2019 Wk 31 - Festival of Quilts Day 1

Woohoo - a weekend with Jackie, and with a zillion other (mostly) ladies in Birmingham.

Some stunning quilts were on show: This amazing piece was made but a lovely friend of Jackie's called Valerie

And a close up

And these next two are by the very talented Avril: a friend who also attends Richmond & Key Quilters

This circle was made from gathered fabric - gathered as if for smocking - I was desperate to touch it: a lovely piece of wall art, although the pleats must collect so much dust!!

These are dorset buttons: tiny ones about thumbnail size, mounted in plastic rings

After 14000+ steps, we went to the town to find out hotel,

and show our purchases

The one where Chertsey ladies made zippy pouches

I had a break from the 9-5 today and made my way to Chertsey museum - first we had a bit of show and tell - just look at this smocking! (Well done Anne)

And Kay's oven gloves:

Then we had a go at making zippy pouches.  We had some great results and they will be finishing these for homework! 

This evening I spent (ok wasted) a bit of time on Facebook and found a lovely message from a May bride this year:

I know we all know people who don't appreciate made gifts - but clearly some do and that makes it all worth while!

Chertsey Museum - Fun With Fabric

A lovely afternoon with 7 ladies at Chertsey Museum, making stained glass patchwork.

Most of them used the cut away method (thank you so much to Doris for teaching me :-), while two used the fusible bias method, and one tried the needle turn method.  They all took home notes and materials for the other methods.

 

We seem to have evolved a bit of show and tell at the sessions too, and some brought back their smocking from last month.

 

 Jenny is a very accomplished needlewoman anyway, and always brings something with a WOW factor to show.  She has decided that everything she starts is to be finished, and with than in mind made her smocking into a hat pin pin cushion:

Prepare to be wowed!

Museum Session

 I had a great afternoon at Chertsey Museum today - 8 ladies all having a go at smocking!  Luckily I had prepared 8 sections of fabric ready to be gathered and smocked, and they all got stuck in.

 Most managed to get two lines stitched, generally top and bottom of the gathered area

 some started on a third row

 while others just worked from the top

I confess I completed very little, but largely because I didn't have a spare piece stitched ready to be gathered, so I thought that was a jolly good excuse!

I have, however managed some embroidery - machine embroidery on another block for Hilary's texture quilt.  This is four squares filled with a programmed fill stitch, so nothing technically impressive, but it feels lovely!

 

and this block is an embroidery of a Labrador puppy - must be Dixie!!!

where did that week go?

I cant believe I haven't posted for over a week, although we've been so busy that maybe I can believe it!

We had a weekend in Weymouth with husband's family followed by a week which included Niki getting into a tangle with another driver (totally his 'bad', luckily no one hurt at all, but very scary, ) and time out to get quotes and arrange the insurance claim, and the old furniture being collected by a charity (who refused the sofa bed due to a tiny coffee stain on the mattress!).

Saturday's Library class saw us making paper pieced hexagons, and the Church class involved starting to copy a handbag, and putting a new ribbon on a hat!

 I managed to squeeze in a visit to my local quilting shop  on Friday (I had to take one of my church ladies to get fabric for her bag!) and today we took a trip to Portsmouth to see mum, and while Brian drove, I stitched running stitches onto some gingham for the museum class on Friday where we are going to tackle smocking

The Five A Day quilt has has a black border added, and scrappy binding has been machine stitched to the front and pinned to the back: I just need a little time to finish it!

(Photos are from my fancy new phone - any distortion will be my fault for not driving it properly!!)

Now I'm off to bed!