West Country Quilt Show and a Couple of Finishes

Yesterday I went on a coach trip organised by Happy Patchers to the West Country Quilt Show in Bristol, at the University of West of England's Conference Centre.  The weather was really wet so I'm glad someone else was doing the driving.

I heard from last year that this was becoming a quite good show as it not only features quilts but also other crafts are represented too, such as spinning, felting, lacemaking and others and wanted to go this year.  It was interesting to hear demonstrators talk about their crafts even if it wasn't what you do.  There were quite a few textile artists, such as Hilary Beattie, I could watch her demonstrating the different colour mediums that she uses all day.  Needless to say that one of my purchases was her third book, Making it Personal, book 2.

There weren't many competition quilts and only a few competition cushions, but quite a few traders who had mixed fortunes showing at this show.  The aisles were quite wide so plenty of room to explore the the traders and demonstration booths too.

I took pictures of quilts, these were the modern mini quilts from the Modern Quilt section of the Quilters' Guild featuring white, black and another colour

Then there was a textile group with Sixties inspired quilts

Cushions and quilts

Competition Quilts

I made some purchases too, but as I'd only recently bought fabric at the Doughty's sale last month I resisted temptation.  I did buy books, Hilary Beattie's as above, and also from Gillian Travis, a crochet kit, textile brooch kit, a few more Aurifil threads and cards and contact details from other traders.

Now I can say that I have a couple of finishes today - yay!

A little while ago I bought a lovely skein of wool from Kathryn of Crafternoon Treats. It was would fairly quickly into a ball and I used it to make a Hitchhiker Shawl, a pattern by Martina Behm, which was a simple pattern which would show the hand dyed yarn to good effect.  It has been picked up and put down, but it was easy just to sit and knit while watching television, so it has taken a while.  When we stopped in Sherborne on our way home from the Motor Museum the other week the two ladies in the wool shop in the town were wearing Hitchhiker shawls and they looked so different in the different yarns.  Anyway it is finished today and all the sewing that was needed was weaving in the ends at the start and end of the knitting. This is it

And a selfie of me wearing it, sorry, looks a bit odd, didn't know whether to take a photo reflected in the mirror or not, in the end decided a selfie was a better option.

And a start and finish!  A journal quilt for October (I also have a November one in progress).  This was inspired by the tree quilts made by Helen Howes at the quilt show yesterday and the instructions are on her website here. 

I'd cut the background fabric to size with another thing in mind but it wasn't big enough so the size was expanded with the mustard yellow fabric on 2 sides.  The cutting and inserting was quite quick to do but its thinking in what order to do piece this.  Quite enjoyed this, as I do like to take time out to play with a different technique.

While I was out yesterday David, who volunteers on the Swanage Railway, did a stint of signalling at Norden, near Corfe Castle and had to stay to operate the level crossing for a visiting engine that travelled down on an excursion from Sussex to Weymouth which was stopping overnight at Swanage.    It was night time by the train arrived and the engine was travelling to Southall from Swanage today so we went to Poole station to see it go through. The engine is called Braunton, but as it is Remembrance weekend it was temporarily named Lord Dowding.

That was my weekend, hope you had a good one too.