Maid Marion had made lots of 6" half square triangle units. She played with them and came up with this quilt centre, she added borders and then decided that she wanted it to be bigger, so... we turned the left over units into hour glass blocks and played with settings for them..., a few 'mathy' moments later, the 'coping strip' size was calculated and production resumed....
Joan The Shop scetched a few flags, got out the 'sticky stuff', traced her designs and then pressed them onto her fabric, we do love 'sticky stuff! She stitched it using blanket stitch... just a few more flags to go and the backing will be ready to be sandwiched... oooops I mean the second top, not backing.
Brenda Barbara free-motion quilted beach bag panels then made a big pocket for the front of it... we've had two days with warm sunshine you know... that and the hall heating finally working well, we were warm as toast!.. time to be thinking about beaches....?
Barbie is adding borders to her quilt based on my Lilly's Colours, getting the triangles the right way up and turning corners, keeping the direction flowing, can be a bit of a challenge, but she did it very successfully.
My Mum (Gwynneth) made up her sandwich and spent the day quilting... she's doing "Ditch Hopping"... it's our new and liberated way to do 'Stitching in the Ditch' and we love it! We meet again next Wednesday 2nd & Friday 4th of March.
10am - 3pm, as usual.
I know your gardens are calling you to play outside... with spring fast approaching there's so much needing to be done... but I booked a few days of rain for the weekend, I thought it would help us to have time for stitchy fun instead, he he he
Joan The Shop has been making her pattern up as she goes, can you remember her Peppa Pig quilts... all little sketches brought to life with fabrics... isn't applique a wonderful thing...
This is Joan's completed winner's trophy from the cross-stitch pattern, the 'H' is for Harvey... a winner in Joan's eyes... well... tis her grandson no less. The trophy should be on the back of this quilt, along with a few appliqued cars and flags, but it's looking more like the front now... wait a minute.... tis just double sided... who needs a back when you can have two fronts eh!! !
Gilly just missed her deadline for finishing this quilt... she decided to sleep a few hours each night you see... if she hadn't she'd have made it bang on time, he he he. The quilting's finished now though, by the time Gilly left the Quilt Cave there was only binding to be done.
Shirley Lerly has 10 of these blocks completed and the other 14 are are almost done. There's going to be cream sashing (not the one in this picture though) with corner stones of the lotus leaf fabric... the borders are not decided yet.... we're making it up as we go along, fun!
Helen is doing a fantastic job with this project, it's taking a while but well worth the all the extra hours. Helen received the book for Christmas, here's the link to project, as you will see, this bit is the centre... Helen says it's her practice piece... WOW it's looking good. 
Foxy Margaret is also making it up as she goes along... we do promote PMS you know... that's "Please My Self" patchwork & quilting. There's going to be a couple more borders yet as it needs to fit a double bed... from table runner to bed quilt... very cool!
Annie Pie is so pleased with this quilt that she's making another. The next one will be bigger and made with richer reds and creams... so, basically, it will be the same... but different! More PMS I think, he he he. Annie has also started a "Square Dance" quilt.. more on that next time she joins us...That's it for this time, when we're busy the camera gets forgotten, of course, if you want to see more, you could always come on over and join the fun... we meet again on Friday 25th February, 10am until 3pm. Table Top Shop is open to everyone between these hours, you don't have to stay all day to use it, and let's not forget our very busy 'Kettle Corner', where visitors are always welcome.
I went to the trade show..... Oh, what a lot of stuff ... beautiful fabrics, yarns and all sorts of other crafty, fun stuff.
Here's just one small selection... I could choose 20 of these, how on earth can you choose only 20 bolts from such a lot of gorgeous fabrics....
OK, I went a little bit over, plus the 20 bolts from here and 20 or so from there... and, and, and.... all will be available soon at the Table Top Shop, wadding on the side.... I'll let you know as soon as they arrive.
When choosing quilting designs, you need to be sure to get an equal amount of stitching over the whole project. If you have a lot of heavy quilting in some blocks and lighter quilting in others, it's a recipe for wonkiness... which is just fine if that is what you are looking for.... I was not. This quilt has light quilting in the surrounding areas (did you know that some wadding/batting allows you to quilt as far apart as 10"?) A large flowery design was just the ticket... I cut my piece of paper to the size of the block to be quilted and doodled until I was happy, then I went over and over the design with my pencil so that my brain could tell my hands what we were looking for... does that make sense? The four little holes you see in the paper are where I placed tiny pencil dots on the block to give me a guide for the inner circle... dots to aim for, no need for the whole thing to be drawn. 
It's safe to admit that I quilted the day away yesterday... I decided not to put the circles in the middle of the flowers as they could have made it looked puckered. Well, the weather was just horrible, perfect for retreating to my Quilty Quarters, I hope you managed to have a little stitchy time... I really enjoyed mine.
Gilly's never ending blocks are done, finished and fabulous... sashing in place, inner border strips and big borders strips have been cut to size... all is looking good for a Tuesday finish! The wadding has been measured ready for the sandwich.... so I'm an optimist but Gilly's working around the clock on this now... I can hear it ticking!
Dotty Maureen has decided to do apartment quilting on this project so she has lots of little sandwiches ready to be quilted.. goodness knows how she is following her design sheet, every block is different with different colours that have to be linked
What a lovely job Helen is doing on this project, we were oooooing and ahhhing over it, it looks so special with the colours she's chosen, she's very pleased with it too... at the end of the day, that's all that matters eh.
Kate's quilt is done, here she's adding the 2 1/2" binding by machine and she'll stitch the back side by hand, it's a beautiful quilt... remember? it's the one that inspired Wednesday Wendy....
Lynda completed enough piano keys strips and was able to add them to her black and white top, she's been working on this quilt for over two years and now the end of the fist phase is getting closer, of course there's the quilting to do... no rush though.
Shirley Lerly has made over 80 Flying Geese blocks ready to make the Saw Tooth Star blocks, each block needs 4 geese so, actually that must be 96 she's made... lovely and bright ready for spring... tis nearly spring have you seen the evidence... crocus and snowdrops and stems of daffodils... very exiting...
My Mum (Gwynneth) came today ready to hand stitch her Cathedral Window bits on her 10 minute block quilt but I had another plan for her time... I found a great pattern in a magazine and I don't have time to do it.... not right now anyway... I can't wait to see how it looks so Mum started it for me... for her too of course, if she likes it when it's done, you will get to see the progress soon enough.We meet again on Wednesday 23rd and Friday 25th February 10am - 3pm and we're sure to have a spare table if you would like to join us.New fabrics and threads have arrived on the Table Top Shop and 3 kinds of waddings are always available.
I'm going to start this post with a few 'Show & Tell' pictures.
My Mum (Gwynneth) finished the last few stitches on her binding today so, apart from making a label, this beauty is done. Time to start the next one... a 'Storm At Sea' me thinks... maybe in luscious reds?
Irene made this fabulous table runner with a Mystery Monday project from here Irene's very proud of her 'pointy points', she's used quite Christmassy fabrics so lets hope she can get it done in time... he he he... 9 months should do it, eh?
Joan The Shop has called this quilt 'My Blanket' because that's what her toddler grand daughter, Alicia, calls it... how cute. The reds and creams contrast so well with this design to give the WOW factor... don't you think?
Arty Beryl finished this quilt a few weeks ago and hung it immediately in her home... she forgot to let us see it! Luckily she remembered it today... it's one that you have to see 'in real life' there are so many details and things to look at.. wonderful.
Now back to today's stitchy business... Arty Beryl was working on another Scrappy Bargello quilt (one of my favourite designs to make... if you're interested!) you can throw just about any colour and design of fabric into these quilts and they just get better!
Wendy admits to being a little surprised with her fabric choices for this next project... she usually chooses brights, in fact, the brighter the better.... This quilt is very much influenced by Kate's quilt I hope you are reading this Kate?
Dotty Maureen's new chain project is proving to be a little tricky, not least because she ran out of one of her fabrics so she has to change the plan a little... can you see the chains starting to form?
Irene's Log Cabin blocks are all done and she's sewing them together in rows, they are set 'on point', that large print added in between is stunning and pulls the whole thing together quite brilliantly.... this is going to be a big quilt... watch this space!
Joan The Shop is using a cross-stitch pattern to make a 'trophy cup' for the back of her formula one quilt. What you see here is the cup, obviously, she's working on the podium now with a grassy background... it's going to have applique flags too... Joan says she is enjoying making this a little too much... how can that be?? how can we enjoy something toooo much? phooey!
This is only one of Maggie's blocks from her sampler quilt that she finished the centre of today , woooohooooo. Next time she'll be adding a lovely inner border, possibly in orange, then piano key border which will look fantastic and use up all the left over fabrics to boot.
Ruth, poor thing, because she's made this project with plain fabric it's almost impossible to tell which is the right way up... given the strange shapes of the bits it is sooooo important that they are pieced the right way up, just one accidental flip over and the puzzle becomes a nightmare... in fact.. Ruth suggested that she is having nightmares about the whole thing, he he he. I sorted her out and all was well in the end, but there are still bits left over???
Maid Marion finished stitching in the ditch of all but 2 blocks so now she's moving onto the borders, two straight lines using the marvelous seam guide and she'll be done and ready to do the binding. .. which is just as well because her head is already full of her next project! ha ha ha don't tell me that doesn't happen to you!!! I will NOT believe you.We had two new ladies join us today but their project pictures are a blurry blurr so I will make an extra effort to get good ones next week..... promise.... I know they'll be back... I could feel them on the slippery slope that brings you to 'the dark side' ha ha ha Gilly finished her 'never ending blocks' and even cut out the sashing, great... she only needs to stitch sashing, add borders, make a sandwich quilt it and finish with binding.. and it will be done, small problem.. she needs all this done by Tuesday... NEXT WEEK!!!! I know what you're thinking and I have to agree! Who needs sleep anyway!We meet again on Friday 18th February, 10am - 3pm
Ta Daaaaa.... It's finished!!Well, that notched up more than another 6 hours, there was more to do than I had expected.... more quilting was needed and that took at least 3 hours.... My original binding fabric was short by 8 inches so I was back to rooting and deciding... 
As requested... a closer shot of the quilting, very very easy to do... if you look closely you will see that it was done by "eye-balling"... aim for the top of the strip then "eye-ball" back towards the middle, a big circular shape filled with shapes loosely based on circles... he he he .. a very technical design eh!Right, I need to load up the van ready for Uttoxeter tomorrow... can't leave it until the morning because it is going to be wet, wet, wet... perfect stitching weather!
It's almost done.... I started at 11am and worked until 6pm with only time for cups of tea and a 15 minute break for a tuna sandwich (no pins!) so if I take off 30 minutes that means I quilted for 6.5 hours... it didn't feel that long though. I've done free motion sunflowers on the lighter bits but I put the walking foot on for the triangles... I still have a bit more to do, but I'm betting I can finish the quilting today... oooooh... except that the post man just delivered a huge parcel of beautiful new fabrics and I want to play with them......
Brenda Barbara has been doing a lot of homework-ish stitching, during our meeting she managed to finish quilting her play mat, trim it up and to make the binding which she will probably add and finish at home... I'm thinking there will be a new project on Brenda's mind... wonder what it will be...
Joan The Shop finished free motion quilting the borders on this toddler throw. She learned how to do double sided binding so the back and front could be completely different... such a clever way to bind a quilt! Joan also started a new project, she's using a cross-stitch pattern with 1 1/2" squares of fabric for each stitch, each cross stitch that is... a clever idea....
Maid Marion made a sandwich and started to quilt, first she quilted the straight sashing pieces.. once they are all done, making the quilt very stable, she will try to do a blanket stitch edge round each wonky block centre
We had fun using up all of the left over fabrics to make the backing.. most of my ladies like to do this.. it's very satisfying to use up all your bits and it makes the back almost as interesting as the front/top....
but it's not always easy... as Wendy found out... she made all these little fish blocks and wanted them floating all over the back.. she had driven herself nuts trying to figure out how to do it as she had thought there wasn't enough fabric... in the end there were bits left over... it looked fabulous.
Shirley Lerly very proudly, held up her lap quilts for a photo shoot. Both have been made in a very short time... both from fabrics left after "over-purchasing" fabric for a project.. just in case she needed it... I'm sure some of you do that too... I know I do... anyway...
Both quilts are the same, but different, and both had the binding stitched on by machine... a Bernina Baby actually. Stitching the binding completely by machine is catching on very well in our quilt cave.. it is soooo much faster to do...
Lizi did it too... she machine stitched her binding... all four 90" sides in a little bit over and hour!!! That would take about 4 days by hand.... This is Lizi's first quilt... and it is huge.... she loves it sooooooooo much! It has delicious Cream Rose wadding so it's very, very soft and truly phooofy! (spell check that one! it won't be there!)
This time, just one fabric for the back... what a beauty it is though. These large floral prints are perfect for backing... it saves the trauma of having to cut them up... I can't believe that only me, myself, yours truly would have had a problem cutting into this fabric.... Lizi already started her next project... a cushion, we're going for the little 'instant gratification' you get from a small project... a cushion ! perfect.
We meet again on Wednesday 16th February & Friday 18th February, 10am - 3pm
There's also a class at Uttoxeter next week on Tuesday 15th February... three to choose from, surely one will fit into your agenda! ha ha ha
Maid Marion had made lots of 6" half square triangle units. She played with them and came up with this quilt centre, she added borders and then decided that she wanted it to be bigger, so... we turned the left over units into hour glass blocks and played with settings for them..., a few 'mathy' moments later, the 'coping strip' size was calculated and production resumed....
Brenda Barbara free-motion quilted beach bag panels then made a big pocket for the front of it... we've had two days with warm sunshine you know... that and the hall heating finally working well, we were warm as toast!.. time to be thinking about beaches....?
