Nightmare continues

The Quilters Guild is still recommending that large meetings do not go ahead yet, so that means my two local groups are not gathering for some time yet. It is all very sad, but zooming has proved a real lifeline for many of us. All the QG Region 7 meetings have been cancelled but what happens to their retreat is unknown at the moment.

The UFOs are getting fewer, but more projects are coming down the line all the time!  I started with 6 UFOs this year, which went up to over 20 during lockdown, but is now down to a respectable 13 and many of those are small. Two groups of us have worked towards raffle quilts for later this or early next year. The Dresden Plate shown earlier is for Macmillan and the latest one, quilted by 12 of Mimram Quilters members, is for a charity nominated by the group at their exhibition, now going ahead we hope next year. Some of the quilters were novice at the hand quilting and I was really pleased with their results and hope to have converted some to doing more.

The grey Ohio Star quilt is a bed runner for a friend.

Carry on quilting

My groups are still whatsapping and quilting.

Many are making small UFOs which are delightful. Mine tend to be bigger like this Dresden Plate for a raffle for Macmillan coffee morning in September (will it be virtual coffee I wonder?) so I spend hours hand quilting them at the end. My niece obviously spent hours during lockdown, apart from home schooling, studying, cooking and cleaning and goodness knows what else, colouring in this wonderful heart which was printed in the papers for the NHS. I love it.

Well, what a nightmare except for quilters of course. A sad but timely excuse to get our heads down and quilt! We have started up quite a few different WhatsApp, Zoom, and email groups to keep ourselves sane by having chats, and we are lucky being in a village where we can still chat to neighbours over a garden hedge, lots of feet away from each other.
Our monthly patchwork groups are having virtual show and tells and we are setting challenges as we all have enough fabric anyway to last us years if necessary!
Something I have been working on.

 The middle of a lovely whole cloth quilt already marked up bought from a friend’s sale of a deceased patch worker. She raised over £1000 for children’s air ambulance. Well done Sue.

Don’t miss this exhibition

We have just visited the lovely exhibition at Milton Keynes Museum (in the silver building at the back, and free on Tuesdays). Lots of such interesting exhibits, beautifully mounted, particularly the associated exhibits on weaving with willow, silk, cotton, spinning wheels including Gandhi’s little home spinning wheel (where did they get that from, they are really difficult to find!). The textiles were wonderful. Both modern by local contemporary quilters and ancient from places such as India, Vietnam etc. Lovely ladies at hand to chat too.