Interesting Journey

On Saturday I travelled with a good friend, three children and a boot full of fabric, thread, sewing machine and embellisher machine to a Quilter Guild Area 10 day. On the way we saw this -

and this -
altogether there were three of them -
These straw mammoths were just standing in a field with collecting boxes to raise money for the children's ward at the local hospital. It surprised me that there were lots of CCTV cameras on them but I've since found out that the first mammoth was set on fire by arsonists.

I had a really good day, catching up with friends and running a children's workshop. I love working with children as they don't know that they can't do anything and have a go! They really enjoyed using an embellisher machine and made some Xmas decorations. I really enjoy the show and tell, lots of talented ladies in Lincolnshire. I was going to be strong and not buy any fabric, I'm pleased to say that I stayed strong and didn't buy any fabric..........until the last hour anyway. I found a Halloween panel that I must have had 8-10 years, I have promised the boys to make it up this year so these three will go alongside it.

I am coming to the end of a seven week stretch at a local village school. I gave up my full time teaching post a year ago as I just didn't have any work life balance. Slowly over the past few weeks my time has been taken away from me again with planning, marking and all the other things teachers have to do. No sewing, no family time and I got a really bad cold that still hasn't totally cleared. After half term I am back to regular supply teaching and working as an adult tutor, fingers crossed more time for sewing and work on my diploma (I am very behind with this). I'm also behind on lots of e-mails and blogging - sorry :-)

A few months ago I promised a friend that I would put these pieces of fabric into a wall hanging. She did a workshop with me, over six weeks it covered dyeing, printing, stamping, rusting and everyone on the workshop made some fabric to share with each other. This is why there are a great many textures and colours-
She doesn't blog so I can share this image. Rather than do neat seams I think I am going to overlap everything to give a more organic look, this is my latest arrangement but it changes almost daily. I am going to see her next Friday so I do need to start asap!!

Ferret workshop

This is the outcome of the workshop last weekend. It was one of the most relaxing I have been to, I learnt such a lot though. It was a great day with lovely people to chat to as well. I am quite pleased with the machine quilting although its hard to see on this photo. My machine quilting gets to a point when I think its not bad then I don't do any for ages.

Since seeing Philippa Naylors quilts I have decided that I must improve my machine quilting. I forgot to mention last time that I bought Philippa's book, Quilting in the Limelight at her workshop. It is the story of Philippas life in quilting alongside lots of techniques. The photos are stunning, perhaps the best that I have seen in any quilting book.

Autumn Sunset & workshops

After seeing the sunset on Julie's blog, I thought I would share the amazing sunset I captured earlier this week outside my window. Julie lives about 30 miles away from me. One advantage of Lincolnshire is that it's very flat with huge skies.
I do sometimes feel privileged that this is literally outside my window.

I am looking forwards to a quiet weekend as for the past two weekends I have been doing workshops, two weeks ago I did a day with Philippa Naylor. She was a really good tutor and very generous in sharing her knowledge. Last weekend saw me at a QGBI Region 10 day with Ferret. She was a really good speaker and not at all fazed when a lady came into the hall, shouting, "can the scouts use the toilets". The workshop on Sunday was Art Quilts by Numbers, it was a great day and lots was learnt. I will take a photo of my swan tomorrow so you can see what I did. I must admit that the curved Philippa Naylor sample isn't quite so finished.
Just to prove though I have been stitching, this was one of my lastest journal quilts made with bleached fabrics -

I'm also pleased to report that DS loves secondary school, my little boy is growing up fast. He has just discovered the embellisher machine and is starting to make some Christmas presents. Maybe I ought to start too!

Slipping through my fingers.................................

Well today was the day that DS1 left me to go to Secondary school. I promised not to take any photos so this was his short journey from our gate up to the top of the lane (by the white house). It has brought back so many memories of his sudden arrival into the world eleven weeks early. The song "Slipping through my fingers" by Abba has just been going round and round inside my head as the lyrics seem so appropriate. In case you don't know or remember it starts like this (the original was about a girl though)-

"School bag in hand he leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent minded smile
I watch him go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I'm losing him forever
And without really entering his world
I'm glad whenever I can share his laughter
That funny little boy"

His feet are two sizes larger than mind and he does keep hassling me for a new quilt, one which covers his toes. I have the fabric and design, why can't I buy time?

After taking the above photo this morning I also took one of the view from my front window -

This was on a cloudy day but the sunsets are amazing. We are lucky enough to see barn owls as well as many other birds and wildlife. Foxes are definitely not welcome though as last Winter we lost chickens, ducks and geese.

Off now to bake a chocolate cake and smartie cookies by request.

Festival of Quilts 2

Despite working hard I did give in to some retail therapy. I have been wanting to explore printing more so got the new book by Claire Benn & Lesley Morgan. I already have the Tray Dyeing book, this one is for a gift. It's one I really recommend though, packed with lots of information. I also got some thermofax screens to play with of different seed heads.

Julie came to say hello on Saturday and she had the most gorgeous button fairy on her bag, the big button is to try and make my own. (Julie I have googled button fairy!!)

I love stitching with superior threads, especially the King Tut variegated range. These six just jumped right off the stand into my arms!!

I saw a woolly stand on Thursday with patterns for slippers which you knit and then felt in the washing machine. I stayed strong until Sunday lunchtime when I gave in and rushed off to get these

I got them from Knitting4 fun , they seem quite easy to knit although I am going to be disciplined and finish some socks first. I have never seen this company before but they were lovely ladies and very helpful. I'll definitely be visiting them again.

Apart from some basic like rotary cutter blades and sewing machine needles that's all I got. At the veyr end end of the show whilst everyone was waiting for their quilts in the cafe area, Dawn Cameron Dick and some others were giving out some free Mettler threads. I am sure they came from Quilt Direct which I though was very generous. Finally at 6.30pm my zebra quilt was returned and the journey home could begin.

Festival of Quilts 2009

I know there will be lots of posts about Festival of Quilts 2009 at the moment but I thought I'd share my memories. This was the quilt I entered in the art quilt section. The idea was to make something that was quite simple up close with the design becoming clearer from a distance. It took longer to design and draw out the zebras than to do the actual stitching. The one below was entered by my son and I can honestly say that I feel very proud that every stitch was done by him. It was called "Postcards from the Orient"


After teaching/helping over the whole four days I've had a croaky throat today and been incredibly tired. The children's workshop area was constantly busy and we even had a full workshop on Sunday afternoon. The children worked so hard within each two hour session to complete a project. I do have lots of photos of quilts but haven't had time to go through them yet. One advantage of working so hard was that I could get into the show at 8am each day, both to help set up and view the quilts.

I did manage to escape sometimes and have a look round. There were stunning quilts by Ferret, Sheena Norquay and many many others as well as all the competition quilts, but something that stuck in my mind was the restfulness and calm of the quilts by Ingrid Press, this is what Twistedthread wrote about her

"Ingrid works with cloth (which is often re-cycled) and fibre. She likes to arrange things - mainly in rows and grids. She sees beauty in repetition. Texture is also important and is achieved through dense machine stitching of the quilts and through the materials and weaving methods used when making her small vessels. Making things gives her a feeling of being connected to many generations of crafts people all over the world.She subscribes to 'Less is More' and tries to keep her work calm and rather simplistic, which is helped by the use of a limited colour palette."

The children's workshop area was right next door to the virtual studio enabling me to keep popping my head round to see the wonderful fabric being created, and to indulge in some retail therapy!!

Its been a while.................

I have just looked when I last blogged and can't believe it was May. Well I have been busy and managed to accomplish quite a few things. I have even been domesticated and made lots of jam, you can check this out on my husband's blog . My nephew's quilt for his 21st birthday (which was in March) is still on the design wall. It has now been promised him for Christmas or failing that in time for his 30th birthday!!

I've entered a quilt for Festival of Quilts (so has my son) which actually came together really easily. The designing and drawing took a long time but the stitching was completed in a relatively short time. Do you know the law according to Sod?? Well I normally don't have problems putting on a mitred binding but this time it didn't work and I didn't have time to take it off and do it again. After parceling both quilts up I spent an anxious 24 hours waiting to track the parcel after a not too helpful man at the post office took my hard work off me.

I'm just going to share a small section of the quilt so if you do see it at FoQ please let me know what you think -

I think this section looks a little obscure but you may be able to guess what it is of.

On a totally different theme I have been trying to use up some recycled materials, I had saved a whole stack of those dye catcher sheets from the washing machine. Most are the same grey colour but I had one which was purple (it came out of the machine with a navy shirt).

The stitching is loosely based on a photo I had of a field. I used some gold fabric paint in the top left to be sun rays and some white organza under that for a cloud. This followed the white area on the sheet which I think got folded in the machine. It was a quick little project which I enjoyed.

Both my boys are away from home at the moment (one on Scout camp & the other staying at Granny's house) so hubby and I went exploring today. After a very nice pub meal with mouthwatering white chocolate profiteroles for desert (well you do have to force yourself to eat things sometimes) we ended up on a fantastic beach at Old Hunstanton watching the most amazing kite surfers. There must have been about 40 in the water at a time and how no wires got tangled was amazing. This photo just doesn't show how sunny it was. It was also windy and I gave up trying to stitch as the sand was getting everywhere. I got lots of design ideas though....