Beginnings and finishings

Finishing first! My scrappy doodles quilt started at the workshop with Sheena Norquay is now finished!

How do I feel about it? Well, of course, like many others, I can only see the mistakes when I look at

 something I've made, but I have to say that I am quite pleased with how it's turned out.

The idea behind the quilting is a good one and one I shall use again, but it will take a bit of planning to get it right on a bigger piece. Drawing inspiration from the actual patterns on the fabric is a good starting point, but in order to make the quilting blend, I think I would need to actually draw the designs out first, partly to get them in my head. but also to see how different designs will blend together.

The close ups of the quilting are shown below. As with any design process, it's a matter of choice how you interpret a pattern  and bring it out. So now that I've done them, I can see all sorts of other designs I could have used instead and so the next one I make will be different.

This exercise has given the phrase "quilt as desired" a whole new meaning. In fact it does seem that having done the piecing or putting together the quilt top many of us simply blob out of the quilting altogether. How do you decide what thread to use, what patterns to use, how dense the quilting should be? This is what fascinates me about this craft and the more I do, the less I know I know, if that makes sense.

In our village back in August, a local group called Kernow Quilters held their exhibition. There were a lot of quilts on show, many of which were beautifully made, but most had almost no visible quilting at all, and those that did were mostly stitched in the ditch or with simple straight lines. It seems that for most of these people, the patchwork was the most important bit and the quilting, well......

Now I think I can safely call myself a quilter, because for me, the quilting is the most important part and is what should bring the thing to life.

And so to the beginnings! On Tuesday, I went along to a meeting with the Trevithick Quilters who meet in Camborne. Not exactly on my doorstep, but unlike the groups who meet near me, they seemed a very welcoming and friendly group. They are very much a traditional patchwork group, but at least one  of the members attended the Sheena Norquay workshop, and after talking to them, it seems that, like me, they just don't know where to start when it comes to the quilting. Perhaps we will make a start on the search for ideas to our mutual benefit. I hope so.

They are having an exhibition this weekend and they have asked me to put my little pieces on show. So now I've got to get hanging sleeves done before I can move onto the next project. What that will be, is a bit uncertain so watch this space!

Showing off!

Last Saturday I went to the  Quilter's Guild Regional Day for the Cornish group which was held in a village hall in Golberdon, a place I had never heard of, and in the back of beyond! There were very few people there, which was not surprising given the remote location, but it was an enjoyable day.

There were two speakers, Lynn Carr who is a member of the Contemporary Quilt Group and Sheena Norquay whose work I have admired for a long time. Lynn's talk was interesting, but went on a bit too long. Sheena's talk was just too short and I could have listened to her all day!

Then to Bude to spend some time with my sister leaving the DH at home with his fishing rod and on Monday and Tuesday to Launceston to a workshop with Sheena at Cowslips. We were using scraps of fabric as inspiration for designs for free machine quilting. On Monday we were making a small quilt using scraps of fabric on a background and then quilting around them using motifs inspired from the patterns. Here is my effort which is still work in progress.

I had not realised how much pre-planning was involved in something which was meant to be "free" and the planning and marking took me much longer than I had thought it would. Sheena recommends marking the quilt before starting any quilting at all, and also drawing each design on paper so that when it comes to the quilt itself the designs are somehow programmed into the brain.

Then on Tuesday, we made a second quilt using similar quilting designs, but now in the form of a grid. Unfortunately, I made a bit of a pigs ear of the grid markings on the fabric and then didn't have enough left to make a 16" cushion cover, so I went smaller. Once again, all the planning took a long time, but really it is well worth taking the trouble as somehow the stitching seems to be a lot easier when the designs are already in your head. I wasn't able to put my squares into my grid because they would have looked too big, and so I just copied some of the lines and marks. As the weather was so awful, I decided to use a bright yellow thread to cheer me up and here is the result.

 These are the little fabric squares that I used as the inspiration for the quilting designs.

This is the finished quilt and below are some close ups of the quilting.

This was a very enjoyable workshop and Sheena is a very inspirational teacher. There were not very many of us in the class and so we all had a lot of one to one tuition with Sheena which was a real joy.

Cowslips is  lovely location and apart from the shop selling fabric, threads and lots of lovely things, they also have a fabulous cafe! Jo Colwill, the owner is also a prolific quilter and very friendly and so I think I will be visiting quite frequently even though it is at the other end of the county!

It was nice to meet up with other quilters, some of whom live quite close to me and so I am beginning to think I will be able to find new friends with similar interests. Sadly, being a member of the guild is not really of much advantage. The guild is not a popular organisation here. It is seen as stuffy, stuck up and unfriendly and many of the people I have met, just don't think it's worth joining. I can see why this perception is so prevalent after attending the regional day when apart from one or two members, no one took the trouble to speak to me, or welcome me as someone new to the area. In fact I would go so far as to say that being known to be a guild member is a positive disadvantage! Having just renewed my membership I have a year to decide whether I want to rejoin next time!

For now though, the sun is shining and I've got a lot of stitching to so when we get back from our walk!

Meet the family

No, not the relations, the "family" of dyed fabrics I made at the Festival of Quilts. The task was to dye a range of values using just two colours. I chose lemon yellow and black and my fabric was some basic cotton. We used fifteen fat quarters in all. Twelve were used in the first dyeing using the black dye;  sorted into three groups of four with three different strengths of dye solution, light, medium and dark.

In order to get a flat colour without texture we had to manipulate the fabric in the bath and exclude all the air bubbles. This did not prove to be so easy and my fabrics do show quite a bit of unintended texture. Never mind! So left overnight the next task was to rinse thoroughly. This proved very difficult partly because we had to share the sinks, but also it proved very hard to shift all the excess dye. Had I been at home, I would have put it all in the washing machine.

The next job was to  resort the black and grey fabrics into four groups, each one containing a light, medium and dark. One group was set aside and not overdyed. One of each of the three undyed fat quarters was added to each group of three. Each set of four was then dyed as before in a light, medium and dark dyebath but this time using lemon yellow.

More manipulation, rinsing etc and here they are, but now having been thoroughly washed, dried and ironed.

Unfortunately, the light lemon yellow did not take too well and I think was contaminated with some excess black that hadn't been washed out.                

And here they are in black and white showing the range of values.

Not 100% successful, but a start nevertheless and next time I will do better I'm sure having learned a lot. One thought occurred to me was what difference, if any it would make to dye the yellow first and then overdye with black. the possibilities seem endless, but will have to wait until I have a permanent home where I can make a mess with dye that won't matter.

In the meantime we are enjoying walking the cliff path and just chilling out while we wait for the dream home to come on the market!

Sore feet...

but never mind! Having done three days dyeing with Jo Lovelock at the Festival of Quilts, I had some lovely hand dyed fabrics to take home with me. Also, I had got to spend time with some lovely people, both in the class and also around the show.

So here are a few photos from the class.

Jo giving lots of advice!

Susie's rainbow silk scarf in the greenhouse tray!

 Tray dyed pieces drying on the wall board.

Pat and Ann deep in conference!

Family dyed cloth drying,

Susie with her rainbow silk scarf!

A quiet moment!

Jo and Noreen discussing the latest tray dyeing experiment.

A thoughtful moment while Pat drinks her coffee.

This was a wonderful experience, but it involved a lot of standing so was very hard on the feet and ankles. As for the show itself. well that will be for another post because my dinner is ready!

Don't you just......

hate it when you've got a train to catch and you've packed your bags, had breakfast, cleaned your teeth and are ready to go a whole hour before you need to leave!

I remember my Mum insisting on leaving so early that we always got to the station hours before the train was due leading to being teased about leaving the night before "just in case". Now my DH teases me about my anxiety whenever I have a train to catch. So here I am updating my blog!

Some quilting has been done, but we have been taking advantage of the fine weather and have been exploring during the day before crashing on the sofa in front of the olympics in the evening.
 What will we do now it's all over? More quilting, obviously!

We have discovered that we can see the sea from the garden and we are rapidly falling in love with it here. I am beginning to wonder why I decided to go to the Festival of Quilts for almost a whole week, but then I think of the wonderful people I will see and the lovely things I will buy!

Time to get the car out and go!

To do list

So now I have a lovely room in which to produce lots of lovely work, I'm spending most of my time on the sofa watching the olympics! But I have made a start quilting the disappearing nine patch quilt which I hope to send off to my DD for her birthday.

I signed up for a Craftsy class called quilting a big  project on a small machine  and there are a lot of different techniques which I'm sure will be helpful The main one is to ensure that your quilting surface is at the correct height and sadly, mine isn't! This makes it very difficult to move the quilt smoothly and ensure that the stitching is even. Still I am making progress and I hope to get it finished by the end of the week.

Just a little taster;

Then I have to get my fabric prepared for the dyeing workshop with Jo Lovelock at Festival of Quilts oh, and I must also do my four yellow journal quilts by the end of the month! So no pressure then!

And what is my DH doing while I am sweating over a hot sewing machine?

Boys and their toys!

Life after the move!

Well here we are in our new home for at least the next six months. Yet again we have chosen a spot where the removal lorry had trouble getting in and this time, the men gave up and parked it down the lane and used a smaller van as a shuttle. Sadly this additional loading and unloading led to a few breakages, but we can live with that.

Here are a few pictures of our (soon to be elegant, not) home

 Is there anybody in?

Our well tended lawn!

Elegant lounge!

Dave's office!

Spare bedroom!

My work room!

The ultimate kitchen!

And when we had finished unloading and had unpacked until we couldn't face another box, this is the last word in elegant garden features!

I have made a list of all the things I must do in the next two weeks before I go to The Festival of Quilts, but for now the sun is still shining, we are busy meeting up with old friends and family. It's almost as if we were on holiday!

But I must get my CQ journal quilts done and apparently the Jet Stream is going to oblige and provide us with some rain on Monday. So the sewing table is up and all the fabric and yarn mountains are neatly, well nearly, stashed so no reason not to start right away! Well, perhaps tomorrow!