Blogging!

Wish I knew how to make my blog more interesting with links and a personalised pictures and things. I look at other blogs and the layout on many are SO MUCH prettier than mine! I'll get back to some free motion quilting - that'll cheer me up!

Grace's Quilt

So onwards and upwards with this quilt/playmat which I'm making for a friend's granddaughter. I have a finish date for this so really HAVE TO knuckle down with no side-tracking to other projects. I'm at the quilting stage so hopefully I'll finish it in time...I've got 12 days! Wish me luck.

A Great Day Out

 What better to do on lovely sunny day than visit York, one of my favourite cities and home to the National Quilt Museum? A two hour train journey brought us to York, a city bursting with history, vibrancy, interest, beauty and splendour.
I've visited the Museum before and looked forward to seeing the present exhibition on ' Celebrations'. As always, I come away inspired and hopeful that one of my quilts might one day be classed as a family heirloom! I felt a bit special on this visit because it's the first time I've been there as a member of the Quilters' Guild and as such could use the members' room. Lucky Keith was allowed to come in with me for a cup of tea- and a sneaky forty winks!!!

Then out for a walk on the dity walls, lunch and a stroll down the Shambles, voted Britain's most picturesque Street in 2010. http://www.york-united-kingdom.co.uk/shambles/

This is on the 'definite' list for my American friends and family when they visit the UK. A nice late lunch, further strolling in the street market and then it was time for the train journey home.

.

Across Borders

Across Borders we are because we are a group of people from Yorkshire and Lancashire and we are also a group with members from England and Scotland. Everyone's happy!
We are now in the business of making our blocks into quilts-some will be ready for the Harrogate Show this year and some will need to wait until next year. So the seagulls are coming home to roost - until another one takes off!

...ACROSS BORDERS!

...first, we'd need to think of a name for our group. We'd been together as a group since starting our City and Guilds course in September 2008, had become really good friends and loved getting together. Davina led us into the extremely arduous business of finding a name-much harder than you'd think! We ended up with a huge list of suggestions then carried out a straw poll, checked on Google for anyone else with that name(as far as we could) and came up with...

 

Helen couldn't make it in Reveal Day and so we were a parcel short. We spent the day making the last block because and talking about the possibility of entering the finished quilts in the North of England Quilt Show, however...

It was so exciting opening these packets when they dropped through the letterbox! Seeing all the different approaches and techniques used was great-it never fails to amaze me just how creative people are.
Taxed with the same instuctions, there is never the same outcome by two people-wonderful!

And so, month by month,  the postmen were busy helping our seagulls on their way to the next destination.

 

The block finished, it was then posted to the next person in the circle who bought another fat quarter and made the next block.

...who bought a further co-ordinating fat quarter and made a block according to specific instructions - Month 1 - include squares, Month 2 -half square triangles, Month 3 - applique. Month 4 - curves, Month 5 - stripes, Month 6 - points, Month 7 - crazy patchwork, Month 8 - star(s) Month 9 - square within a square.

The Circular Seagull Reveal Day

...and so the Circular Seagull Reveal Day arrived. The blocks designed and worked by all the members our City and Guilds group had been completed and it was time to see them all. We met up for a day and with great excitement opened our parcels. Remember, we'd started off 8 months previously, by sending 3 fat quarters to the next person in the circle...

 Thought I'd post a selection of

photos of Kalymnos and some of the

places round about.


Very good friends enjoying

one of many meals together.

               A quick burst of 'Dancing Queen' was needed

         from time to time.
 

 

Looking across to Telendos at dusk.

Kalymnos-

Just home from a wonderful week's holiday on the Greek Island of Kalymnos. This is a very rugged island with spectacular mountains and fabulous deserted bays and coves. Hopefully get some photos onto the blog in the next couple of days.But for now, it's bedtime after a super time with good friends.

Now what does keith get up to while I'm playing at quilting? Well he rock climbs, mountain bikes and his new hobby is dry-stone walling. So he disappears into fields , regardless of the weather and builds walls-not bad for an old fellow! I'll post more photos when I find them on this pesky PC.

Then we tried out various methods for making stencils. Here you'll see experimentation with positive and negative stencilling. I used acryllic paints and cut away plastic with a soldering iron to make the stencils.

Then  I stencilled the pattern onto silk dupion using a nine patch block layout. Each block was quilted using outline quilting.

Ciity and Guilds Shape Module

 This was the the beginning of the Shape Module.

At  the end of the module all my work and samples were presented in this folder.

 This was the beginning of the art work on stencilling. We used jewellery as the source.

Mea Culpa!!!

 Oh dear, I've been a proper shocker with my blog. I just seem to have been so busy and you know what it's like- you keep saying, "I'll do it tomorrow" and something else crops up! So I now have a load of stuff I need to get on here or people will abandon me.

Putting it all together

Surprise! Surprise!

So...the next seagull challenge was to make a block with points. I decided to do prairie points -quite pleased with the result. I love it when the parcels arrive in the post and I see everyone else's work. The colours for this block were lovely to work with.

The Amazing Royal Wedding

Well... I enjoyed every minute of it. What a fabulous day watching Kate and William getting married. The pageantry, the splendour, the sense of occasion, the dress...I loved the Maid of Honour -what a stunner she is! Hope everyone who watched , wherever in the world, enjoyed it. Made me REALLY PROUD TO BE BRITISH!!  Now back to my prairie points block.

Two weeks in US

Spending 2 weeks in US visiting my gorgeous grandson and his mum and dad. I'm sure I'll make time to search out some quilting shops - planning a quilt for my newly decorated bedroom in England. It's really tough having to do this on my hols...