Back from York, but only for a short while!

We have just come home from a short break in York with the family and my Mum.
I ad never been there before, and we had a lovely time ( the weather was even good to us!) There was so much to see and do, that we only managed to scratch the surface of this lovely city, so we'll have to go back again some time.

I did sneak in a quick visit to the Quilt Museum though! It's well worth a visit if you are in the vicinity. The building it is housed in is beautiful, although the single photo I managed i quite poor as you can see. And there was a lovely garden to sit in as well ( which I completely missed photographing at all!)



I took scores of photos of lovely old buildings, the Minster, city walls etc, but this one really took me down memory lane. When I was a child the Rag & Bone man was a common sight as he collected scrap metal and assorted junk on his horse and cart. I think it must be about 35 years since I've seen one, so we were thrilled to catch sight of this man as we were all walking around the city walls.



We are now off to Italy for a week with the children. I have a pile of hand stitching all ready to take with me, as I hope to spend some time lounging by the pool. I should have plenty to show when I get home again.

Painting

Yesterday I took my Mum to a Quilter's day run by Region 12 of the Quilter's Guild of the British Isles. These are run every quarter or so and usually consist of a variety of activities followed by a speaker in the afternoon. The speaker this time was Ann Jermey - It doesn't Matter if it's Not Finished! This was a very liberating talk for those of us who have lots of UFOs as Ann brought out one after another of the 50 unquilted tops that she has! I know that I have lots of unfinished things that often make me feel quite paralysed, but now I'm going to organise them and finish them when I'm ready!

In the morning there were a variety of demonstrations - my favourite being the freezer paper stenciling by Debra O'Hare of Quilt Routes. Debra creates beautiful hand painted fabrics .
I made this little bird yesterday at the Regional Day



But the we carried on playing with freezer paper and paint today at home

These are DDs samples...



And this one is my Mum's.



My Mum is not a quilter, and would say that she is not artistic either, but this is great! And before she knows it, I'm going to get her putting borders on it and turn it into a small wall hanging!

These are some more birds I did today.



I think I'll add some leaves and flowers as well and then see where the pieces take me.

It's been quite a while.....

I didn't realise just how long it has been since I've been on here, I was away on a course from work for a week, had my MIL staying for a week, and was just snowed under for a while too.
While my MIL was staying with us, we spent a couple of days up at the Hay Literature Festival doing a mixture of the intellectual ( Steve Jones) comic ( John O'Farrell) and downright entertaining ( Hot Leg - Justin Hawkins new band - I thought I might be too old for this one, but enjoyed it in the end). There was no quilty content to this time, although I did find this at the knitting stand on the festival site. They had turned them all into french knitting doodahs, but I just loved the spool!



This weekend I have made friends with my machine once more ( it was feeling most neglected) - this citrus jelly roll was one I got at a show some time ago. It's nice to be making something with it at last. I know I have lots of unfinished items hanging around, but I just want some nice easy stitching to get me back into the groove.



I think I'll sash the blocks with a wide black/white stripe. This fabric is DD's, she plans to make a vest top with it, but it's helped me to make up my mind about how to continue.


I just need to cut the remaining blocks out, and I can carry on with this quilt.

While I was playing at my machine, I tried out the Dresden Plate template that I've had for a couple of months. This was really quick to make using some fabric strips from a Moda scrap bag, although I'm not sure if I've done something wrong somewhere along the way. The instructions said to cut 20 wedges, which I duly did, but when I came to stitch the 2 halves together, they just would not go. I had to unpick a seam and remove a pair of wedges to get the thing to lie flat and circular. Ho hum!



I don't know how many of these blocks I'm going to make, perhaps I should be realistic and go for a cushion!

An almost finished

I have spent this week getting the quilting finished on this little confetti quilt. I saw a quilt like this on back in May 2007. The blocks are nice and easy, so I was inspired to have a go myself. The fabrics are all ones Ive dyed myself and never got round to using and the quilting is done with hand dyed Perle.



I'm pretty please with how it's turned out.



Now if I can get the binding on this week, I can turn to the next item to be finished!

Teeny Tiny Quilt in the Post

This little quilt came in the post on Friday. We've had a visitor all weekend, so I haven't had time to put it on here until now.
Lori has made this little quilt for me, in lovely bright fabrics. The spoke of each pinwheel is 1 inch square!
It's a lovely quilt which I am very pleased to put onto the wall - thank you Lori!

Bloggers on-line quilt festival

Park City Girl has had a brilliant idea - an on-line quilt show. There are lots of links to many blogs that I haven't come across before, so I thought I'd join in the fun.

I haven't included this quilt before, as it is one of the first quilts I ever made. I did a workshop with Sandra at Busy Bees on naive country applique using fusible web and blanket stitch. The nice thing about the class was that everyone made a quilt that reflected their on personality - we didn't all come home with a clone of the class sample, so I really love this early effort of mine.


My husband made the hanger especially for his quilt and it lives in the dining room - although it does get moved about from time to time!

UFO Update

I have been quite busy the last week or so, but have managed a little work on the Oriental Pinwheels blocks. I've put together more blocks, and started to quilt them. I was going to machine quilt each block, but in the end, it is so easy to hand quilt them that I've gone with big stitch quilting in Perle thread. They're looking pretty good!



My other little project at the weekend was this little quilt gift for my Mum. This is my Grandfather when he was a young man, probably taken in the late 1930s. She was thrilled with it, and spent much of Sunday with it in her hand.
It's nice to get something so right.


I've got a friend coming to stay for the weekend, but hopefully I should be able to post a bit more progress next week.