A Grand day Out

I'm about a week behind at the moment. Yesterday I taught "Natural Dyeing" with nine fantastic people, I'll save that for another post. Last Sunday saw me driving up to the Lincolnshire Wolds for a Quilt Show. I also managed to see a friend for lunch whom I haven't seen since last FoQ so a good day.

It was a wonderful display of quilts of different sizes, techniques and colours.

I loved this one, my colours and using hand dyed fabrics.

Lots of things to see which were all exquisitely made.

Sorry I can't remember who made this tiny landscape.

I like the quilting which gave this bed quilt movement.

This was one of my favourite quilts. It was made by Bev Anderson for her City & Guilds course.

This was all made from blankets which had been dyed. Woolly and lovely.

When I first married DH we had a cat called Skimble. he was black and into everything. Yes, I have a memory of him nearly falling into the fish tank so this made me smile.

Its the last week of term - five days to go. DS2 will be leaving his school to move up to secondary school in September. This is going to be difficult for him as he doesn't like change and has an emotional age much younger than his years. At least we are prepared for this and the rocky road which might be ahead. A fun packed summer holiday is planned so I hope the weather will be kind to us.

Busy, busy, busy

So much has happened around here in the past few weeks that I don't really know where to start. I think I do need to say thank you to all my new followers and promise my sporadic blogging is just a temporary blip due to my City and Guilds diploma. Anyway to news, my LQG had a fantastic show a few weeks ago, there was so much beautiful work on display. Living in such a big county such as Lincolnshire it was also a chance to meet up with friends not seen for several months.

This was a favourite made by Frances (our chairlady).

My zebra quilt also had an outing. The week after the quilt show I was at The Deep, the sub aquarium in Hull

It was a fantastic place with the most amazing Rays and Sharks. I loved the building which it is housed in which was designed by Sir Terry Farrell. According to the brochure it had over 3,500 fish and and both DS had a fantastic time. I have lots of photos for future inspiration. A quiz, do you know what these are called, they were such amazing, delicate creatures?

Last night I went with Sweetiepie and others from my LQG to hear Kaffe Fassett talk in Spalding.

He was talking about how he got started and also his books. I had a quick peek at his latest book, Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts.It is basically about how simple geometric shapes have influenced his quilt making. He encourages us to use those big, beautiful bold patterns with simple shapes for stunning quilts. I was very tempted to buy it but was very disciplined but I just loved the images inside it. It might well find it's way into my bag at FoQ. He brought swatches of fabrics from his latest collections, as we drooled over them we made a mental note to go and look at Cotton Patch during Festival of Quilts as they will have all his range of fabrics.  He brought both quilts and knitting for us to look at. Despite it being so hot it was a really good evening and I came away feeling inspired which cxan only be good for my City and Guilds Diploma.

Just to prove I am still busy I have been working on samples for my sketchbook which will form the basis for my main quilt. This has a minimum size of 60" square, did I say it was to be completed by September 6th?? My DH is being fantastically supportive though and trying to give me as much time as possible.

My inspiration is the fens around my house and the crops that grow. We have just had the fields at the top of the lane which had peas in them cut by the huge machines. When the crop is cut the air smells like peas for several days. If you have washing hanging outside, that also smells of peas. The above was a sample experimenting with perspective and different materials. Below a page from my sketchbook showing work from rapeseed and cow parsley.