International Quilting Day

About 6 years ago my friend, Brenda, and myself started an event in Sturminster Marshall, Dorset, to celebrate International Quilting Day, which we were made aware of by visiting a quilting day in Hartley Wintney, near Basingstoke.   This was run by Doris Dove and Diana Baker who used the IQD as an event to bring quilters together and raise funds for charity.  There are now 4 similar quilting days taking place at the same time around the Basingstoke area.

The four years that Brenda and I ran this from 2004 to 2008 we'd raised money for Julia's House (a respite centre for local children in Poole), Macmillan Dorset, CLIC children's cancer charity and the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.  Little did I know with the last one we organised that I would be in Yorkshire by the end of 2008! We both found this too much to organise although other quilters found the day a lot of fun it did take up a lot of time.  However Pauline and Sarah of Pauline's Patchworks of Weymouth took over in 2009 and this year in 2010 they have raised money for Help for Heroes - an organisation that assists our wounded servicepeople from the Afghanistan conflict.  You can read about the day here. Here are the posts about our events in 2007 and 2008

For my part the day for me consisted of going alone as it was a miserable day outside and making a present for my granddaughter who was 1 year old on Tuesday 16th.  I can't show my efforts for now but will share a photo of this in my next post.  (I will, honest.).  That took the morning.

In the afternoon I also made some postcards for the quick mosaic theme in BQLPC postcard group.  I was swapping with 4 others and have received 2 postcards so far.  There is a link to the method that I used on my December Calendar Challenge here but of course the scale is a bit smaller.  It was good that odds and ends with some selvedges that I had could be used, though it didn't make any attempt to dent my scrap bag. Here's a pic on the left of the completed cards, on the right is the reverse of the work in progress. So a great use of the day. No organising anything, just myself.

On Sunday the weather dried up so David and I headed to Keighley and to East Riddlesden Hall, a National Trust site, then just a short drive from there to a model railway exhibition at a community hall in the local park.  After then we headed over towards Hebden Bridge and to Hardcastle Crags, with a mile long walk down to Gibson Mill, which at one time was a cotton mill.  A very popular place with walkers we took a gravel path to the mill then walked back by the river, which with wet weather became a sort of obstacle course, but an adventure nonetheless.

 

 Above is the outside of East Riddlesden Hall and below that is a photo taken from the inside of the house looking out. You can see that window in the top picture above the arch.

This weekend will see us going down south and staying with my parents and catching up with family and friends.  Really looking forward to going "back home".

Before I go though, here's a photo of how our spring bulbs are doing. The previous weekend there were just a few crocuses, this last weekend there were more and joined by a few dwarf daffodils.  During this week the dwarf tulips have made an appearance.  I just love these first signs of spring.