Quilters Guild Area Day (and the patter of tiny legs)

I meant to blog about the fantastic and welcoming weekend I spent with members of The Quilters Guild Region ten last week. Things are a little busy here with trips planned and quilts to finish as well as preparing for Summer School 2012 at the studio. Not long now ladies!

Sheila the Lincolnshire co-ordinator taught everyone how to make calorie free chocolates. Everyone had a go and the results were good enough to eat! On Saturday I did my talk about Natural Dyeing, apart from a technical hitch with the projector (which thankfully sorted it's self out) everything went well. I enjoy a talk when I get asked lots of questions.

Sunday was Stitch for Texture, we all worked in the hall still festooned with Jubilee bunting.

All the ladies worked really hard. I took these photos of Margaret (above) and Julie (below) smiling

This is a photo of Sheila's work in progress.

And the patter of tiny legs? Well yesterday we had three goslings hatch out. Mum and Dad are very protective so I might get some better photos later. Today is cold and windy so they are tucked under mums wings.

Quilters Guild Day

Today I went to a Quilters Guild Region Ten area day. It was nearly a two hour drive through fog and icy roads and I had a back seat full of enthusiastic young quilters. I really enjoy these days as I see friends whom I have know for ten years but only see two or three times a year. Today was no exception and plans were also made to catch up with people at the Quilters Guild Conference next month where I will be teaching. I was determine however to take some stitching with me so I started machine quilting this last night and did manage to sew in some ends today.

The speaker today was Louise Presley from Hope and Elvis. She describes herself (quite rightly) as an artist and gave a really good talk which raised some interesting questions. One side of her business is connected with vintage textiles and things she makes from them, the other is more contemporary work much of which is Louise's response to things reported in the media. Perhaps the most important thing that I took away from her talk was that when I make my quilts I need to stay true to myself and let my creativity led me forwards and not other people's expectations.

My band of Younq Quilters had a great time as well, under the careful supervision of the YQ rep they made these chickens. Sue did not know when she planned this that all these YQ's own their very own chickens! This chick and rabbit were hand sewn by my son.