Jo Colwill at Flowerpatch

It was wonderful to have Jo Colwill of Cowslip Workshops come to Flowerpatch Quilters' March meeting. Jo is a member of Flowerpatch - a founder member no less, and regrets that she is so busy with her Cowslip Workshops teaching that she rarely makes it to our meetings. She came along this time especially to talk about applique which is by far her favourite patchwork sewing technique and at which she excels - I'm sure she will say that it's all down to practise.

We were each given a kit to make a daisy pin cushion similar to these below.

But first Jo talked us through some of the applique quilts and cushions that she has made.
Her most used and favourite way to do applique is needle-turned where you draw the design on the back of the foundation fabric.
This is a detail from her quilt 'Dancing with Daisies'

and here is the beautiful centre of another quilt - with a detail, which has really tiny applique pieces.

In contrast this is Jo's colourful quilt of large daisy flowers - I love the daisy quilting between the flowers.

Her fun cushion 'Run Rabbit Run' uses raw edge applique.

These flowers, which are on two other cushions, are also raw edge applied.

Finally Jo showed us a large quilt in very different colours and this is one of the blocks of freezer paper appliqued tulips. I love their vibrancy.

It was lovely to see such diversity and Jo was so helpful to all of us as we endeavoured to sew tiny stems and neatly turned leaves and petals for our pin cushions. I, for one, find this very difficult, but not so all of us as this is the pin cushion that Iris L. has since finished and she enjoyed the applique sewing so much that she put a daisy on each side!

Thank you Jo for a super evening.
Please do visit Jo's Cowslip Workshops website - it is a delightful venue.

Update a couple of week's later - I persevered and did finish my pin cushion - I love it!

More excitement on the evening was to see our "Over the Rainbow" charity quilt finished. 

This has been quilted by Sandy Chandler on her Gammill Longarm Quilter so even the back looks absolutely stunning. 

I was lucky to be able to visit Sandy at work so here you can see our quilt on the machine and work in progress. Sandy did a hand-guided design of daisies.

You can read a bit more about "Over the Rainbow" in a previous blog post.
The quilt is being raffled in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind - a most worthwhile cause.

Flowerpatch's next meeting is on 12th April when Lesley Coles will show us how to design patchwork blocks. Please bring along a pencil, ruler and coloured pencils. Lesley calls the evening " Making the most of your Scraps and Stash" - sounds like great fun.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday

Happy Stitching - Anita x