Thread drawing

Just read the most excellent notes from Lalla Ward's latest exhibition, Vanishing Act.
You may remember her as Dr Who's assistant.
This is her third textile exhibition.
Her notes are an entertaining read, and I loved her put-down to the anti-art quilt lady at the end!

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/sites/all/libraries/files/documents/Vanishing-Act-Thread-drawing-Detailed-Instructions.pdf

March and April Journals

(I have changed the title of this post as it is attracting a huge amount of spam comments).
As a member of Contemporary Quilt, the Specialist group of the Quilters Guild, I am signed up for this year's Journal Quilt Challenge, we have to make a small quilt each month and post to the Yahoo site before the end of the month. In fact the first 4 had to be posted by today.

Well my camera developed a fault and I had to borrow one but finally my March and April quilts are uploaded - a bit skin of my teeth - but here they are:

March Journal Quilt, Latch 2

April Journal Quilt, Paint 1

 They are both made with image transfer using photographs I took on a visit to the Eco Musee in Alsace. March, the Mediaeval Latch, and April Distressed Paint from an ancient door, are put onto hand dyed cotton fabric and then quilted in straight lines. I like the blurring of the image in the paint picture.
The Eco Museum is a super place with very old houses transferred to the site. There are good explanations of the building styles and there are Storks nesting on the roofs!

More bookwraps and dye day.

Here are the framed squares that Blogger would not let me up load!
A nice Jellyroll and Charm square-friendly pattern; worksheets for which I will have with me on Sunday at the Bead and Textile Fair at the Heartsease Academy in Norwich on Sunday from 10.00a.m. These are laid out fairly randomly on the sitting room floor to get a flavour of the overall design.

On Monday I was given another dozen bookwraps made by Pamela Salter who has now made 22! Mammoth effort! Here are three:

Pamela Salter

Pamela Salter

Pamela Salter

And here are the lovely colours of wool blanket dyed with acid dyes yesterday at a workshop with Helen Howes

Framed Squares Blocks

These are the simple blocks that I wrote about a post of two back, the ones I had forgotten about and found in my Block Keeper Book when I wanted to use the pages to store my Winding Ways blocks so I could carry them to Quilt Group ready to sew..
Blogger is playing up and won't load the picture. Try Later...

Flowers and Blocks

So lovely to have the sun. The pink wallflowers by the door are such a nice colour and the nesting bees love them. It is important to have single flowers for the bees, double flowers may look amazing but they often have no nectar.

I've been working on some more Winding Ways blocks too. Also Pink!
These are in progress, I seem to be running out of darks and will have a good excuse to look at fabric at the Quilters Guild Spring Trade Fair at Mundford on May 4th.

I shall be taking leaflets to the Bead and Textile Fair on Sunday at the Heartsease Academy in Norwich. I will be there representing the Quilters and demonstrating an easy block., but I might get some more of these stitched up too!




Here are the details for the May event:


Quilters Guild Region 9 with Norfolk Quilters
SPRING TRADE FAIR  Saturday May 4th 2013  10.00a.m. to 3.00p.m.
Mundford Village Hall, St Leonards St, Mundford, Nr Thetford IP26 5DW
Doughty's of Hereford Road Show, Quality Fabrics at Bargain Prices
Plus Sewing Machine World, The Home Workshop (Books) and other specialist shops
Grand Raffle including Large bed Quilt and Sewing Machine
Adults £2 children free Proceeds to Quilters Guild
Refreshments by Norfolk Quilters

Spring glorious Spring.

This week has seen the Blackthorn blossom appear followed by the new Hawthorn leaves, Bread and Cheese my grandad always called them and swore you could put them in a sandwich! I love it when the hedges turn green again.

The Kingcups are flowering in the edge of my pond and I managed to notice just before they grew through the net that protects the fish!

In the front garden the Forsythia is out too.

A beautiful sunny yellow by my front door. And I'm delighted that my bees are back, solitary bees that make individual nests in holes in the dry sandy soil by the front door.

There are golden Wallflowers, lovely scented flowers that I grew from seed, they have been quietly sitting there all winter just waiting for the sun.

 I have been sewing too, piecing some blocks that I found in my Block Keeper book, all cut out ready to sew, and in the way as I want to use it to lay out my Winding Ways blocks.
I have lots of those cut now and need to get on with the stitching.

Today my Moonshine quilt came home from it's trip around the country and it was beautifully packed, rolled on a padded Cardboard roll and covered with bubble wrap. This is the quilt that Hendrina had seen at one of the travelling stitch shows.
I have to send some quilts to go to the Make-it Lace fair in Northampton and I thought I should send it's partner Winding Ways quilt, the Red Dragons.
Early start tomorrow to get to Brampton Village Hall for the Guild Regional Day with Lynn Edwards. Looking Forward to it!

Utilitarian sewing today.

Had to put a new lining in the bedroom curtain in an attempt to keep out the light so DH can get his beauty sleep. This rubberised stuff is quite heavy, I hope it won't pull the rail down...
I made a quick cushion for the Quilter's Guild raffle:

It is a fun sewing print with dotty fabric to set it off, hopefully will appeal to the younger punter! Now off to sew a button back on the duvet cover.
And move a few more boxes out of the sewing room so it can become a guest room on Monday!

Hooray, blocks now all cut

All FW cut out ready to sew, except for the two I decided not to do, Spider Legs and the second Tree block. I have some spares anyway, and can now tidy up in readiness for visitors on Monday. All may be quiet here for a day or two!

It's Sunny!

But only slightly warmer as the wind is very cold.
I drove to Winterton Quilt group today and was given another lovely Bookwrap, and the promise of more. I cut out 5 more FW blocks and sewed 4 of them up, now I have the three I promised Gilly completed ready to deliver tomorrow.

Just had a lovely comment on my quilt Moonshine (they seem to have hung it very well) which is part of a Quilters Guild travelling exhibition:

Hendrina Naylor 4:05pm Apr 3 Thanks. That Quilt is just....blew our minds away! I got so much inspiration at the show and am now ( a total novice) making little hexagons-got hooked on them! herewith the picture with my grand daughter Adile-Jade (aged 13). She is also 'heavy into needle crafts' . Thanks once again, Hendrina (Rena) from Northampton Conversation History Heather Hasthorpe 3:50pm Apr 3 Hi Rena, that's lovely! I tried to reply on your blog, don't know if I was successful! I only mind people pinning my work I can't understand how anyone would think it ok to give my copyright to Pinterest!!! I am at the moment making another of these in pink and yellow with a touch of turquoise as a wedding quilt for a mate. There will be progress pics on my blog,/www.withoutpins.blogspot.co.uk/

More Tiny Triangles

I've made another 4 FW blocks, Snowball, Spool, Country Farm and Attic Windows. These are all straightforward 9-patch blocks.

However when looking through the blocks I haven't yet done I realised that there were still several that need half-square triangles that finish to an inch. I had a go at making some by drawing around a paper template:

but they are difficult to draw and I don't stitch a very straight line with my dodgy wrists so although they were O.K. I have reverted to my usual method of drawing a grid. I started with two ten inch squares and drew a 2" grid and then drew in the diagonals so that they went in opposite directions on adjacent squares because you can then stitch a continuous line.

 It is a bit of an intellectual challenge to work out where to go in order to keep going - a topology problem slightly more difficult than the ones I use to do with my class of infants!




Then you cut on all the lines.
you do have to trim them to one and a half inches but you can do them as they are needed, not necessarily all at once!

And if you choose a fabric with a diagonal stripe you end up with two sets, stripes going in different directions!

Creake Abbey

On Good Friday we went up to Burnham Overy Staithe to the preview of an art exhibition that we go to each year. There are four artists who exhibit together and I like Hannah Hann's work. My husband John likes her husband Chris's work. We bought three prints and changed the look of our sitting room.
On the way I saw signs for Creake Abbey. We shouldn't have been going down that road but I was knitting in the car and not navigating so we sailed past our turning! Fortunately we stopped for a quick look and it was very interesting. It was an Augustinian foundation dating from the early 13th Century. It was called the Abbey of St. Mary of the Meadows and the Canons ran a hospital for the sick and needy. The Church was destroyed by fire in the 1380s and not long after the Canons succumbed to disease which seems wholly inappropriate. The Abbey lands were used to endow Christ's College Cambridge.

 Among the ruins were some niches in the walls and when you got up close there were offerings, Candle stubs, Prayer books and even a photograph of a deceased man, almost like the kinds of shrine you might find in Spain.

 I have been busily cutting out more FW blocks today in the hope I can have a good session some time stitching them all up, but I really should go out and finish washing down the greenhouse.