sent me these:

Blue Dragonflies quilt, a Bonny Quilters afternoon project.

Detail - my first and last feathered star.

Poppy Quilt for Judi

Workshop Day

The day of my in-house workshop day dawned at and alleluia I felt better than I have done since the back sprain happened. At last I am returning to normal. So I was able to demonstrate the cutting and pinning and display the quilts just fine and go and visit people as they worked as long as I had a chair to land on. It helped that Petham Village Hall was so well lit and new and that dear friend Judi was the hostess. She made me a lovely lunch and helped with the cutting across the full width.  Her sister Joy and friend Ingrid transported stuff to and from her car. In turn the students, a lovely class, helped each other through the cutting stages and went on to make some lovely blocks though not all of them are here.

We thought these looked like Moorish tiles - Victoria's.

Detail

Betty's - very prolific as I did her cutting for her!

Margaret's butterflies - exquisite

A detail

Another block

Jill's

Detail

A mirror image

Joyce's lovely fabric had a lot of variety so the blocks can be coloured
quite differently

Anddeen's ery effective fabric creates swirls.

S

Sue's

Roz's

Pam's tutti frutti

And again

Jenny's 

Judi's - very tasteful

Cilla's - stripes make for an interesting effect