BLOG 417

Blog 417

 

What a great exhibition we had in Chester on Friday and Saturday! We have a tremendous amount of sewing talent in the Chester Ps&Qs group and it was delightful to see it on display at this eye-catching exhibition. Churches lend themselves to displays of creative art mainly because of the exaggerated vertical space which we can fill successfully with draped quilts. And somehow the solemnity of the building adds an air of quiet contemplation and elevates our work to a more profound level.  Our exhibition illustrated how quilters make their chosen quilts for different reasons. It showcased a variety in techniques and fabric choices and in colour and size. There were fabrics stalls, book stalls, raffle, tombola’s, refreshments, and Linus quilts. Our group quilts, 8 in total (one is still in America!), had a spacious room to themselves and it was the best display I have seen with them all together; I felt immensely proud to have been part of making them happen! I was stewarding for the first couple of hours on Friday and the attendance was steady with much ‘oohing and ahhhing’. I talked my way through most of my stewarding slot (no change there then!), meeting up with many ladies who used to come to me for classes; it was a great social gathering. Here is a selection of the wonderful creativity on display. (BTW I made up the titles for some of the quilts; I tried to interpret what they were saying to me!)

 

 

            Recycled striped shirts (English paper piecing)

 

          Detail

 

           Sampler

 

        Modern stained glass (quilt-as-you-go method)

 

            Japanese blue and white

 

            Recycled denims

 

           Flying triangles (good use of a coloured fabric)

 

            Log cabin (fabulous butterfly quilting)

 

            Trip round the world

 

          Single Irish chain (with Dresden plate snowflake)

 

            Snowflake detail

 

          Aspirational sampler (perhaps a block of the month?)

 

           Feather detail

 

         Reds and whites (traditional)

 

           Blues and Whites (modern)

 

          Cathedral Tiles

 

             Tile detail

 

            Flower trellis

 

            Garden birds (inspired by Gail Lawther)

 

            Bullfinch detail (raw edge applique with invisible thread quilting)

 

          Selection of lap quilts

 

           Batik bricks

 

           African sampler

 

           Batik scrap quilt (inspired by me!)

 

           Tiled sampler (inspired by Lynne Edwards)

 

BLOG 416

BLOG 416

I have been putting more time into the felted miniature houses this week and I am pleased with the results. You can perhaps appreciate now how drawing quirky details with a black thread helps to bring the pictures to life.

            Felted miniatures

 

The next step before framing is to add a piece of card to the back of each one. When I get round to adding some double-sided sticky tape on the back of this card, I will be able to position/reposition them accurately within the mounting frame.

           Cardboard backing

 

In order to encourage the card to stick to the felt, the pictures are pressed between heavy books. These will be mounted and framed this coming week.

             Pressure sticking

 

The Shaded Liberty quilt has been completed to a ‘throw’ size, pressed well and put away for a while until I can face quilting it. All my remaining Liberty fabrics will be passed onto my Gresford chums.

             Shaded Liberty

 

This means that I can now turn my attention back to the half square triangles (Blog 403) which I have made en masse to use up lots of my remaining cotton fabrics. The squares are bright and cheerful and the fabrics evoke many memories from my quilt teaching days so I am enjoying sewing these squares together. I am also getting the pleasure of creating small quilts in the many different designs that can be created from this versatile building block. So it’s joy all round, a very necessary emotion if you intend to get to the end of any project!!!

              Half-square triangles

 

 

            Whirligigs

 

       Flying Geese in progress

 

           Flying Geese

 

           Noughts and Crosses

 

 

The colours of autumn are stunning now especially when illuminated by the bright sunshine we have been enjoying lately. My garden has well and truly and savagely been put to bed this year but there are some plants that you just can’t rush; they just want to die back in their own sweet time. Here’s one of my cascading delights.

           Floral cascade

 

 

We have caused a great amount of hilarity this week with the following pic, telling the family we had taken up caravanning in our old age and needed to do it on the cheap!

 

           Caravanning!

 

BTW Chester Patchworkers and Quilters Exhibition is at the United Reform Church, 44 Heath Rd, Chester CH2 1HX on October 26th 10am to 6pm and October 27th 10am to 5pm. Admission £3. This will be a great opportunity to see the varied and excellent work of the members. Our collection of our group quilts (to date) will also be there.

BLOG 415

Blog 415

 

I have been sewing at Suzette’s again and I love going because, apart from the excellent company, I am surrounded by such inspiring work. I have learned so much from the others who have years of embroidery knowledge and experience behind them. Here are their works in progress.

 

             Peggy’s butterflies

 

 

            Detail

 

 

            Pat’s waterfowl

 

               Suzette’s composition

 

Being surrounded by embroidery didn’t stop me from felting this week though! I have an order for several pictures with felted houses; these will be Christmas gifts so I needed to get on with them. Once the bags of colours were beside me I was raring to go and I started to mash fibres on my embellishing machine. Instead of trying to make individual squares to a certain size, I decided to try to make one large piece of felt this time and to cut it down into smaller squares. And we are talking small this time. These squares are 2”!! (Note to self: don’t cut the squares to the required size until the houses have been felted. The felting process distorts the square!)

      

            Felting wools

 

 

 

               Needle felting

 

 

              Background squares

 

 

               Basic houses

 

 

            Stitch detail

 

            Second set

 

A third set of 9 is made up of larger 3” squares. This is a work in progress and hopefully I will be able to show them framed next time.

             Third set

 

             Stitch detail

The weather is altering now as we settle into a colourful autumn and the cats certainly know where to find comfort and warmth. Here they are in their usual places beside the log fire doing their barely-synchronised grooming!

            Autumn

 

This week I managed to find a rainbow for my finger. I just love it!

             Rainbow finger