Tuesday 15 December 2015

Pretty Patchwork Purses

I'm practising making these quick and easy purses; they make great gifts and I'm also making batches of purses for the Tombola at next year's Festival of Quilts.
Check out the zippy blog here: http://zippy-purses.blogspot.co.uk/
There's a link below...






Sunday 15 November 2015

Prizes!

 Highly Commended for "Magic Portals"
 First Small Wallhanging for "Hidden"
Second Traditional Patchwork for "Rattlesnake"

Monday 21 September 2015

Out and about.

There is a lot of hedgerow fruit this autumn; we collected bullace the small green Norfolk plums that are like little greengages, and wild damsons from the lane.


Both are good eating cooked with apples.

On Sunday the weather was good and we took our small cabin cruiser out on the river Ant. We saw Great Crested Grebe, Herons and Cormorants. Terns diving over Barton Broad and Swans - a group of eight gygnets full grown now but still in their brown plumage.

8 swans a-swimming

heron hunting

cormorant drying off
and quite a few people on the river... fishermen, canoeists and sailors.
There was a competition on the broad and sails flying along despite there being little wind along the river.

a whole family canoeing

the river was still you could see the weed and fish




sailors having fun
This is a National Park area so there is no litter, all you see on the river banks are discarded swan feathers! it is beautiful. We had a lovely picnic and came home rejuvenated.


Tuesday 15 September 2015

Journal Quilts, May to August

I've finally managed to upload these four Journals to the Yahoo site.
It was much easier than trying to get all four on this page in the correct monthly order!

 These are more experiments in Fine Line Piecing using fine Oakshott cottons.

May Journal
June Journal



July Journal


  
                                                                                                        
August Journal

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Recent Work

.. has been mainly samples for the new Quilters Guild Modern Specialist Group Tutor Boxes. an Idea Helen Howes and I have been working on for some time. Small quilt samples, nicely finished, with a copiable worksheet that groups can hire for the cost of the postage rather than hiring in a teacher and paying a small fortune in travelling costs.
Here is an Eccentric Crosses Sample nicely made with a flange binding and matchstick quilting:

Modern Eccentric Crosses
 This is the Modern take on Log cabin great for using narrow scraps.
Modern Negative Space Log Cabin
 Another Notelets, small envelope blocks made with 2 1/2 inch squares.
Envelope block made with small squares
 My current favourite, Interlocking Plus blocks. I like making these...
Modern Plusses

 This is an interesting one, x&+ blocks lots of these appearing in Japanese quilts.

X and Plus blocks

My workspace! the tiny tumblers are my thread savers,  I just stitch another pair between sewing other blocks!

Tuesday 28 July 2015

Another Hexie Version

This is Helen Butcher's iPad case made from the same technique that I taught at International Quilters' Day in March. Lovely to see finished items from a small workshop, and extremely pleasing to see yet another version from strips sewn together!


And here's my cushion which was the class sample:


and if you look back a couple of posts to the class for Oak Leaf Quilters there are lots more examples of different patterns there!

Ready for Festival Of Quilts in Birmingham coming up at the beginning of next month my Great Granny Squares made with two and a half inch squares is now finished with label, sleeve and binding. I really like this one as there are some interesting prints in there including some of the lovely Art Gallery Fabrics I won from the Fat Quarter shop giveaway this time last year.



Sunday 26 July 2015

Trip to Felbrigg

The grandchildren came to stay for a few days and we went to visit Felbrigg, a National Trust property nearby. It's a Jacobean house with a Georgian interior and a beautiful walled garden with chickens running free.
The outside:

 And two pictures of the hand painted birds on the wallpaper in the Chinese bedroom.
I also like the library, and the kitchen with the wonderful array of polished copper saucepans.


The children went for a romp in the woods, there are lots of walks to choose from, and I sat by the pool in the walled garden and watched a female blackbird bathe and goldfinches come down to drink. The borders were a riot of colour, and parts of the garden are let to local people for allottments. the smell of ripe blackcurrants was heavenly!

 I managed to finish stitching down the binding on my fourth Journal quilt so the next four are now ready to load up onto the Yahoo site at the beginning of August.

Thursday 16 July 2015

Purses

I've been entertaining myself between tasks by making small purses for my Sales Tableat the exhibition in my church at the end of August.

Scraps of linen and zippers I've been given.. with bits of lace and some tiny Hexagons.
















And a little Liberty purse begun by my friend Daphne and finished by me.

I had forgotten how lovely these are, and how easy to make so  expect there will be more.

Tuesday 14 July 2015

Quilt finished!

My Yellow Great Granny squares is finished, complete with Label, hanging sleeve and with the binding completed. When I tried to finish it last week the binding fabric was two inches too short and I'd left the rest of the fabric at home. Frustrating, but it's done now.



Beautifully quilted by Mandy Parks with a modern version of Baptists' Fan. Clever to put a curvy design on top of straight-line piecing.

Tuesday 23 June 2015

Teaching Day at Oak Leaf Quilters

I had a good time teaching at Oak Leaf Quilters in Reepham today.
They seemed to enjoy themselves too and there was good food and copious amounts of tea and cake.
We spent the morning looking at modern versions of Log Cabin:
Barbara's little log cabin crosses

Christine's version




and in the afternoon we played with sixty-degree triangles which could be
hexagons-by-machine ... or not! Have a look at these new versions:
Barbara's

Elizabeth's

Maggie's

Sue's


Interesting aren't they!