sneak peek

After many false starts and new beginnings, I finally decided it was done and mailed my first ever entry to the Festival of Quilts.  I am not sure whether I am allowed to show it on the net so am only giving a sneak peek for now.  I now have to wait for the judges comments and hope that they are not too critical. 

Alicia Merrett day

Alicia Merrett came to a local quilt group and there were spaces so I booked and I am very
glad I did.  In the morning we did free form cutting and joining, although mine wasn't as 'free' as I would have liked. 

In the afternoon I learned how to do those itsy bitsy inserts.  These pieces are around 5 inches high. We would normally have done much more but it was so hot, the irons and sewing machines didn't help to cool the room either. 

















I love these techniques and have already a project in mind once I finish the one I am supposed to making for the Festival of Quilts.  I do love a new technique :)

twisted bowl class

Teaching is such a pleasure, I get to share things I know (and boss people around!)  The
women who signed up for the twisted bowl class really excelled themselves.

This is Annette, always fun and since I met her at Stitchcraft we have become good friends.  She does wear strange things on her head sometimes ;)

I pinched this pic from the Stitchcraft web site, I didn't have time to take photos on the day, I do tend to run around like a headless chicken.. Didn't everyone do fantastic?

missed oportunities

I walk past this field every day, lately it has been a field of bright yellow but I noticed the poppies coming out and thought "must take a photo of that".  It looked amazing. I finally got around to it today and what do you know.  The rapeseed has bloomed and gone to seed and apart from the odd spot of yellow the view is now of green with masses of poppies.  Still a heart warming view but once again an opportunity I missed through faffing about..

What is it about poppies that make us feel good??

Two grey bags

I had a request for a bag to carry an ipad around in.  The grey tartan was chosen but the
rest was left to me.   As I have been making messenger bags recently for a class, that is what I did. 

  But then I thought, why not make another, slightly different.  So I did.  This one has multiple carry straps so it can be a hand-bag or a shoulder bag.    I can't help thinking it needs a rosette or something, it looks a bit plain.

I do like this second bag, I suspect there will be more like this in my future

orange and yellow

 

 



I needed some sunflower yellow fabric, so had an hour in the studio and produced this deliciously bright piece (3 metre length)   It is even brighter in real light :)  I used lemon yellow with some golden yellow thrown in.

I cut one metre off the long piece and over dyed it with rust coloured procion.















I am in love with the second piece of fabric, but which would be better for my sunflower bowl, which needs to be finished in time to get to the FofQ. 

Edited ....    I overdyed another metre of the yellow fabric, this time with golden yellow.

It is the middle piece in this pic.  I think this will be my sunflower fabric

 

Take a bunch of ladies of a certain age.  Put them in a room together along with their sewing machines and a couple of irons and PHEW,  honestly we could sell the heat generated to the national grid!  It was a huge room but my specs still steamed up.

I took the two day 'Bargello' class with Liz Hands at Stitchcraft I worked hard and managed 

to stitch the quilt top.  There was lots of cutting and sticking stickers on the pieces, but Liz is a great tutor and I only had to unpick one or two rows :)  I need to add the border and backing do the quilting and binding etc, but I am a bit proud of myself.  I do know that not all the corners match up properly, btw.....