Jenny Rayment workshop

On Saturday I was at a workshop organised by Quarterjack Quilters tutored by Jennie Rayment, who specialises in tucks, twists and dimensional patchwork. We made "Tucked Up Circles" a technique that was new to me. Everything was done by machine, no hand sewing at all and also learned of a stitch on my machine (I've got a Janome MC4800) that I didn't know I had for "invisible" hemming around the small circle appliqued in the middle and the binding around the edge of the circle. Could be most useful, that.

Anyway, an enjoyable workshop, Jennie gave very clear instructions and she has a wonderful sense of humour. A really good day. Here's my circle by the end of the day, yet to be sandwiched and quilted.

International Quilting Day

My friend, Brenda, and myself have organised an International Quilting Day in Sturminster Marshall, near Wimborne, Dorset for the past couple of years. This year our day was on 17th March, St Patrick's Day, so there was an Irish theme to the day. That's Brenda on the left in the photo, me on the right.

We originally became friends through visiting the same event in Hartley Wintney, near Basingstoke in 2000 which was organised by Doris Dove and Diana Baker and each year until we decided that maybe quilters in Dorset would like to such an event hence our started in 2005. Ours is sociable, with a lot of the ladies bringing their own hand sewing, there's a raffle, some demonstrations, some traders, a quiz or two, show and tell, hot lunch, followed later by tea and cakes. So successful that this year we didn't have to advertise! Each year Brenda and I choose a charity, which this year was to support the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. To date, we have raised over £400.00.

To see photos of the Quilting Day I 've put them here .

Up and down buttonhole stitch

Here is a sample of the up and down buttonhole stitch. I've used the last portion of my silk ufo to embroider onto. Took a while to get the hang on this stitch but once hooked had to keep going. I even managed and down, up and up again stitch which was sewn for the "tulip" style flowers. I like a bit of quirkiness and could not resist making a beaded dragonfly using this stitch as wings.

Cross Stitch

I've posted a couple of photos of my TAST challenge piece which this week is cross stitch. I've made a large cross of lots of crosses on black felt. I used perle and chenille threads which created an interesting texture on the black. For those who, like me, want to see the back as well as the front I've shown the reverse image.

Latest Postcards

I've just sent of postcards for the Valentine swap on BQL (British Quilt List) Postcard group. I already had some material with hearts, roses and letters on them and decided that some pink/orange silk would go well. I origally trimmed them with gold organza ribbon but badly underestimated the amount of ribbon needed, so then bought some gold ricrac to trim. I found some pale pink fabric for the postcard backs and wrote in red. Really pleased at how they turned out.

My Mum's Quilts

I thought I would share a couple of quilts that my Mum has made. A friend at one of the local quilt groups, Freda, gave some novelty fabric to anyone who could make good use of it, the only proviso was a photo of the finished quilts. I passed some football (soccer) and basketball fabric onto Mum who's made a couple of quilts for the local Project Linus. Here they are.

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Feather stitch

Here's a picture of my latest sample of feather stitch for the TAST challenge. I used another piece of the UFO that I'd used for the January Cheer postcards. There's just one piece left now I'm sure that'll be used soon!

Latest TAST sampleshttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I've posted the latest TAST samples onto my Flickr site.

I've used UFO's from previous postcard projects for samples of Chevron stitch and Cretan stitch. Have used what evenweave fabric that I have for the Algerian Eye. A good excuse to go to Hobbycraft to get some more and some multicolour Anchor threads too.

Not having post since last month, thought I should put this right. I belong to a postcard group, an offshoot of BQL (British Quilt List), a Yahoogroup. In January there was a big swap called January Cheer, for which 13 postcards were made. Here is my contribution, below.

I made 3 "collections" - Nobody Here But us Chickens - using up a suprising amount of chicken fabric that I have in my scrapbox, didn't know I had that much. The next was Flower Fairies using some fairy picture fabric combined with scraps that I had of matching fabric. The third was using a silk piece that I cut into smaller pieces and embellished with embroidery, sari yarn, sequins and ribbon.

I'll post sometime soon with the postcards that I've received, got 11 so far..

Here are a couple of images of the buttonhole stitch sampler for Take a Stitch Tuesday. I've also uploaded this to my flickr site.

Welcome to my first blog. Above is a pic of my fabric weaving sample with assorted embroidery stitches including herringbone, chain and fly stitches. I've uploaded this to "Take a Stitch Tuesday" site on Flickr