Sunday 27 June 2010

BLOG 17

If you are visiting the blog for the first time, you will see that there are 3 sections to each entry. Life Before Quilting documents my early years up until the time I started to quilt. My Quilting Journey covers my 25 years of teaching and the quilts that I have made during that period. Quilting 2010 addresses what’s happening in my quilting life now. Just enjoy what you are interested in and visit often!


LIFE BEFORE QUILTING 1970

Formal classes at the school on Tarawa were scheduled for the mornings, the coolest time of the day. After lunch, there was a compulsory rest period for the children and this was followed by organised activities for an hour before the evening meal.
The PE lessons usually took the form of playing games, mainly volleyball, softball and tennis and the pupils were the keenest I have ever known. The pitches, on hard packed coral, were marked out, regularly I might add!, with lines of the whiter coral sand carried from the waterside. There were regular inter-house competitions played during the activity sessions and a sports day held once a year. (My greatest dilemma then was to mark out a full size and accurate running track, using white sand to mark the lanes!) As a teacher, usually wearing tennis whites and sunglasses, I taught technique, organised teams and umpired the matches.
I also had to teach classes at the Tarawa Teachers College (TTC) where students from 18 to 40 were being trained as teachers for the primary schools on the outlying island. Although we played the usual games, I was also interested to learn about local games.


MY QUILTING JOURNEY 1986



Jacobean Spring 62” x 78”

Jacobean Spring was my first competition entry, way back in 1986. The event was held at Audley End in Northamptonshire and the Marquis of Bath presented the prizes. My quilt was voted the winner of the hand appliqué section and was then selected as the over-all Championship Quilt! Imagine my surprise and delight. I had started at the top … and I have managed to work my way down over the next 20 years! For my efforts I was awarded 4 pairs of Wilkinson Sword scissors: dressmaking, embroidery, snips and pinking shears (not the sewing machine that is awarded nowadays!). I must also say that, way back then, this quilt was fresh, original and different. It wouldn’t win any prizes in today's competitions where availability of fabric, expertise in technique and innovation in design are far superior. But in 1986 I was proud to be National Patchwork Champion!


Championship prize 1986

QUILTING 2010

In Blog 10, I referred to my Alston teaching sample, seen below. This has been hanging on my wall since March, waiting for an excuse to complete it. That excuse has just arrived in the form of the Gresford Craft Show. This has been held every June for the last 30 years in the beautiful village church. The building, beautiful in its own right, makes a majestic gallery and many crafts are represented. You can see beading, felting, knitting, crochet, embroidery, painting, card making and quilting. This year Wrexham Flower Group is represented and there is a charming display of miniature rooms. There are plants to buy, a tombola, a sales table, refreshments and Dot with her ‘Quilting Basics’ stall. What more could a girl want?
I decided to complete the wall hanging that I started at Alston Hall in March. As I have plenty of Irises out at the moment in the garden, they were an obvious choice for inspiration.



Alston teaching sample




Iris wall hanging 11 ½” x 35”


Iris detail 1

Iris detail 2
The pinked scissors I won in the National Patchwork Championship in 1986 have come into their own now, as I use them regularly when constructing these painterly hangings. The fused fabrics are bonded onto the prepared background, and I have to do a lot of textured stitching to hold down the strips and small pieces in place.

Thursday 17 June 2010

BLOG 16

If you are visiting the blog for the first time, you will see that there are 3 sections to each entry. Life Before Quilting documents my early years up until the time I started to quilt. My Quilting Journey covers my 25 years of teaching and the quilts that I have made during that period. Quilting 2010 addresses what’s happening in my quilting life now. Just enjoy what you are interested in and visit often!

LIFE BEFORE QUILTING

Life on Tarawa, the main island in the Gilbert Islands group, was certainly different from anything I had ever known before! Land consisted of a strip of compressed coral, no more than about 6 to 12 feet above sea level. This tiny strip of land was so narrow in places that it was possible to throw a stone into the ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other. There was only 12 miles of hard packed coral on the south side of the atoll that could loosely be called a road and, although a few cars had started to appear, bicycles and motorbikes were the main mode of transport. The remainder of the island, stretching to the north of the 100 square mile lagoon, was broken into smaller uninhabited islands by tidal channels but it was possible to walk and wade to the Catholic mission school of Taborio if necessary. The mission was mainly accessed by boat. Coconut palms accentuated the shaped of the atoll and gave welcome shelter from the searing rays of the tropical sun. This same sun rose in the morning at 6am and switched off dramatically some 12 hours later as it disappeared over the horizon.

MY QUILTING JOURNEY

The hand appliquéd and hand quilted sections of what became known as Jacobean Spring progressed steadily, in between my regular classes and travelling workshops. After 10 weeks of intensive work it was sent off unwanted, unloved and uninsured to the National Patchwork Championships. Quite frankly, with the intensity of work I had seen enough of it and was glad to see the back of it!

‘Only 10 weeks!’ I hear you gasp. It was at this time that I started to learn how to save as much time for my sewing as possible:-
I taught my daughters how to cook: Tin opener: can. Can: tin opener!
I only ironed the front of my husband’s shirts in the sure faith that he just didn’t look at the backs.
I realised that if ‘stuff’ was put back where it belonged, it produced an aura of orderliness.
I sprayed polish into the air just before my husband came home so he would assume that I had been polishing.
I have always been told by my husband that I never put things away after I used them so all I had to do was leave out the polish and duster or the Hoover and he would just assume that I had used it!

What a game but at least the quilt was finished quickly!



Jacobean Spring Detail 1




Jacobean Spring Detail 2


QUILTING 2010

Little progress has been made quilt-wise due to a trip to London where we attended a practice for the Trooping of the Colour. We watched the Colonel’s Review with the Duke of Edinburgh officiating - a practice for the Queen’s Birthday Parade the following weekend. The 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards was trooping its Colour this year having recently returned from Afghanistan in April. Regimental flags were historically known as ‘colours’ because they displayed the colours and insignia worn by the soldiers of different units. The principal role of a regiment’s colours was to provide a rallying point for the troops in the chaos of war and so it was necessary to display them through the ranks of troops. This is the origin of the word ‘trooping’.

The spectacular event, in the welcome June sunshine, was an impressive mix of striking red and black uniforms, precision marching and manoeuvrings and pulse-stirring music. What I shall remember most, and what you don’t pick up when you watch the even on television, is the rhythmical crunch of the over-polished boots on the loose gravel of the parade ground. Nor will I forget the gleaming coats of the high stepping horses as they passed proudly and spiritedly before us. Absolutely great!