Uttoxeter Quilt Class

Giggly Gillian's next quilt will be a double size. Each block should be 6" finished, so that means she will be making 96 of the pieced blocks, that's 576 half square triangles measuring 2" each... it's a good job Gillian doesn't have a computer to read this post don't you think?? ha ha ha... but it will all be worth it. I cut the borders for her, and those 6 1/2" squares of gorgeous black and bright fabric, even the binding is done... so she feels like she's ahead... bless.

Lovely Lyn cut lots of strips for her logs. Each one cut to the right length so that everything will fit and be perfect, all making life easier when it comes to joining all the blocks together. You have to watch which side you sew the logs to though, otherwise time is lost playing with the seam ripper... you ask Lyn, she will vouch for that... wooooops!

Now... you have to decide whether I am showing you Marisabel's binding strips or whether I want you to see the fabulous new ironing board cover I bought for only £2.99. It costs me more than that to make them, so... I shall return and buy more for the future.... oh yes.. Marisabel finished all of her quilting, tied off all the ends using her needle threading gadget, trimmed up the edges of her place mats and made binding. She's going to use the Faux piped binding as we couldn't decide which looked best.. green or reds, so both will be there... PMS (please my self!) actually, I must confess that I had Marisabel cut the strips the correct size but in the wrong fabrics so we will improvise next time... the back will be great!... sorry Marisabel.
We meet again next Tuesday, 19th July but I am afraid (not really.. it's a good thing) the class is fully booked.
Caverswall Quilt Cave tomorrow, that's the 13th... always space for quilty chums there.

Quilty Quarters

5 more blocks to stitch and this floral thing (still a name escapes me, any ideas out there?) will be ready for trimming and binding. When I decided to stop yesterday evening I hadn't noticed that there were only 5 border blocks left to quilt... I should have carried on and made Molly dog wait for her walk... hey ho... 


More new fabrics have just this minute been delivered, that post man gets earlier and earlier (it's 7:30am now) what a great way to start the day... opening a new delivery!!

Caverswall Quilt Cave

Margaret is only able to join us once in a while and today was her Spa day, that's what it feels like... She pieced her backing fabric, which also has butterflies all over it and made a sandwich. She ran out of pins so used tailors tacks to fill in the gaps... I never thought of that... for a smaller quilt I guess they will be fine. Margaret did quite a bit of quilting too, shadowing the butterflies to start with, once they are done she will stitch wavey lines through the rest of the sky bits... She needs this quilt (it's a bed runner) finished for 30 July so she calculated that if she gets the quilting finished at home ASAP, we can cut and add the binding on the 29th and she can do the hand stitching in her car on Saturday 30th... race on!

Kate is still super happy with her quilt progress. We auditioned various blues to use for corner stones but none were 'perfect'... so, the corner stones will be white... that might sound like a lot of extra work adding corner stones when she could just add another full strip of white... but for effect, it needed to be pieced... worth the extra fiddling you'll see.

Gilly... I had taken in a big bag of little scraps to see whether anyone would like them. Mum looked through for the bigger bits as she is working on a Hexagon quilt. Gilly was next... she couldn't choose which bits she wanted until they were all sorted out by colour... this made me smile... I don't sort by scraps by colour you see, I sort by size, if I sort at all... the table looked wonderful with the little piles. We had to root around for enough bags for Gilly to take every pile home without mixing them up again... we will have to wait to see what she makes with them.

My Mum Gwynneth finished off all 24 of the pineapple blocks, yes... already! So she spent  today cutting sashing and corner stones and stitching them in place. See that space at the top of the pile?... that block had the triangles sewn to the wrong corners so Mum will take a pause to run up another block to fill the gap, the 'different' one will most likely turn up on the back.

Helen took most of the day to make this stunning centre piece. I had been watching her concentrating on this one, it's quite intricate you see, lots of tiny accurate stitching over a hole... there was tear away stabilizer to help but that's all gone now... very clever.
Dotty continued to add Trapunto thread to stuff the necessary bits on her triangle block, the 'cheating Trapunto' didn't have the effect Dotty wanted so she's doing a little PMS (Pleasing My Self)

Barbie, with her broken toes, had decided to make the Quiltville Pineapple Blossom quilt. She's had a request for a brown, gold and cream quilt so, as she already had these colours in her ever increasing stash, she was able to start straight away. She sat opposite my Mum who is quite the expert with these Pineapple Blossom blocks by now so it was like having a private tutor all day. Barbie went home chuffed with her progress, armed with a list of necessary pieces to make the other 22 blocks... She'll probably finish them for next time as these are fun blocks to make.

We meet again on Wednesday 13th July & Friday 15th July. 10am - 3pm, as usual.

Caverswall Quilt Cave

Recently I was invited to teach a workshop for a group of quilters. I chose the Pineapple Blossom from Quiltville as every time I have made one I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, it's very easy, which makes it good for all levels. I got permission from Bonnie first of all, of course and we had quite a successful workshop... which me with the pieces I used to demonstrate the "How To"... My Mum (Gwynneth) is working on finishing the quilt now. She will make 24 pineapple blocks in total, pretty isn't it?

Irene has a very good friend who keeps cats. They need their own quilts so Irene spied the opportunity to make a few small, easy to finish quilts. It's great to make a small quilt or two in between making bigger projects. I think she's making three in total and all are ready for the sandwich treatment already... instant gratification!

Annie Pie's project is also a small one, but not a quick finish, nope!! not at all. This design is a little fiddly in the cutting department, not difficult at all... just a little fiddly. The border is very easy to make up, rather tricky to fit to the centre though. Coping strips are needed.. as you know they are easy to calculate, so no problem there... the difficulty came because Annie Pie went ahead and joined the border completely so we had to add a frame to the quilt, with it's corners already in place... don't worry, we did it in the end.. we love quilty fudge! ha ha ha

Dotty Maureen is making another one of her Heirloom blocks. It's a triangular one this time. She's used Trapunto (the newer modern way, sort of cheating and gives a good result, certainly much easier!) heavy stitching and corded stitching, all quite fiddly... this is one patient lady! I'm hoping that Dotty and Helen will be able to spread out their numerous blocks soon so we can have an idea how these quilts are coming along... Ladies??
Twas a quiet day in our Quilt Cave, we put the world to rights, we giggled, we lunched in our little lounge. We had a few visitors and soon enough another lovely day came to an end.... ahhhhhh... We meet again in Caverswall Village Hall on Friday 8th July, Tomorrow at 10am and we'll play until 3pm, as usual.

There's an SPQ (Staffordshire Patchwork & Quilters) meeting tonight, first Thursday of each month. Here's the website for information about the speaker... It starts at 6:45pm... see you there?

Uttoxeter Quilt Class

Lizzy is back from her travels and quite excited about the idea of starting a new project. First though, she wanted to quilt this scrappy quilt made with Hour Glass blocks just before she left us, about 8 weeks ago actually! Gosh that time flew by... She made her sandwich, pinned and cracked on with the stitching, shadow quilting using her walking foot, she got loads done and I bet it will be finished for next time she comes.

Jenni had to make a start quilting her fabulous red and cream quilt... it was a good, hot and humid day in Uttoxeter... perfect for having a quilt draped over your knees, ha ha ha.. She knows it's going to keep her nice and cosy though, so it was a good "warm enough?" test... he he he She started by quilting the longer lines to stabilize the top then she'll go back to each block to do more intricate stitching.

Messy Maureen surprised us all by bringing in her quilt finished... wow she must have spent a lot of garden time doing it, it looks great! So, with a little help from Dotty Maureen ( who popped in to see what we were up to) she was able to make miles on binding and get it stitched on. She's going to do the hand stitching at home and has a pile of scraps sorted out for her next quilt, fun colours and shapes.

Marisabel started the day by purchasing safety pins from my Table Top Shop, wadding in the van. She made two small sandwiches and quilted her table mats beautifully. She got a little fed up of tying the ends off though... to be truthful, it was threading them onto a needle that was the killer, she has a needle threader at home so she decided to leave the ends for homework, next week... binding.

Lovely Lyn will be making another baby quilt soon but while she waits for news that could affect colour choices she's going to make a Log Cabin quilt (like Lilly's Colours) It needs to be brown and cream with a little bit of Duck Egg Blue to match Lyn's decor... I think these fabrics are a perfect combination and will look stunning made up. We worked on the prrrressing to stop the logs going wonky, repeat after me... "it's not a shirt , it's not a shirt!" ha ha ha

Giggly Gillian trimmed up her gorgeous lap quilt, made the binding and stitched it on. She's been free quilting with her walking foot, he he he... who says you can't?? If your happier with the control you get with your walking foot... leave it on and make curves anyway... Gillian had marked the quilting lines so she had a good guide to follow. She's used a lovely variegated King Tut thread that's just perfect...

This is the pieced backing she made... Gillian has a new book about piecing backings and she's been very eager to use it. Some of these pieces had been accidentally cut only 1" wide while making the inner borders for the top, it just shows that nothing needs to be wasted... personally I absolutely love pieced backings, but I think you know that already. Gillian's next project will be another double size in very bright colours. She made up test blocks so she's all ready to start it next time.


Next time is next week, Tuesday 12 July 10am - 3pm. There's only one spare place so, should you want to come along, please email me... angiequilts@gmail.com or call the Bank House Hotel and they will pass on my details to ya!

Quilty Quarters

Finished! 
It took hours and hours, all day in fact, to appliqué all those bubbles... I used my lovely Bernina Blanket Stitch set a bit wider at 2.7 and a bit closer together, I think it was 2.4. I used a thicker red thread too, for effect... and because I already had it... I have to say that a knee lift is such a useful gadget for appliqué, oh yes, made life so much easier... like three hands on the job!...
After carefully measuring the length of the borders through the centre of the quilt, I stitched them on... ta daaaaa... done and I am extremely happy with how it's turned out.
This one is joining the small queue waiting to be quilted... my pins are still in the floral one I sandwiched a few weeks ago. I shall change machines now, I want to use the Big Juki for the quilting.
I didn't choose the backing yet.. time to start rooting and I think you already know how I love to go rooting!

Quilty Quarters

Some fool accidently made three of these blocks a 1/4" too small... so, it took longer than I expected to get it all together... only because of the aforementioned 'fool'... I'm not sure how it happened but it did, good job I have fudging skills eh! Some of the sashing isn't lined up as exact as it could have been without the fool getting it wrong but I think  it looks OK. 
Borders... as you can see I have done a 'Joan The Shop' manoeuvre... by that I mean, it could have been finished today but I am going to add appliqué bubbles all over the border squiggle-y fabric.... no caterpillars, just fishy bubbles.
I found some round plastic templates in a 'stuff I might need in the future, so I better buy one of those' drawer, tee hee
Right now I am off to the Table Top Shop to buy some sticky stuff... Steam-A-Seam 2... lucky for me the Table Top Shop is right on hand... on my driveway!!
Did you guess who the blooming 'fool' was?? Yup, Yours truly!

Caverswall Quilt Cave

Kate was, quite possibly, the happiest person on our planet yesterday... she has been working on these blocks for, what she says feels like, FOR EVER. Each one has been hand pieced and hand appliquéd. We spent some time choosing the block placement, to get the colours, shading and style of block evenly spread out, then Kate, practically dancing between table and machine, joined the rows together with white sashing... so happy.

Gilly has her front and back sorted out so she enjoyed sandwich time, she's going to quilt these Helmet Bag pieces with criss-crossing wavy lines. Her pins are placed just "so" so that if she just dodges in and out of them with her walking foot, the curves will happen all by themselves... a cunning plan eh? The wadding was made up from scraps joined together with a large, wide zig-zag stitch, we try not to waste anything you know. 

Brenda Barbara's project is still a secret so I can't show you yet, see the car fabric though (from my Table Top Shop, wadding in the van) that's the backing fabric... fun eh? those little scraps you see on top of Brenda's ruler, are a clue to her colour scheme for the quilt top... Two magazines on Brenda's table, she's been 'flicking'... choosing her next project... actually, I would be more accurate if I said she was adding to her list of 'next projects'.... fun fun fun.

Lynda, another lady very much excited to be adding sashing and corner stones to her quilt top. We had laid out the blocks, switching and changing them to get a good, even mix of blocks and colours. Lynda started to stitch them together with the black sashing... got a little mixed up and 'lost the plot' by sewing the wrong bits together.... not a problem really... we spent another few minutes re-deciding the placement... I do that all the time at home, he he he... next time Lynda will be working on the pieced borders.

My Mum Gwynneth, invented this backing... fab isn't it... She had a few blocks left over from the front. She had the fabric selected for the backing too... but it was a bit busy on it's own so, she whipped up a few more 'left overs' and came up with the backing as you see in the photo. I love to make pieced backings, especially if it means using up left over blocks and fabrics from making the top...
On Wednesday evening I presented my quilts with 'The Talk' to a lovely quilt group in Alsager, Stoke-On-Trent, they had requested that I take the full Table Top Shop too, it was a brilliant evening, cakes and tea included. The reason I'm telling you this... some of the ladies came to me after my presentation, to say that they had never thought to make a pieced backing for their projects... they had always gone out to buy a piece of fabric big enough for the job.... not any more they won't!!! ha ha ha

Right... our next meeting at Caverswall Quilt Cave is on Wednesday 6th July, 10am - 3pm , oooooh, when I got home after class yesterday, I had a big box of the most beautiful new fabrics waiting for me, they will take centre stage on my Table Top Shop, wadding, most probably under the table. Pop over if you want to see them.