Away weekend

Maggie's African fish laid out

Maggie's ladybird quilt in the making - a Jan Mullen technique

My bedroom!!!

My windows and balcony

Sewing in the kitchen extension

Space for hand sewing and watching films

View from balcony

Maggie's quilt with border

Away for the weekend

Five of us made our annual trip to the seaside, staying in a house, sewing, watching films and going out for walks and visiting the food festival. I haven't been well so had a laid back time with long lie ins, afternoon naps and leisurely strolls but by the end I was so much better. I took along some easy things which will be the subject of demonstrations and an upcoming workshop.

Four squares

Cut up and sewn back together

From four squares I made a convergence piece - I have four more squares so may make a bag with a convergence variation on each side.
Next up was a simple split ninepatch. I'll border the little quilt with a narrow red insert to pep it up.

Latest effort

I am now trying to use up leftover pieces from completed quilts, usually on  casual improv. lines and this follows on from my Skopolos quilt though I now wish I hadn't included the leftover block. It measures 42 x 49" and owes not a little to a Helen Howes pattern in a recent magazine.

This is the way I laid it out

but perhaps it's better this way up ?

Last from Hever

The rose garden

Hever is a lovely day out, not just for the quilts but for the lovely gardens though the weather was rather dull this year. This year we had tickets to go round the house and were greeted by an Anne Boleyn lookalike.

Janet Hall: Red for Matt and Jo: she attended a fractured flowers workshop, a
technique I'd like to try on a smaller scale.

Louise Bell: Autumn leaves and birds in trees
Applique on linen. I like the unstructured all over use of applique elements.

Rosemary Hesketh: Nine Patch Liberty Tana Lawns

Detail of Liberty fabrics

More from Hever

Belinda Jeffries' Carrie's Walrus quilt

We are off to Bungay today where I'll pay a call to Sew and Sews, a  well stocked fabric shop, and Weightman's where they have a lot of wider fabrics while Alan will visit the Air Museum. Tomorrow we'll be home for lunch.
Meanwhile here are some more pictures from Hever:

My Hawaii Five-O Snails Trail

Joy Warwickand  sister Jud Kirk's lovely quilt for Joy's daughter to mark her wedding, a favourite of mine..

My Feathered Srar

Tansy Martin's magnificent Stonefield quilt which won Viewers' Choice

Marigold Martin's Union Jack quilt, a commission from her son.

My Skopolos quilt

Suffolk travels

We are coming to an end of our Suffolk trip and have done lots of historical and cultural things. In among the memorials and the churches and castles I am also alert to textile bits and pieces.. We started off in one cottage but are now in another - where everything works! However at the first one I was pleased to see draped over a bench and rather bedraggled a quilt. I suspect the child for whom it was made is long grown up.
The Suffolk churches are wide and spacious and light filled but looking down there are usually individually needleworked kneeling pads. I love spotting all the different designs.

The cte cars

A local scene

My favourite, a sheaf of corn

Very appropriate here where fish re abundant

And on a different note an embroidery decorating a stool in th church,
rather Jacobean in its imagery.

And on my own account I have been doing a nightly stint on my Quilt of the Crosses BOM tacking the units for the blocks and joining pieces. I reckon three years; six months to tack and two years and half to sew. May send it out to quilt.. .

My BOM kit

HEVER

The first weekend in September marked the annual return of the Quilters Guild Region Two Quilt Show held in the grounds of Hever Castle home to Ann Boleyn. The Hever folk provide us with a marquee and store our quilt stands and help with the hanging of the very large quilts in the centre. I help put up and take down other quilts. Alan and I bring our trusty ladder with us.
This year's show was one of the best.

by Jo Joy, a an effective use of HST's

Linus baby quilts based on a Modern Quilt group's tutor box; very young babies can only distinguih black and white

I liked the way the quilting echoed but also ovelaid the piecing: food for thought

A poor photo of a group's medallion mystery quilts

This bright one stood out

Brigitte Gillespie's Tula quilt,  shimmering around the iconic Elizabeth Tudor's image print

FOQ TWELVE: winners

A comprehensive list, pictures and description appears on Nicola Foreman's blog. A miniature quilt winning best of show makes the point that all categories are eligible and that it is as hard or harder to make a tiny quilt with all the elements of a large one. However the whole point of these is how she/he she do that and the technical ability involved; I don't think a miniature can ever have the graphic impact and resonance of a full size human scale piece which can be viewed from a distance or in close up. Of course I write from the perspective of a traditional quilter who likes body sized quilts!

Judith Lynch: Sticks and stones 1
This is the Modern Quilts winner and deploys many familiar elements, negative space, narrow
inserts of lines and a cross, neutral background, use of white, minimal colour and
dense walking foot quilting. It's a very nice quilt but I would have liked to see more of the i
individuality that was the hallmark of the first modern quilts.

Detail

Annelize Littlefair: The trouble with magenta, hot or cold
Traditional quilt winner., Again, technique seems to be the main factor in this choice from last year's best of show winner, a longarmer. Again in something relatively small I hould have liked to see more variety of elements and less conventional quilting designs. Again though, a very nice quilt and there is nothing "wrong" about it but not enough for me!

Birgit Schuller: The Sprinter
Winner of The Quilters' Guild Challenge and a super quilt with many levels of complexity with the dynamic visual impact
from a distance, the capture of runners in full flight, the foreground one echoed by a shadowy front runner, restrained and rather unexpected use of green, subtly textured choice of background and wonderful quilting composition which carries the theme forward with start to finishing positions. I love the varying scales and repetitions of depicted figures all subservient to that single
knockout image.

Detail

Mary Palmer and Anne Kiely: Tidings
Winner of the two person section. I love this quilt because of the balnced sections, use of colour
and beautiful delicate motifs. This quilt is an artistic collaboration while many quilts in the
two person section are large professionally long armed quilts. I imagine this makes it very hard to
 judge.

Philippa Naylor: Measure for measure
Miniature winner and Best of Show. Philippa's work on any scale is exquisite and finely
detailed as this tiny beautifully edged quilt demonstrates to perfection.

Friday Frolics: The four seasons
Group quilts create the same judging problems as two person quilts, ranging groups of expert artistic works alongside
regular group quilts by a group with a range of abilities perhaps made to raise money for charity or for local display.
This quilt neatly straddles the two with its four separate sections (a construction solution often resorted to by the
 artistic collaborators), use of a cohesive theme and background shading but combined with traditional Dresden Plate
blocks and fabrics from various stashes.

FOQ ELEVEN: Victoria Findlay Wolfe

A unique feature of FOQ is the way invited displays by groups or individuals are shown in white walled  professionally lit galleries, setting off the pieces to full advantage. One of the galleries (no pictures allowed) was curated by Nancy Crow and I am rginding my teeth because I didn't see it in full so missed a chance to see a quilt by Nancy "in real life"., having only ever seen her work in books.
However I just love and admire Victoria Findlay Wolfe s quilts; she is an absolute virtuoso but what comes through in her work is the sheer joy of making and playing with possibilities. She seems to be a very nice sharing person as well.