Curved Piecing Workshop

Last Tuesday I ventured up to Louth through the fog for a fantastic day teaching a workshop on free curved piecing. It was a group of very talented and enthusiastic ladies.

 Everyone quickly learnt the technique and began to make their own unique blocks.

 Everyone used different fabrics and some worked outside of their normal comfort zone. I loved the bright pinks with orange and my favorite lime greens. I also showed the ladies how to turn their curved blocks into sketchbook covers. I think the cover above is heading for a Delia Smith cookery book.

These two photos are from the end of the day, I did have others but they are very fuzzy as my camera battery went down to one bar. Thank you Lindsey Patchworkers for a wonderful day and good luck with your Lincolnshire Wolds Quilt.

Christmas Workshop

Last week I traveled up to York for the annual Young Quilters Christmas Day at The Quilt Museum. I stayed overnight at The Bar Convent. This as the name suggests is a convent which is the oldest one in England founded in 1686. It still is an active convent with a resident religious community. All the guest rooms do not have numbers but have Saints names, I was in St Aelred. The accommodation was really good and very close to the station if you ever need to stay in York.

We had 12 children in the morning and 12 in the afternoon, all completed the Christmas Bunting project and really got to grips with using the sewing machines.

They made a stocking, heart and bauble and attached them to a canvas strip.

Everyone made something individual and lots of sparkles were used.

Yesterday I traveled to Louth and did free curved piecing with a very creative group of ladies. I have photos to share but will do that tomorrow as "mum's taxi" is needed by DS.

Grand Day Out

Waring - this blog post contains no stitched images.

I went down to the Textile Group at Unique Cottage Farm studios today and the first thing I saw was the amazing grapes on the vines growing outside. It was great to catch up with everyone and share work.

It was also DH's birthday today and he had the day off work. This meant that we could actually get to have a meal together. He was very embarrassed when I got the camera out to take photos of the food. As it was his birthday I did a sneaky shot without the flash! Above was the started of goats cheese on a bed of Mediterranean vegetables and below the main course of tempura mixed vegetables with dipping sauces and a side salad. 

Once both boys were home we could light the birthday candles (ssh he is 44 today)

On a Thursday I drop DS off at Scouts and often pop round to see a friend. I was able to leave my log burner to go and sit by Jackie's log burner.

I am off again to York tomorrow for a YQ workshop on Saturday (oh yes and a tiny bit of shopping).

Back soon

Updated Website

Exciting news. DH has finally worked his magic and given my website a make over. There are still a few teeny tiny teething issues but all will hopefully be fixed in the next few days. It only affects the website if you use Internet  Explorer 6 (most of you should have updated by now). Go have a look and let me know what you think, let me know if you find any more mistakes or problems.Click here to visit.

Catching Up

I often have times when despite my best efforts blogging just does not happen. Life still goes on though at full pace, workshops taught, meetings attended, trees chopped down (don't ask about that) and making time for stitching. Last Saturday I went down to the Yarrow Gallery in Oundle to visit the Textile Lincs exhibition with Lorraine from the group.

 I had never been to this part of the country before despite it being relatively close to home. I do not have permission to share the fantastic work of the other ladies but I will share mine. The theme was Memory and my first piece was "Memories of home" as when ever I travel I miss the flat landscape and vast skies of home.

 This is a hand stitched piece and all the textiles are recycled and hand painted or printed. Tina gave me a small piece of a mohair scarf which became my rape field. It is mounted on a painted canvas.

 The second piece was based on a stack of love letters from 22 years ago and the memories came flooding back when I read through them as I stitched, sorry I don't seem to have a close up photograph of this one. I wanted to be able to show the writing so in a way this became reverse English paper piecing. Again this was mounted on a canvas and there are three "holes" which just seemed to work and give space to the work. Hanging below are love letters cut into heart shapes and stitched round.

This was a quilt that I had to pries away from DS2. He is very tactile and this appealed to him as it is backing with a brushed cotton lilac sheet I discovered in the charity shop. It is made from recycled sheets and shirts, all cotton. Each of these fabrics brings its own memories to the work, who has worn them? Who has slept on them? Where have they been? How old are they? I decide to quilt this very simply as I wanted the fabrics to shine through and not be covered in stitch. This exhibition is on until Saturday November 26th (see post below for times).

 I also received an amazing package from Ro Bruhn in Australia. I offered her some of my daffodil dyed fabrics and in return got some amazing sun dyed fabrics. They are all so gorgeous that I have tried to show them all. Thank you so much Ro, I already have an idea of how I will use them.

Memory by Textile Lincs

It has been a few weeks since I last posted as things have been a little pear shaped here. I just wanted to pass on the information about this exhibition by the talented ladies of Textile Lincs (I also have some work in this exhibition). I went down last weekend and it is well worth a visit. It is on until Saturday 26th November.