August Sewing Retreat

Our next sewing retreat is booked for Thursday 21st August - Sunday 24th

We were well looked after during our March retreat, the food was lovely with good variety. 
The sewing space was excellent. A huge conference room with good light and plentiful, solid tables, and believe me, we were using almost all of them by day 3!

The cost for the whole retreat, 3 Nights & 4 Days @ Hillscourt Hotel will be £555.00
That's to include single occupancy, en-suite accommodation, unless you prefer to share.
A full breakfast menu, lovely buffet lunches and 3 course evening meals.

Most importantly, you'll have unlimited access to the sewing room in the company of like minded people. 

£50.00 will secure your place. This is a non refundable deposit.

I tend to book retreats for weekdays as there's usually more choice on availability, but this time I've been able to secure a long weekend treat for us.
I've started to take bookings already, if you fancy the idea but have questions, just contact me and I'll do my best to help.

You can email, angiequilts@gmail.com

or
07807530441 for either WhatsApp or the old way, talking!

Stitching News With Tooting

 Polish your trumpets, readers!!! Very toot-a-bubble photos coming up!

I know, you won't believe it!!! Gail actually finished her Shakespeare In The Park Quilt. I found evidence of the first blocks being made in March 2020. That was Covid year, so that's a good excuse eh. The top was sandwiched in October 2023 Of course, Gail has made quite a lot of other quilts in the meantime. Toot toot toot-itty-toot Gail, a fabulous, finally finished and amazing quilt.

Princess Jackie's explosion of colours in her Gypsy Wife quilt. She says she's learned such a lot about accurate piecing and 'scant' quarter inch seams. All those strips are only 1 1/2 inches cut, so lots of long straight seams were great practice too.

As is Jackie's 'thing' a splendid pieced backing. You can see just how much quilting has been stitched too. Toot toot toot Jackie another absolutely fabulous and finished project.

This is Gail's latest project, a lovely cushion complete with a hidden zip on the back. 

It's totally toot toot toot-a-bubble, it's fabulous and it's finished! 

Stitching News

Just a little catch up for you. Lots of busy classroom days with little time for picture faffing.

Judy made a set of place mats, for gifting. The idea was to use up all of the purple fabrics Judy had accumulated from another quilt. But like all best "Use Up The Bits" ideas, she ended up needing to buy more fabric, ha! Well worth it though. Toot toot toot Judy, a full set of fabulous and finished mini quilts.

It's never too early to start those festive projects, there is definitely going to be another Sewing Prevention Season this year, my calendar says so! Though some of us will be away on a wonderful sewing retreat !!! These little trees will be Christmas Tree Ornaments, Judy often makes little fundraising projects.

Jan made this lap size bonus quilt. She has now, happily, used up all of the remaining Autumnal fabrics from a 10 Minute Block bundle and all of her left over backing fabric from the same quilt. A handy piece of left over wadding was just the right size too. So, technically, this lovey lap quilt was free. Toot toot toot Jan, a fabulous and free-ish finish.

Merlot was a bit shocked to see how big her quilt was on the sandwich tables. She made this gifting quilt top Lick-etty-Split. It's for gifting to a special young-ish fellow. Louise has incorporated some extra special memories with family photos, printed on Cotton Poplin Photo Fabric, (I have packs in my shop!) A big quilting job, it's probably finished by now?

Bev is taking a break from her Tilda piecing project. It is huge and the piecing is a bit tricky and needs to be very accurately done, a break will be good. Bev treated her very own self to a new book and got cracking on the centre block, almost immediately. Such excitement, applique gives instant satisfaction, like painting by numbers.

Mrs. Lou Lou is making good and steady progress on her Elizabeth Hartman, Fab Farm blocks. How cute are those Piggies! The patterns are very clever, but there are lots and lots of tiny bits that like getting lost!

Back To Normal

I am trying to get back to normal. Things keep cropping up to disturb the boring humdrum of 'normal, everyday life'. Not bad stuff mind, just stuff. I'm easily distracted, ha!

Dawn, a shop customer, has been enjoying making kiddo quilts using my Eye Spy Six Packs. She popped in to show this one, her latest quilt She says it is her favourite so far, but really, they are all lovely and very colourful. Toot toot toot Dawn, fabulous & finished.

This is Sarah's sandwich. It's a chess board quilt. The little dots are the poppers to hold the pieces in place. The pieces are like little coasters, you can see one on the side. What a fun idea.

Our Norma spent her retreat days working on this, her Boho Hearts quilt top. She's learned such a lot while making all the different blocks. Lots and lots of long seams, needing straight sewing, were a challenge. Didn't she do well! It's booked in with Amanda from Stone for professional quilting. Norma doesn't enjoy the quilting part and being happy is the most important thing about quilt making.

I made these Llamas ready to be made into a reading pillow, complete with a book pocket on the back. I used the Elizabeth Hartman  Little Llamas pattern. There's a little man going to be 5 soon and he loves a good book.

Another reading pillow top. Bet you can guess who it's for! Our little lady will soon be 7 and she reads sooooo much, a reading pillow will be well used. The Unicorn is also an Elizabeth Hartman pattern. It's huge so I needed 26 inch cushion stuffers!

We had a very enjoyable retreat, such a lot of sewing was done. It was lovely to meet and get to know new people too. Great food and we had such beautiful, sunny, warm weather.

Unfortunately, and I am sure you will understand why,  Hillscourt Hotel has increased it's prices. I'll keep you posted on that for our planned August retreat. It's very disappointing but with everything getting more expensive, we have to accept that our fun will cost more too.