Sheringham Park

Half term so took Grandchildren for a run in Sheringham Park, the lovely National Trust Humphrey Repton Gardens. It was so foggy that the golf tournament at Cromer was postponed and Sky had come to film it!
It was about two weeks too early for the best colour but some of the rhododendrons were out.

 There are some spectacular colour combinations.

More blocks and Clematis

I've made another 25 broken dishes blocks in the lovely soft pinks with a few greys. I need 5 for each 18" block so hopefully that is now enough, although I may need a few dark ones as I am following Izi's suggestion to put the darker ones as cornerstones and the darkest around the edge to hold the design together.

I have been out in the garden as it isn't raining yet today and have planted the tomato plants in the greenhouse into my Dad's pots - large terracotta that he knocked the bottom out of and I inherited.I vaguely remember him calling it Ring Culture; he was an organic gardener before it caught on! Every year he'd fill my car with flowers he'd grown. Now I have to grow my own...
I've taken some of the flowers, verbascum, gazania, nicotiana,and some annuals I've grown from seeds round to the front of the house but it's still a bit cold out there so I'm in for coffee.

The Clematis growing over the shed is really lovely at the moment and as I'm using flowers as my theme for my next journal quilts and the next set of postcards I'll need to look closely at flowers! I'm planning to add to my bleached fabric with some overprinting later today.

Experimental...

I've been playing with some of my dyed fabric by sponging bleach over the top through a stencil. Some interesting results especially on top of the squares of patchwork fabric that were a boring green, and left over from a previous project. I dyed them darker but they still weren't interesting enough to reuse, but now they'll have a new lease of life.
I am hoping to use them for another set of postcards and some more of my journal quilts. There are some more fabrics waiting to be overdyed and printed.

Quilt pics

I've added a new page where  I can put up quilt pictures.

Sewing with friends

Just back from my trip. I managed to make about 40 more of my broken dishes blocks, but will still need some more. Here is the layout so far:

These are laid out on a full size snooker table so you can see it will be a big quilt!
I had a great time visiting with friends, and a lovely drive down through sunny hedges with bluebells in the woods and lambs in the pastures.
I arranged our wedding anniversary party at a hotel for August, and called in to see my eldest brother and saw his garden which is being redesigned, lovely!
Yesterday morning a cuckoo was calling as we had breakfast in the Candover Valley. I went on to see my daughter in Newbury and we went out to lunch then I was able to see my younger daughter in Bedford, and stop for supper before coming on home.

Fabric Sale

Lovely Batiks bought this morning in a fabric sale at quilt group, just right to make more Rattlesnake blocks.

Rattlesnake block

 You need somewhat plainer batiks in the centres to make the points sharp. I saw this on Wanda's blog Exuberant Color
and my friend Ruth is making it too.

Hers will be spotty and all the more exciting for that!

And in the garden the honey scented Euphorbia Mellifera is in flower right next to where I park my car, and as you brush past it you get the lovely smell of honey. I grew this plant from seed shortly after we moved here and a stem fell to the ground and rooted so now we have two big plants along the side of the house.

Euphorbia Mellifera

Quilting as Art.

The International Business Times has an article about Quilting as an art form here. Interesting reading.
Must away to plant the beans...

Machine Embroidery

Monday so it's machine embroidery class in Norwich with Sheila Ford. She is an excellent tutor who has super original ideas, an is always very well prepared. In fact we heard this morning that her stitched textiles C&G course is so successful that the centre has been awarded its status and this makes things cheaper for the students... Hooray!

I really enjoy these classes as it is not the sort of thing I do normally so it's a complete change, time off if you like, although I certainly work hard there. 

Today we were making a sampler based on the designs in Klimt's paintings; working on black velevet using some of the techniques from the class we had with Angie Hughes  - sweetie foils on bondaweb, transfer foils, applique and machine quilting through a voile to stop the stitches sinking into the velvet.
And for once mine was finished with the voile burnt away with a heat gun:

Fabric Crumbs.

I've made some postcards for this month's swap, which is "Fabric Crumbs" I had collected all the threads that unravelled from the recent dyeing session and chopped them up and stuck them to a strip of "steam a seam" glue. I cleaned the iron because the backing paper was sticky... then stuck them down to a piece of screen printed furnishing fabric courtesy of   Helen Howes discard box. I free machine quilted them with a variegated rayon thread with black polyester scarf over the top which was then cut away. Some more lines of stitch to hold the fronts to the pelmet vilene inners then added the hand dyed cotton backs and stitched the edges this time with a cotton variegated thread.

I finished the backs with information printed onto sticky labels as I would find it a struggle to hand write them all. All ready to post when I get back from my trip away later this week.

 Today I planted out the peas, and have cleared out and replanted several of the pots holding the netting round the pond. The King Cups have been wonderful this year, they're such a vibrant colour, but just beginning to think about dropping their petals and setting seed so I'll have to chop them back.




These are the blocks I've been working on:

Broken Dishes - the other wedding quilt I volunteered myself for, but I am really enjoying making both of them. This one is softer colours and subtle, almost Japanese looking,but the block seems quite suitable for the purpose!!

I have loads of Winding Ways blocks laid out in my block keeper book ready to take with me on Wednesday to Quilt group and to Barn Owls meeting on Friday.

I am sewing, but..

When the sun shines I can't resist going out into the garden. I've been delighted by some stunning colour combinations that Nature throws up:

Tiny purple geraniums with yellow wallflowers.

Tulips and wallflowers in sunshine.

Golden orange wallflowers with a touch of bright pink.

And the apple blossom on my crab apple tree is spectacular!

Image transfer in the church.

This weekend we have a photographic exhibition in Catfield church. John has put some of his work in and I put in some photos, but also made up a board showing some of my image transfer work from my Journal quilts, as they start with a photograph. It has proved interesting to see people's reaction to it... my favourite was my own dear husband who normally takes little interest in what I am up to, but he read the blurb I put up about techniques and said I was quite the little artist!!

Bead Fair and a bit of excitement!

Bead and Textile Fair.
Here is a pic of me demonstrating Winding Ways blocks at the Bead Fair in Norwich. Poor quality as its taken with my phone.
There was a lot of interest and I hope we will get a good turnout at our Guild Area Day in the autumn.








Today I had a picture sent to me from Lucy at Quilting in Peace who runs workshops at her place in France. She made this quilt from my pattern and instructions printed in Patchwork and Quilting magazine. I love the colourway, and it looks great on the bed! The latest magazine has an article about Lucy and her classes.

Here is my version: