Breaking my workshop duck

This weekend, it was the regional day of the Quilters' Guild UK. Three of us from Sound Stitchers were able to get to both days events. Saturday morning saw us eagerly listening to a talk by Linda Chilton a spectacularly talented embroiderer, and after lunch was Anja Townrow talking about her quilting journey. I don't know how the organisers had managed to book two such excellent speakers, but I'm really pleased that they did!

Linda showed us some of her pictures, and passed around samples of painted felt, her children's Christening gown, and sample pieces of her work. She told us how she layers up chiffon to produce a misty effect, and kept us entertained with her exploits at craft fairs around the country. After her talk, we had the chance to watch her work on a piece, so we could see close up how she works. To see some examples of her work, do click the link to her website, it's well worth a visit....make yourself a cuppa first as there's plenty to see on there.

Lunchtime gave the chance to shop with Step by Step and Villavin Crafts...and I shopped! I didn't get a chance to get a photo of my first purchase, it was a roll of 9 neutral strips 5 inches wide. I needed them for a commission quilt, so they're all chopped ready for sewing later today. My other buys were 4 half metre peices of Japanese fabrics, and a gadget for making yo-yos...never even thought about buying one before, but it was half price, so why not. My friend Sandra bought the smaller size, so we can mix and match. I also picked up a few FQs of kingfisher coloured fabrics, ready for the workshop on Sunday.

Anja spoke in the afternoon on her quilting journey "From Tulips to Triangles", and kept us all entertained and amazed in turn. She's an enthusiastic speaker, and very self deprecating. Not what you might have expected from such a known "name", there were no airs and she was more than willing to point out mistakes and fudging in her award winning quilts. I'm so glad it's not just us mere mortals who do that!

The three of us were back again on Sunday for Anja's workshop "Pondlife". We had a choice of pattern, and she guided us through foundation piecing, bonding the finished piece to a background and applique. Hugely enjoyable, and though I've done foundation piecing before, I still picked up quite a few tips. We were also encouraged to sample some of Anja's thread collection on a sample applique piece to get a feel for her methods.

Here's my kingfisher,all ready to be appliqued down, trimmed to size and have his borders attached. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I even got all the tree pieces from one piece of fabric left over from the fist bundle of bits that I bought when I first started quilting! The majority of the orange is my own hand dyed fabric, with just the narrow strip on his under belly borrowed from Sandra.

Family hunting and a quilt shop.

Friday saw us all heading to Wiltshire to look for some of Michael's ancestors. They lived and died in Heytesbury and Knook, which turned out to be very small farming towns just outside Warminster. From entries in the visitors' book in Knook Church, the whole village is a single address. After meeting up with a friend for lunch, we had a flying trip to a lovely yarn shop where I treated myself to a ball of sock wool...can't get enough of these. I seem hooked on knitting socks, small enough to not get bored, but enough work to be a challenge.

On the way back home we stopped at midsomer quilting where I needed something suitable for the outer borders of a Japanese taupes quilt I'm making. Naturally the first bolt I selected was nearly £11...still got the champagne tastes on a beer buget! Eventually settled on the dark fabric on the right of this selection. The others just jumped into my basket. Not doing a lot for my stash busting am I?

Earlier this week, we decided that Hannah's bedroom needed to be redecorated. It's not been done since she was born, and she'd made a horrible mess of it. It's now looking pretty stunning in shades of pink, with white furniture. I'm making cushions for on her bed and after buying some fuschia pink with diamantes on, I thought we could dye some of our own (and stash bust a little at the same time!) She settled on Magenta with Mauve sploshes, and we tried adding salt crystals to the final fabric as it dried, to see the effect.

This is it as it's drying, before being washed. The Mauve has turned out more deep purple than we liked, but the salt had concentrated the dye into little specks of more intense colour. Just need to make it into a cushion cover now!

I've been bad!

So much for only buying more fabric if it was for a specific project, and trying to downsize my stash! This weekend, I went to Step by Step up in South Molton, and came home with this haul:



From left to right, we have 2 metres of purple mottled fabric with gold highlights, a metre each of cream (perfect for backgrounds), a light grey/taupe with small Japanese motifs and a light orange with circular motifs. I also got some variegated green to brown thread Yaaayyy!! King Tut, as I was advised by so many people. I picked up some purple variegated as well which I'll use for the one block wonder, and the amazing gold rayon you can see. How cool is that?? I'll use it for hyperquilting, but can see it overpowering a piece unless I use it sparingly.

The book was written by the two ladies who own and run the shop and has 10 Japanese inspired projects in it. When I was at the South West Quilters' Christmas talk, I bought a charm pack with the idea of making a bag out of it, but then couldn't find a suitable pattern. There's a perfect one in this book, so I'm going to try that out soon.

Apart from the trip to the quilt shop, I stayed overnight in a fab little farmhouse barn conversion. Mike and I realised both the children were sleeping at friend's houses, so we could actually take a day out for ourselves. It was idyllic, very peaceful and relaxing, just what we both needed I think.



We went down to the local pub on the Saturday evening (note to self: don't go for weekend away while on January Pledge). The walk back to the barn was hilarious, very icy and moonlit, so no need for the rechargeable torches that were provided, we were giggling all the way up the mile long walk between the village and the farm.

Once we were up on the Sunday morning, Mike went to scrape the ice off the car...40 minutes later after breakfast there was 2 inches of snow on it! We left quite quickly after that as we didn't want to get snowed in!

Hopefully this week I'll be able to finalise the design for my Round Robin quilt, it's the group AGM next week and I'd like to take it along to show and tell. Once again last minute Lulu.

Bath shopping trip

Half term holiday and B in Austria, so the three of us planned a shopping trip to Bath. Last time we were there it was so horrid and rainy, we didn't get time to see any of the sights...of course there was also the small matter of a half marathon too! This was a chance to make up for that, and also to meet up with C and her children from my running forum.

Much nicer weather, perfect for sightseeing. We were a bit rushed as we were meeting for lunch at noon and only arrived at 10:30. We parked the car behind the Royal Crescent, where Hannah showed us how strong she is:



Once we'd dashed into the town centre, I found the first quilt shop of the day, Country Threads. Half an hour later, and I'd bought the fabric for Hannah's teacher's baby quilt. I was determined not to make it "baby", so we settled on lemon, pale green and teals. A bit "boy", but there's some pink roses in each of the colours so will work easily no matter what she has:



The piece top left is more teal than it looks, and the pieces that look peach are lemon yellow. This green is for a narrow border, and the cream is for the sashing and also for prairie points.



I've pieced the main body of the top already, just the prairie points to do. I'll press the squares tomorrow and baste them on in the evening.

Once we'd met C, (yummy Chinese buffet at the Ocean Pearl) we pottered around the shops. We were going to "do" the spa, but the queues were a bit too long for us. Anyway, I had another quilt shop to visit, Midsomer Quilting, outside Midsomer Norton. There's a vast selection of fabrics, including my favourites, a whole section of half price ones! There's a man creche in the centre, so M was left there while I browsed.

Here's my haul from there:



The pink is an Anna Griffin, the cream is for backgrounds, I'm always running out! The florals are "just because". My last temptation are these fat quarters:



How cute are these?? I'm going to make them into a grocery shopping bag!