BLOG 155

Some of my followers may be interested in the breakdown of the finances of last week’s Gresford Show. It was our most successful so far.  And again the figures illustrate just what an important part food plays in the success of our show!

 

Figures for the week as follows:-

Visitors    947

Admission    £2367.50

Food            £2747.30

Plants            £186.45

Tombola        £500

Challenge        £195

Commission    £150

Magazines        £88.35

Donations to be given

£1200 each to the Church, Memorial Hall and Hospice

£700 each to the 4 local charities

£195 from the Challenge to the Breast Cancer Fund

Challenge

1^st: Willow Williams … rectangular bag with wooden handles

2^nd: Jenny Harrison … flower picture

3^rd: Angela Jones … patchwork rabbit

 

 

                                      Challenge entries

 

I have been away to visit my mother in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. This town has been in the glare of the public spotlight recently as the result of failures in the Health Care system, in particular at the Furness General Hospital. A few miles away, the town of Dalton-in-Furness, where I was born and brought up, was also in the news recently following the death of a female keeper in the lion enclosure. This is not the way you really want your home town to be immortalised! That said I always find it comfortable to revisit the familiar sights of my formative years. I doubt I would want to live there again having been away from the place for 2/3rds of my life, but I really do enjoy ‘visiting’. I used to refer to these trips up north as ‘going home’, but when my parents sold the house I was born and brought up in, I always felt like a visitor there. So ‘going home’ for me now is returning to the place where my husband and I live. And that’s how it should be.

 We are still working on our bedroom. It is slow as there is so much else to do in the garden at this time of the year but we have managed at last to prepare, paint and apply tongue and groove on the wall behind the bed. I have seen and admired this feature in my friend Kate’s house (morgansbedandbreakfast.co.uk) and at last we have had a go! I just love it and with the ‘String of Diamonds’ quilt on the bed, we are making progress.

 

                           String of Diamonds

 

In this room I also want to make a patchwork wall quilt and I have chosen a favourite technique that I taught many, many years ago. I have been reminded of it recently by another friend, Liz, who is about to teach the technique to her students.

So what do you do with a pile of scrap fabrics?

 

 

                                   Reds

 

                                               Neutrals

 You make a quilt!

 

DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

 

This is a Delectable Mountain quilt that I made about 20 years ago for one of my daughters. I was a utility quilt, made to fit the colours in the room, but it has long faded with use.

 

 

                                                Tessa’s quilt

 

FABRIC: I am using scraps of reds and neutrals, the more variety the better, and my starting point for the size of quilt that I am making is a 5” square.

You can start with any sized square; the bigger the quilt, the larger the starting square.

 

METHOD

 1 On the reverse side of all the neutral squares, use a ruler and pencil to draw one of the diagonals.

 

 

                                 Draw the diagonal

 

Press with your hand at the start and finish of the diagonal so that the fabric does not move whilst it is being marked.

 

 

                                        Stabilise the fabric

 

2 Place a neutral square, with RS together, on top of a red square and pin to hold them together.

 

                                       Squares RS together

 

 

                                             Pin to secure

 

3 Use a neutral thread to sew a ¼” seam on both sides of the marked diagonal line.

 

 

                        Sew seams on both sides of the diagonal

  

4 Iron the squares to settle the stitches and smooth the fabric across the diagonal.

 

 

                                                       Iron

 

Continued next week.