At the festival today

Lovely quilt show as usual and surprise of my life to find that my two-person quilt had earned a highly commended! I texted the quilter's daughter who was thrilled. sadly I shall have to return it to her this week. It has been a privilege to work on her mum's quilt.

Off to the festival of quilts Sunday, despite the threat of the Bertha storm! I have a two person quilt on show, a whole cloth quilted one, started by a lady in Suffolk. her daughter asked me to finish it for her. I know it hasn't won anything but it will be nice to see it hanging up.

talking about applique

One of our local groups became my guineapigs last week when I gave them a talk on the history of applique. Lots of pictures of traditional old quilts, then newer ones, and some on how to design your own pictures. Then some show and tell quilts at the end. They seemed to enjoy it - not too many closed eyes, although it was only the afternoon!

I gave it again two days later in Luton - having arrived in the town, I then took another 45 minutes to find the place. I must buy a sat nav. It's easy to go from A to B using any old map, but getting from B to a particular C such as a friend's house or a bowling club (!) is not map friendly. One of the quilts I showed was my buttonhole-type applique. And fortunately another two had come back from the Ailsa Craig exhibition in Canada (lovely to have been included in this show - I am looking forward to seeing some pictures in the magazines).  This is one from there:

Sandown exhibition

A crowd of us went to the Sandown exhibition in June. It is always a nice venue - you can eat your lunch sitting on the stands overlooking the race course! My girls in the Thursday group were disappointed that our Art Nouveau quilt didn't get a prize or rosette. It looked stunning hanging and at least we know ourselves that it looked better than some of the winners! Sorry, just greeneye there, but a bit of publicity might have helped with the raffle!

Here's a picture of me by the quilt and the one on the right is the overall champion quilt - an obviously non-traditional quilt, but lovely nevertheless:

Chelsea inspiration

I have just come across another blogger's comments on Chelsea while I was Googling for silk factories in Suffolk. I want to visit one in July on my way to 4 days of bliss patchworking and quilting in a village hall with four other like-minded friends. This blog also had something about Chelsea and it was so well written and with loads of lovely photos that I thought I would share it too!

http://purplepoddedpeas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/rhs-chelsea-2014-who-am-my-to-judge-and.html#comment-form

Exhibtion quilts

Not been blogging recently - sorry about that.  Our raffle quilt is now up and running raffle-wise. Tickets are £1 each in aid of Motor Neurone Disease - do get in touch if you want to win this quilt. Those who have seen it reckon it's wonderful - so pleased about that! It will be on show at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August. I also have a quilt in the Sandown Exhibition in June - a quilt that I finished for a lady whose mother died and left a load of unfinished beautiful quilts. This one on show is a whole cloth and I finished off the quilting. Do look out for it when you are there.

8th International Prague Patchwork Meeting

I've just come back from Prague!! A wonderful exhibition in a lovely city. Lots of international exhibitors from Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark and UK. Our own UK Quilters Guild was there with some beautiful wallhangings from  the Contemporary, Miniature and Region 7 groups. Very well displayed and hung, with great traders with fabric at £3-£5 per metre. Unbelievable. Here are some you might enjoy. The first is done with really small pieces of fabric machined over to keep them in place. I have done a similar style to this some time ago - it's a nice way to demonstrate landscapes, flowers etc.