A bit of a catch up

From the post last time when 3 quilts were in progress I now have two quilts finished.  I just kept it simple and bought some nice soft cream fleece to back the quilts with enough left over to piece for the third.

Here they are

The Boy Bunnies

The Girl Bunnies

This one is still in progress but the gingham squares looked rather plain so one evening last week I drew a butterfly shape and a balloon shape to make appliques to go on them.  Today I found a picture of a simple rabbit shape so tomorrow I'll have rabbit appliques to go on the centre blocks next to the rabbits. Then just a case of stitching around the shapes.  I found that skirt hangers make good hangers for displaying quilts and I might add something pretty them up a bit.

On Saturday I went with friends to the Quilters' Guild Region 3 Day in Brockenhurst and my friend Penny suggested taking the train from Poole.  With the train ticket Penny also gave me this train timetable and I immediately liked the picture (yes it is sideways, I forgot to rotate the photo before uploading to Dropbox).  It's reminiscent of one of those 1930's style railway posters showing the beach with the Isle of Wight in the background and sailing boats.

This gives me a bit of inspiration for a small quilt for the Region 4 challenge "Coast" and purchase of a few quarters of seaside fabrics while I was at the Region 3 day.

The speakers were Terry Donaldson and Kate Dowty from the Stitch Witches textile art group bringing along loads of quilts from their challenges, which have won prizes at quilt shows and have also held exhibitions too.  I did take some photos but there are photos and more details about the challenges on the gallery pages of the Stitch Witches site.

The afternoon speaker, Judi Mendelssohn, one of the editors of British Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  She had a difficult journey due to the snow, rain and goodness knows what weather to get to Brockenhurst and was not sure whether she would travel. (This last weekend and into this week a lot of the UK is covered in snow which is causing havoc around the country, fortunately along the south coast we are lucky not to have the white stuff, but the temperatures are bitterly cold.)  She was a very entertaining speaker again with loads of quilts to show from numerous Ikea bags. (Sorry about the heads!). Just loved this New York Beauty quilt.  This would be a technique she taught to a workshop on the Sunday).

Sunday saw David and I going to Southampton to the Mayflower Theatre to see the Hairy Bikers "Larger than Live" roadshow.  A packed theatre, though I think we were a little disappointed with the show, thinking there would be more cooking, but there was a lot of larking about and clips from the television shows.  But it got us out to the theatre (don't do enough of that).

I haven't blogged very much this month but hope I can get some stitching in over the Easter holiday. maybe I might even have the third bunny quilt done. 

INTERNATIONAL QUILTING DAY

Today is International Quilting Day and I am not able to be part of it, sadly.  So whatever you do today I hope today is an enjoyable sewing one.  Being rainy today it would be nice to be in the sewing room and getting stuff done, but I will be visiting relatives so not a stitch will be sewn, but I will be thinking of friends enjoying their day at Sturminster Marshall Village Hall today.

But is has been a sew-y week.  David had spent some time in Yorkshire this week with work, so I had a couple of evenings busying myself.  I was given some remnant fabric of some cute bunnies and matching gingham fabric in (originally in blue) and made 2 nine patch tops but felt they needed to be bigger but didn't have enough of the blue so asked the Bourne Quilters if they had more.  They did and a carrier bag was found on my doorstep one day with more rabbit fabric and assorted coloured ginghams.  I've now made the quilt tops bigger and now making a third top.  So here are my efforts.

 The Boy bunnies - I'd used the blue gingham fabric, but some of the fabric is a bit old and slightly faded so is a bit patchy

The Girl bunnies - one of the gingham pieces, the green was a decent size so decided to unpick the blue square and replace with the green, and as you can see there are a couple of bunnies in green dresses.

And with bits and bobs left over another quilt top is in progress.

I will get some fleece to back these little quilts, so keeping it simple.  They will go to the local Project Linus group.

The New Year resolution didn't last too long.  March has seen a few magazines like this little lot here
(sorry it's sideways)

plus there's The Quilter magazine from the Quilters' Guild (part of the membership) and Fabrications (I subscribe to that one) too.  Oh dear, they are starting to breed again.

Bits and Bobs (or Odds and Sods)

Since my last posting life has past in a blur, but I now have a couple of days holiday to use up leave today and tomorrow. The weekend ahead will see a trip to Bristol to see my daughter Sarah for the day.

On Tuesday at work (I work for the Borough of Poole council) I found this by the entrance to the Council Chamber

Not where one would normally see a quilt, so after getting a coffee I went back there  with my phone to take this photo.  This quilt was presented to the Council in 2002 and made by 6 people whose names are listed on the back, but I didn't recognise any of them, so I am wondering whether they are embroiderers rather than specifically quilters.  The main quilt was painted and stitched, hand stitched large seed stitches on the land and the edges of the sea bit was machine stitched but I can't remember how the rest of the sea was stitched. 

The pictures were made separately and may have been stitched over mount board before being appliqued onto the quilt.  They are of, from the top, Coat of Arms for Poole, the memorial to Lord Baden-Powell on Brownsea Island,  (not sure of the white building at the top), The Customs House.  In the middle on the left is the Poole Arms. On the bottom the pottery kilns at Poole Potter (long gone) the entrance gates to Poole Park, some boat rigging, and the RNLI flag (the RNLI headquarters and college are based in Poole). What a find and if I get more information about this quilt I put it on this blog.

Last month I sent out Flying Geese postcards and these are the ones I've received from the swap

From top left clockwise, from Inge, Pauline, Jan and Jacquie.  I enjoy the different interpretations from this block.  I did have 2 to spare from making this so one is in my folder and another went to the lovely Sue from Quilt Times.

Talking of my postcard folder, where I've kept samples and spares, is a handy thing to take with me when people ask about fabric postcards.  I'ts just a plain A5 one with pocket pouches inside

There are also some unfinished postcard tops and thinking that I ought to do some finishing off

Here's one top which was finished off yesterday to show a friend how the postcards are made

 A nice bit of fabric weaving

And used a nice bit of indigo dyed fabric from years ago,  I looked later at that and thinking I should have made a card front out of that, it looks like the sea and sky, why didn't I think of that earlier!  Oh well, it's done now.

 I'm still knitting and am having a go at a moebius cowl, one of those loopy things that goes around the neck.  I got a very basic pattern here with links to You-tube videos for the cast on and the I-cord (was once known as French Knitting to you and me) finish.  I've knitted this up and getting to the end now, so this is what is looks like

It's knitted in Sirdar Click, a double knitting yarn with colour changes and it's funny that my yarn choices, a bit like my thread choices usually seem to the variegated.

As I'm a member of the regional committee of the Quilters Guild and found that another committee member Deborah, has a blog too, Deborah, The Daisychain Quilter.  I see that she's posted a link to here too, thanks Deborah.