Shirley Lerly and Brenda Barbara made my morning. They both came swanning into the room with their lovely bags full of quilty supplies.... With huge smiles... perfect for a quilty meeting!!
Dotty Maureen proudly showed off the two quilts that we had been working on with the Rocheberie quilters last week, the ones for the injured servicemen/women... remember? And the ladies looking on were so impressed by how fabulous a few shirt squares look once stitched together..... We were 12 again this time, such a fun, party-like atmosphere!
Helen finished quilting her cushion front. She used the stitching to embellish this fat cat then trimmed him up and made the back of the cushion... we ran out of time to completely finish him though......
This is Lauren quilting her very own Rail Fence table runner with Maid Marion studying intensely over her shoulder.... she wants to learn everything that anyone knows about quilting, she has been quilting for 4 years already and is still hungry for more! wooohooo.
You must have noticed that I have very few pictures to show to you, I do apologise, we have so much fun in our new quilt cave and I flit about all over the place helping and talking and, and, and... I forget to take pictures.... My Mum came to play and picked up the camera which is a good thing otherwise this post would have been far too wordy! Anyway, this is Shirley Lerly and me myself, discussing our plan for her borders, don't tell me you didn't spot that she matched her quilt perfectly.... !We had visits during the day from many ladies making enquiries about Caverswall Quilt Cave Quilty days.... It looks like they will be joining us in the near future.... so, I have decided to organise Wednesday meetings, very soon, I have been asked to do an alternate day to Fridays before, but now, tis a plan!Let me know if you would be interested in patchwork & quilting on Wednesdays, same formula... 10am - 3pm, fun, fun, fun.
Lizzie stitched the binding onto her Pineapple Blossom quilt, this is one of my personal favourite designs from Quiltville. It looks complicated but is really very easy, Lizzie will stitch the back of the binding at home
So... she was able to move on to her next project. She dug deep into her shop/bag and pulled out these greens saying that she didn't really like them any more... so, I partnered them up with a few cream fabrics, showed Lizzie how to make an Ohio Star block... hey ho... a happy customer, she is going to make a whole quilt with green Ohio Stars now, he he he.
Giggly Gillian worked non-stop. She added the two borders to her Chunky Churndash quilt top then we 'invented' a backing. Gillian had made too many hour glass blocks so we wanted to use them up, added to this awful cat fabric ( her words, don't worry! ha ha ha) it was just about enough.....
In no time at all we had a quilt sandwich... homework for Gillian, she can quilt it on her new very own Bernina baby... with the lovely creamy walking foot. She's going to quilt with diagonal lines and then the straight lines... easy for this design.
One of the Dotty mysteries solved, remember last week she was sewing the yellow stripes? Did you guess correctly?? They were the window shutters... A cactus in a window, fabulous... this quilt will be hung for you to see at the NEC quilt show in August, one of three quilts done by Dotty.
Lizzie made this bag using my tutorial, she used smaller panel pieces, to make a smaller bag... of course it would be smaller with smaller pieces, ha ha ha. She's off to Canada next week and this is a gift for a friend there.We will be taking a little break from our meetings for two weeks. What with holidays and Wimbledon on the TV and the Hotel double booking our room... we will meet again on Tuesday 13th July, 10am - 3pm.
I put a piece of paper over one of the kaleidoscope blocks so that I could draw the right shape and size, like a template, then I put tracing paper over the top of that and doodled away... once the tracing paper was full I changed it and doodled some more, until I was content. 
You can see how the final shape evolved... the 12 o'clock position was the first squiggle then go round anti-clockwise... the scribble on the right is practicing to get hand/eye co-ordination sorted out before I started the actual stitching.Which colour thread to use... I almost went with mono filament.... but green won..... I'm quite chuffed, 'cause the quilting is done.... quilt's almost finished... I'll take the job of hand stitching my binding to the Alton Quilt group today, not that I get much done there, he he he.
It's a 2 hour drive for us to get to the school in Rugby where the quilters were. Dotty was navigating... she wasn't sure of one roundabout... highly embarrassing as it had about 20 guys resurfacing the road and Dotty kept waving to them! They politely waved the second time we went round it and had huge smiles when we returned for the third time..... she was still waving.... I had very red cheeks from the embarrassment!
We were last to arrive and the ladies were all working hard. By the time we sorted ourselves out... it was coffee break time, perfect! ha ha ha.
We made two quilt sandwiches and set to on the quilting.
I decided to do large free motion meandering as it's faster than using the walking foot, no quilt turning or stopping and starting, except for the bobbin running out! Armed with my trusty Portuguese Galp gloves, I wandered over the very phooofy quilt, I don't like phooofy polyester batting! Dotty and I just about managed to quilt one complete quilt each before it was time to pack up and head home.
The other ladies have been making these injured servicemen/women quilts for a long time, they have made hundreds of them. They are always in need of wadding/batting, threads and fabrics and money to buy the supplies. They do great work.
A very very proud lady! ... and rightly so... Shirley Lerly has finished her Chunky Churndash quilt....Congratulations are in order, don't you think? Absolutely Fabulous... this is Lerly's first finish, if you click on it and take a closer look you will see the lovely quilting in the borders....
This is quilt number two, all Log Cabin blocks finished, design chosen by her daughter, which is very cool, haven't seen this done before. Shirley got all the rows stitched together, decided which fabric will be the border.. may be another sandwich for next week? Now that she has finished one, she is getting very excited to make one for every one in the world! ha ha ha... you know that feeling?? "I want to make this one and this one and this one next"!!!
AJ (Angela that's not me) finished all of the blocks for her Log Cabin quilt centre that she started on Tuesday at Uttoxeter. She's chosen a different layout which looks great, I wish I had a picture to show you, it had a secondary pattern emerging. Anyhow, the borders will be Flying Geese...AJ thinks they are a bit fiddly as they need to be cut very accurately.... (I thought we were cutting everything very accurately though?) but she did a great job and these blocks will look stunning on the quilt.
Joan The Shop has also done a lot of sewing this week... The top is finished, it's a 100"+ x 108" , hope I've remembered it properly. The requested colour scheme had been 'olive greens and mucky browns'... not what Joan had wanted to work with at all, she loves bright batiks! She threw in the batiks anyway, good for her I say! Stunning quilt eh? 'Twill be a formidable task to quilt it (... now I wanted to write ... 'it'll be a bugger to quilt'... but I don't want you all thinking I'm a 'potty mouth'...he he he, so I got out the thesaurus, formidable?... you decide, bugger fits though eh! forgive me, he he he)
It was noticed by some ladies, that my camera was not being clicked enough, so it got hijacked! This is me, myself talking (for a change!) about making sandwiches, masking tape and level edges on tiles! ha ha ha.... We covered everything from getting the quilt backing "straight, taught not tight".......
... to where to put pins, more or less, and how much fabric to catch on the pins... all very important if you want a flat quilt with no puckers, at least , that's how I do it, you can do it your way, no quilt police here....., (see my shiny hair in the photo?)
Barbie Bunny made a start on her shadow quilting, she sewed fine but the sewing machine wasn't playing nice with the walking foot... it's very frustrating when this happens, she will buy a 'proper walking foot' for next time... have you noticed the Galp gloves, free with fuel in Portugal you know!
Anne (but we like the sound of Annie) also completed her quilt top, made a sandwich and started the quilting, on a Bernina baby with a Bernina walking foot... oh so creamy and accurate... he he he (did I mention that I love Bernina??? ha ha ha). Annie did tell me that she couldn't quite get 'why' we do things the way we do... but during the last week she has had several "moments" you know the ones.... for example... "ahhh, that's why we use 100% cotton"..." ahhh, that's what the pins are for" , "ahhh, that's why they need to be thinner pins", "ah, that's what Angie meant about the pressing & cutting, I see it now"... you following me? I love it when it clicks!!!There were 12 of us in Caverswall Quilt Cave... Dotty has almost finished piecing the top of her stunning exhibit quilt, Brenda Barbara made 10 more Chunkies for her Churndash sofa throw, Helen made a good start on the quilting of her Fat Cat, Lauren and Gloria finished the top of their joint Rail Fence table runner, and..... we had another new lady, already a quilter, who shall be known from this day forward as... "Maid Marrion"! I love that.... he he he, She was making fabulous aprons to sell at a charity event coming up soon.A fun filled, action packed day for everyone me thinks. By the amount of writing I have done here, you're probabubbly thinking I'm in a very chatty mood!! woooohoooo, we're going to a quilting day with the Rocheberie Quilters to work on quilts for injured servicemen and women, I hope they don't mind me talking...... he he he, for sure I just can't stop today wooohooo.
Jennie Rayment workshop Twitch, Twiddle & Tweak on Friday 3rd September.... She has very kindly agreed to include one of her fabulous, side-splitting lectures at the end of our fun workshop hours, FANTASTIC eh! We get to see her stunning quilts! This is a picture of the workshop project. It can be made from muslin or with coloured fabrics, it's your choice. The finished project size is approximately 28" square so it could be a cushion or a wall hanging... mine will be a wall hanging! I want to look at it and smile every day, he he he.
Jennie has complete muslin kits should you like to have everything prepared for you, they will need to be ordered in advance and cost £7 each.Just e-mail me and I can order those for you, no problem.I have 30 tables to play with, 21 are already booked. The cost will be £15 each.To book just e-mail me. I will send you the requirements list and my phone number so you can call me if you want to, '(tis a scary world out there so I am afraid to post my number on t'internet! he he he) Have I missed anything.......?
One more 9 1/2" block towards the borders of my Portuguese Tiles quilt... Cutting and piecing all done traditionally, by that I mean 'no tricks'. There are several techniques and rulers for making flying geese blocks and half square triangles these days, I didn't use them, just triangles stitched on to triangles... doesn't sound very exciting does it... hey ho.... It excites me though... when I get the ruler on top to see I've done a brilliant job of my pointy points!! I know... blowing my very own trumpet, again eh....
After culling my scraps very well in Portugal last year, they seem to have multiplied again. So I spent a few hours tidying them up. This is just a few sewn together in random order, I completed 7 more crumb blocks and have about 16 in the process, though there are only 6 of those in this photo....
A very tidy tray of scraps isn't it..... well, I must agree but....
look at this lot, it's a very deep drawer and I had it empty last year!!! I'm not going to worry about it, I shall carry on piecing... ooooh that could be a film title "Carry On Piecing" do you think Barbara Windsor would be interested?
Molly was wondering what I was rooting for and wanted to help, it made me smile so I took the picture, cute eh!....
Then my 20 year old, 13 year old son decided it was time to torment poor Molly and persuaded her to jump in!!!... squashed my scraps with the weight of her. I stepped in and got her out immediately... I do not want doggy smells on my lovely treasure of scraps!!!!
Decisions, decisions... AJ (Angela that's not me) has been asked to make a Log Cabin quilt... for her Mum! She only just finished the last one, what a compliment. These are the fabrics AJ's mum likes being auditioned for their layout.....
Giggly Gillian (proud new mother of a Bernina baby) trimmed up her blocks ready for the 'togethering' of them (I really must write a new dictionary eh, he he he) She had sewn very accurately so not much was trimmed off, mainly the 'dogs ears'.... 36 blocks needed so Gillian had way too many hour glass blocks... she says she got carried away! No worries, we shall make Ohio Stars to put on the back.... she doesn't know that yet though .....
Dotty Maureen is being very creative of late. First the secret project that I've been avoiding posting about, now this.... yellow and grey.. what could it be? I am not going to tell you!
AJ made the final decision about the block layout, made a test block, loved it, cut loads of strips and proceeded to chain piece the 24 blocks. I would put money on it that they will be finished by now... she doesn't mess about once she's decided what to do!
Gillian's blocks, 18 hour glass and 18 chunkies, all 'togethered' (my spell check doesn't get it! ha ha ha). We ran up to The Craft Locker to choose great border fabric, Simone gives discount to my students, what a lovely lady she is! Inspired by this quilt, Jenni also started making chunky blocks, I'll get pictures next week....
This is what Dotty Maureen was making, can you see what it is yet? I'll give you a clue, it is going to be used to make a picture quilt bigger, she laid them out and we thought it looked wonderful. You will be able to see it at the NEC show in August!We meet again next Tuesday, 22nd June, 10am to 3pm, and there is a table availabubble!, you want to come?
Shirley Lerly and Brenda Barbara made my morning. They both came swanning into the room with their lovely bags full of quilty supplies.... With huge smiles... perfect for a quilty meeting!!
