Dilys The Quilt: BLOG 450

Blog 450

We had a bumper year at Gresford this year, our best yet. The total raised to date is £8815.77 and all of it will be going to our selected charities for the year. Most of the money was raised in the kitchen with all the delicious food on offer and this was closely followed by entry fees, with 1,094 people attending. It is worth all the effort when the results are this good. Next year will be out 40^th year and this must make Val Shields very proud as she was the one who had the courage and foresight to launch this event all that time ago.

I mentioned last week that I was doing a scrap project on my machine, one sewn on a paper foundation using a ‘Stitch and Flip’ technique. It was something that I didn’t have to concentrate on and one which I could easily explain/stop/start when the need arose. Someone had given me a pile of plain paper rectangles, nothing special, but just something that I needed to use up (I generally use the lined refill paper pads for this method). Armed with a pile of scraps of different widths I showed people how to sew them in lines onto paper. The most asked question was ‘Why do you use paper?’ and the answer is for accuracy. All I needed to do was cover the paper with the strips and then, after pressing, I could turn it over and cut away the excess fabric around the edge of the paper. The secret of this method it to use a tiny perforating stitch on your sewing machine; one that doesn’t rip the paper as you are stitching but which later tears when it is tugged. Using this method means you don’t have to pre-cut the strips to size before sewing and, as long as you have one straight edge, you can’t go wrong! As the colours were bright, I chose black as a surround fabric. And that’s the story so far.

Strips

Stitch and flip

Black insert

Here are some of my exhibits. It was good to see some old friends again, brought down from boxes in the loft, and to exhibit some of my more recent work.

Open Gate (and screen)