Saturday 31 May 2008

More Quilt Show

Please click here to see more photos of our quilt show.

Friday 30 May 2008

More quilt show

These photos were taken by Javhlan Byamba.





More Quilt Show

Here are some photographs taken by Trudi during the IWP coffee morning.






Quilt Show

The first day of our quilt show was a great success. We started at 10am with the IWP Coffee Morning, which was attended by more than 45 ladies. All were very pleasantly surprised by the talents of their fellow members. Many were actually speechless and stood gazing at our quilts. For us quilters looking on, it was a really good feeling. Lots of lovely comments were heard in every direction.
As you would probably expect, I didn't find a moment to take any photographs to share, so I am hoping my friends will share theirs. Here are a few that Ursula took before any visitors arrived.




Tuesday 27 May 2008

Sneek Preview


Almost everything has a place to be now ready for our Quilt Show on Thursday and Friday this week.

My home is a quilt grotto!!! .. and I love it...

I am still sewing hanging strips to the back of a few quilts and a little binding needs to be completed.

This is a very small sample of the quilts on show, you will have to come visit to see the rest of them...

Sunday 25 May 2008

Quilt Class


This is Sofia with her Log Cabin quilt top. The back will be pink with white polka dots and the quilting will be done with bright orange thread. This has been a very popular design with the ladies.....

This is Katja's Log Cabin quilt.
She has decided not to add borders.

Both quilts are the same ... but different!



This is a new lady, Ana. How chic she was, to bring her sewing machine to class when is co-ordinated so well with her chosen outfit! tee hee, even Ana's jewelry complimented the machine perfectly. Here she is testing the stitch length and tension before starting to piece her patchwork.
In red is Dorila, she is adding green borders to her table runner.

Here Dorila is practicing "dancing with her feed-dogs down" before quilting her table runner. After only a few minutes she was producing beautiful meanders and daisies.


This is a great shot of everyone engrossed in their creativity, they didn't even notice me taking photos.... either that or they were just ingnoring me ! he he he

Saturday 24 May 2008

My Mum's Lace

This close up of my Mum's bobbins, it shows you the lovely crystal and glass 'spangles'.
These are used to give the bobbins a little weight. You can also see the wooden clips used to keep the bobbins organised in smaller groups.

The bobbins are very slender. My Dad turned some of these bobbins. He says for every successful one, he probably breaks ten.
This shows the progress Mum had made on her project.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Quilt Show

I'm calling our event a Quilt Show. It isn't going to be anything like the ones you see in magazines and on the internet but we all have to start somewhere.
This is the second Quilt Show hosted by the IWP quilt group. The first one was 3 years ago.
There will be lots of beautiful quilts made by members of the quilt group over the years. Not all have been made in Portugal as some of our members were already quilting before they came to live here, but most have been made locally.
Today lots of quilts were delivered to my home so that we can start the preparations and planning of how to exhibit them.


This is Sally's Chunky Churndash quilt top. You have seen it at several stages of production, now it just needs to be quilted.

It is good for people to see works in progress as well as the finished quilt.
This is a quilt that Sally is working on at the moment.

Sun Bonnet Sue.


This is Therese with her Round Robin, quilted and bound, ready to show you.


This quilt is called "Bugs Escaping From Bottles". I made it in January 2003.

It will be at the show next week.

"Tuttie Fruttie". All the colours are hand dyed fabrics and it is hand quilted in the big stitch style using Perle cottons... it will also be at the show.

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Quilt Class

Today was Quilt Class at Paula's
Our Blue Lady came with this fabulous backing for her blue table runner. We got the sandwich made and now it will be hand quilted. She did try quilting on a sewing machine but, for an unknown reason, the sewing machine didn't want to play nice.

Beta wasn't in the mood to sew really, so she spent the morning listening and learning ... and fabric shopping! Here she is with a quilt that she designed herself, it is very sweet.....
Here is a close-up of the little bird. Beta says she is going to applique more birds yet....
This is Marina's Log Cabin Baby quilt. Behind you can see Paula's latest quilt top.
This is a corner of Marina's baby quilt viewed from the back, it is good to see that she was "dancing with her feed-dogs down!"
Sao didn't stay for quilt class today but she did call in to show us her three blocks. These are from the Marsha McCloskey's Block Party book, we use the book a lot during our classes.
This is when the ladies saw that Paula had a new book and crowded around to take a peek. It was curious as it is all written in Chinese! Iguess it must have had great pictures... tee hee.

And here... last but definitely not least....This weeks special offer fabrics. Each of these will cost only €4.00 per metre for this week only.Call Paula if you want her to save some for you!

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Fabulous Quilts

I decided to share the photos I took of my favourite quilts at the Malvern Quilt Show. I figure that the two people who made them would't mind me saying that they were "my best in show" quilts!
This one was absolutely fantastic, I stood for so long looking at it. The edges of the quilt are done so as to give a third dimension. What shocked me though, was that there wasn't a single prize rosette!!! I wish this show had a viewers choice vote, so many ladies were agreeing with me that it definitely deserved prizes.... well, I loved it!

Oh, this tiger quilt was just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! The quilting, piecing, applique.... oooh everything was fabulous. I took several detailled shots but I thought that would be too much to share. You can just see in the corner that this quilt did win an award.

Saturday 17 May 2008

Malvern Quilt Show

I'm in the UK for a few days. Yesterday, Friday, I went to Malvern Quilt Show. I thought you might like to see how much fun I was having..... we were not allowed to take photos of the stands so I only managed to get these few shots holding the camera high. ...





I have loads of photos of beautiful quilts too but all of the quilts had a notice on them saying that we are not allowed to publish any of them... anywhere!!

I will be back in Portugal on Tuesday.


Wednesday 14 May 2008

Quilt Class

When I arrived at Paula's this morning, there was a table runner displayed for all the world to see, in fact, this table runner, in the photo below.
Dona Manuela made it!!!!!!!
Yeeha!!!! , she has finally crossed the line to join us on this 'other side' and is now, officially, A QUILTER!

This is Sofia. She is working on this Log Cabin quilt. Today she had a hard lesson in 'fudging'. I am a fabric washer, some people prefere not to wash fabrics before using them. Sofia washed her fabrics, but after having cut the strip to the right size... she found that the black one shrunk a quarter of an inch ... so she had to learn how to play with the piecing to have everything fit well. She did a good job and no-one would know anything had ever gone wrong!
Two new ladies, Alda & Rosalia. They found it difficult to choose their fabrics at first with there being so many to choose from. They have never encountered inches before! Rosario knew nothing about sewing machines, neither had used a rotary cutter...but by the end of the class today, they were almost experts!
This is Noemia with another quilt almost finished. She invented the border herself and is very proud of it. She still says she is a beginner.... I don't think so Noemia!
Last but not least .........This weeks fabrics on special offer at €4 per metre. If you want them better hurry, they are only on offer until close of shop on Saturday.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Chunky Chocolate to 'Dye' for

I didn't get much of my sewing done during the two day PIP camp. I find I am unable to concentrate on my own work when others can use my help, I guess you could say I like 'interfering' tee hee.
Anyway, I cracked on with my project on Sunday and managed to complete the middle of the top. Here is the photo, not my best quality snap shot, but you get the general idea.

I want to make an interesting border for it so it will hang on my design wall until inspiration hits me.

Right now, I am "Dancing with my feed-dogs down" on my table runner!!! fun fun fun......

Monday 12 May 2008

My Mum

This is my Mum's lace, you saw it first on the the 22nd April post. It is almost finished, the ends have been sewn in, discretely.
Now it is ready to have a piece of fabric carefully sewn into the centre.


Sunday 11 May 2008

Quilt Class

Yesterday was Quilt Class at Paula's It was a very tranquil afternoon with everyone working on different projects.

We had new tables to work with this week so there was a little more space for us.
You wouldn't believe how much difference 10 centimetres makes!





This is Licinia's, very cute and very portable Elna sewing machine with her baby quilt. Here she is stitching on the binding.
Mafalda, cutting out the pieces for her star blocks, she will be hand piecing and she has promised to have all three blocks finished by Wednesday next week.











Noemia, quilting the borders of her table runner on her Bernina 240.


Here is the table runner, next time Noemia will make and attach the binding.









Dorila finished piecing her Rail Fence table runner centre and is now adding the borders. Here we were auditioning the fabrics, the green and red won, they were perfect!




These are Katja's blocks. This is going to be a big sofa throw. I love the colours, they are picked out from the centre square of Kaffe Fassett fabric.