My Weekend

That's it for another year then. I love Festival Of Quilts. Two coach trips this year, one on Saturday and the other today, Sunday... meant I was able to spend two whole days walking dingling around everything wonderful and inspiring. I thought I had seen everything in those two days ... but you know what? When we were on the coach on the way home, everyone had seen something that I had missed... and I tried really hard not to miss a trick. I took very few pictures because I hardly ever go back through them afterwards, I decided to drink up all the lovely information in the moment...

Here are my favourite things...

I had a good look at all the shops/stalls, trying to find display ideas for my very own shop.... because we are not allowed to take photos of them and because my memory leaked them all out... I already forgot all the good ideas that I was trying my hardest to remember, hahahahaha
it doesn't matter a hoot... I had a great weekend!

Stitching News With Tooting

It might look like a beautiful wall hanging but it is, in fact, a rather delicious door hanging. Gillian is very pleased with her handy work... The appliqué and the quilting have been done by hand... she's finding her very own self to be quite inspired at the moment... Gillian though, is not quite sure what's happened... we can hardly keep up with her of late. The door hanging is fabulous and finished so we shall give it a toot tot toot fanfare .

Keep your trumpets up won't you? Princess Jackie finished her fantastic Log Cabin Quilt. Just lovely, perfectly pieced and beautifully quilted.
 The borders are just lovely too. As we give it a fanfare for being fabulous and finished, toot toot toot... we shall flip it over...

To the back... WOW!!!
The quilt was made as a special request. "A grey quilt please." Princess Jackie loves colour and wanted to work with a little colour, so, for the quilt top, she did. They, the request-ees, are getting their requested grey quilt as the back... a double sided quilt so everyone is happy. 

Another toot toot for Giggly Gillian.
This time a lovely cushion, machine appliqué this time.
The cushion has a backing that is equally lovely but I missed that picture.
I hope you can see the fabulous quilting?

This is Gillian's next cushion project. All the background pieces have been cut, and labelled as you can see,  the white and pink daisies will be appliquéd in place  before sewing the greens together.

More daisies now, but these are Stargazy Daisiez by Jan Mullen. Both New Sue and Jean Bean started their Daisiez at the workshop last year, I think they are having a little race to the finish line now?

Jean Bean spent her day making quilt blocks for the Linus Charity. They've requested blocks to be donated at the Festival Of Quilts this year. Jean made her lovely blocks... she continued to join them together. Jean will be donating a jungle themed quilt to Linus this year... it's going to be a race to get it finished but she is determined...

Gail's Batik beauty is coming along very nicely indeed.
It's going to be a sofa throw with a Bargello design. I had repeatedly assured Gail that Bargello is very easy to do but she didn't believe me...
 not until she saw it happening, for her very own self!

Just Beautiful...

Princess Jackie finished her absolutely fabulous flower appliqué quilt.

I cannot explain how beautiful it is. She used sumptuous silk fabric for the appliqué... which I have to say I found tricky to photograph with my little 'aim and shoot' camera. The light bounces off the shine!
It's totally beautiful... Polished trumpets are required for this... toot toot toot

Closer photos follow but as you look through them, remember that Jackie's work is at least ten times more lovely than the pictures show! Take note of the beautiful embroidery detail too.

Stitching News

After adding the last red border on this super skeleton, PM Pam couldn't decide what to do next. She knew she wanted it to be larger but rather than make a hasty decision, she put it to one side. On a recent road trip, she popped into another quilt shop... and there found the perfect solution, spider webs!

PM Pam finished her bag during class and found a perfect button in my fabulous, though small, collection of buttons, so... toot toot toot for a fabulous and finished tote bag. It's a Lazy Girl Miranda Bag an excellent pattern with really good 'How To' pictures to follow

Jeannette Dilly's fabulous and finished 3D Folded cushions, she's making quite a few now other people saw the one she made at the recent workshop.
A toot toot toot is well deserved. See how Dilly used a fancy stitch on the edges? A rather smart idea that tied the two cushions together beautifully

While showing off her cushions during her early morning visit, Dilly purchased a few small bits of fabric... the fabrics you see here in fact. Dilly popped back around 3pm to show us what she had done with the fabrics and purchased more of the luscious fabrics to make more blocks... speedy sewer or what!

Sheila popped in to let us have one last look at her brilliant Banner.
It's fabulous and finished so... toot toot toot for that Sheila. The banner is going to it's new home this weekend and Sheila says she's not taking any more orders... but she said that after the last one! ha

We have a new quilter, Fruity Rose. Once she mastered the skill of rotary cutting... because it is one of our wonderful skills, she got to sew her strip sets together, perfectly press them and to then cut them up again... it does sound funny when you put it like that.. but it's exactly what we do, isn't it?

These are some of the Nancy Halvorsen fabrics that came last week. I started cutting 6" squares so I could sew them together to make a small and simple quilt... this is as far as I got, there's very little time for stitching with all the wonderful work being done in class... there must be an easier way?
 Mother... are you busy?

Stitching News

Jeannette Dilly made up another Lick-etty-Split quilt top... this lady works at the speed of light... or sew it seams! ha... Her son requested a purple quilt, and purple he's getting... though I haven't seen this quilt as a sandwich so, lets hope it hasn't been set on one side, Dilly?

A rare finished quilt made by me, my very own good self.
All done with Art Gallery fabric it feels fabulous and silky soft.
It was a free pattern from Moda Bake Shop

This is the back of the above quilt. I do believe I can toot toot toot for my fabulous and finished baby play mat... This quilt is now for sale

This quilt was made by My Mum Gwynneth. It's a panel, quite a large one as panels go. We had kits in my shop for this lovely quilt but they have all gone now so, now... this quilt is also for sale

Quilty Quarters

 All  of my Crown Of Thorn blocks are now finished and sewn together. Each little unit 1.5 inches... that's mostly 1.5 inch, Half Square Triangles (HST's)
At this point the top measures 30" x 22.5" and I used most of two Moda Charm Packs, last season's Basic Grey Christmas one, which I love!
I've decided to border with Flying Geese so, I need 70 of those to start with. Not sure yet what I will do in the corners. Each 'Goose' will be 1.5" x 3" finished.

 I have never found Flying Geese units easy to get accurate and I do so very much like accuracy... but with this method...  it works well... I did cheat a little (PMS... Pleasing My Self) For my 'sky' bits I needed 2 3/8" squares... I rounded them up to 2.5" and trimmed them to be perfect once the Geese were made... it's a little extra work but worth the effort... for me that is, you can please your very own self, can't you...

Sandwiches Galore

A fully booked 'Sandwich Saturday' at Angie's Quilt Shop. I think Sandwich Saturdays may be my best made executive decisions since opening the shop. They are very popular...Well, it's obviously worth coming to use my tables rather than crawling round on the floor at home. Pictured are just three of the sandwiches we made this weekend... I never got chance to snap photos of the others. It's lovely how almost everyone helps... it gets the job done faster too... we had quite a production line going actually. There will be a lot of ladies quilting this weekend.

Stitching News

Dotty sandwiched her large Kaleidoscope Stack-n-Whack quilt during Friday Quilt Club. All the other tables were in use so Dotty clipped and pinned best she could to get the job done. The fabric for the pin-wheels is one from our delicious Art Gallery selection... seems they Stack-n-Whack in a rather spectacular way too. The purple is a Moda Bella Solid

The day Joan was beginning to think would never come!
Later in our Friday Quilt Club we were able to manoeuvre a few extra tables to help Joan The Shop sandwich her fabulous Snowman Collector quilt...

Jenny Barlaston made this little quilt top, also at Friday Quilt Club. Jenny used one of our pre-cut packs of novelty fabrics, 30 x 6" squares. Making small pram size quilts, you can make two per pack and, as it's much smaller, it only needs one table to be sandwiched... quite a contrast to the other two!

Di Butterfly proudly displayed her lovely new cushion which has been beautifully stitched and embellished. Almost too lovely to be sat on... Toot toot toot Di, it's a fabulous finish!

Morning Judith is back from her travels and raring to get back to her stitching. The inspiration for this picture was found in a magazine and Judith used all the methods she learned at Sheila's recent workshop, Free Form Appliqué, which we will be repeating soon... OK Sheila?