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!