Flowerpatch Quilters Exhibition 2024

 Our Flowerpatch Quilters exhibition for 2024 rapidly approaches. We're in the barn at Cowslip Workshops, near Launceston in Cornwall, from Tuesday 6th to Saturday 10th August, 10am to 4pm each day.

As usual we've made a raffle quilt and this year we've chosen to support the Mustard Tree Cancer Support Centre based at Plymouth Hospital.

All the fabric for the top of our quilt has been donated by a friend of Monica, who has been having cancer treatment at the hospital, and the backing fabric was donated by Cherrie. The quilt has been beautifully custom quilted by Sandy Chandler of The Quilting Company.

The quilt is made from two different blocks set on edge. One applique block and one pieced.

Hopefully you can see Sandy's lovely quilting design in these pics.

At the same time as our exhibition there is an exhibition by Creative Stitchers - Launceston embroidery group, so well worth a visit to Cowslip in August. We look forward to welcoming you.

Happy Stitching - Anita xx

Three finishes and a start

I was wanting some hand sewing to do while stewarding at our Flowerpatch exhibition last August and decided to try and improve my applique skills. I started to sew these odd little flowers with no particular plan in mind. I do like sewing that just evolves. With nine sewn I put them in a block with borders of flying geese, scrappy strips, squares and "square in squares".

After sewing these together, and adding a bit more, I have this:

It measures 33" squarish and I do like the quietness of the creams and beiges.

The individual blocks look like this

and this

 I find Pinterest a great source of ideas and came across a lovely illustration of a bird and flowers by Geninne. I particularly liked the way that the bird was sitting on the edge of a flowerpot.

With a few changes this is my version measuring 8" x 9"

Sharon Blackman is someone who always inspires. She has so many ideas for her wall hangings and they are beautifully whimsical. I love the way that she frames her cottage pictures with flowers and just had to have a go at my own.

It is all raw edged applique and the flowers are applied with steam-a-seam and a stitch or two. Getting ever smaller this is just 7" square.

Another sewer whose ideas I love is Jo Avery. I find her relaxed approach to needle turned applique by hand so helpful. Click on her name and it will take you to the blog post she has written which has got me sewing my latest project. Here are two 5" blocks that I have completed ..... or maybe not as I still may add some more embroidery.

Have fun with your stitching

Anita xx

Sleepless Doodle

This is my wall quilt called "Sleepless Doodle". It measures 27" x 34".

Sometimes my head is so full of stuff that's happened during the day I just can't unwind and get to sleep. Usually it's annoying and I'm thinking about conversations I've had, and things I should have said or done, but occasionally it's actually a good thing because I'm excited about artwork I've seen and I'm feeling inspired. After reading Di Wells's blog one evening I felt I had to do some sketching (doodling). I always keep pen and paper handy by the bed - usually for writing lists etc. I really liked one of the collages that Di had done and put on this blog post. Lots of the shapes and marks appealed to me and helped me to begin drawing.

Come the morning I had a look at what I'd drawn and liked almost all of it except for a mess in the middle. A bit of tracing and altering and I was happy with the result so I scanned my little drawing and enlarged it to fit on some A4 sheets which I printed out and sellotaped together.

After that it was pretty simple to do the applique - most by machine and some by hand. I had traced and cut out the shapes in freezer paper then ironed them onto the various fabrics. I either cut around the edge of the freezer paper to get the exact shape and sewed this on with a machine blanket stitch, or cut around leaving a small hem for needle-turned hand applique. I did change a few things as I went but not a lot.

The lattice lines in the two corners are embroidery thread machine stitched in place with zigzag. The green thread is sewn down with a similar stitch, but it has a solid line of stitching along each side. I really ought to explore all the stiches on my machine more!

With all the fabrics in place I did a little hand embroidery, 

hand quilting and machine quilting.

This hangs on the wall in my sitting room and I've made it so that it can hang any way up with half square triangles on each back corner.

It's certainly not like anything I've sewn before - that has to be good! :)

Happy Sewing - Anita

And yet more from Flowerpatch exhibition 2023

 My final post about our Flowerpatch Ruby exhibition shows all the smaller wall quilts, etc.

Our Chairman's challenge this year was "Ruby Red" and there were lots of entries. This is a pic of them all -

Iris L excelled herself by making 4 small quilts - she had been inspired by a Flowerpatch evening meeting when we viewed the miniatures from the Quilters Guild Special Interest group. Other entries included wall quilts, cushions, a bottle bag and even a "Ruby Red" cow.

Pippa made two miniature quilts to exhibit. The first is "Spring Flowers" and uses hand dyed cottons.

The second is "Seminole Miniature" and for this Pippa used Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics as they are fine and cut down on the bulk in seams.

Pippa also made a Shibori Quilted Jacket having dyed the fabrics herself.

Karen's wall quilt is called "Lola Llama" - made for her grand-daughter and inspired by a Laura Heine pattern.

Iris M is continuing with her wall quilts representing the months

From left to right and top to bottom they are April - Easter, November - Fireworks, March - Spring Leaves and May - Maypole.

Lois sewed two pictures featuring houses. The first is "Cornwall"

and this is "Amsterdam Remembered".

Jennie used inktense pencils to create the first of her "Little Blue Bird"

and metallic fabric paint for the second.

Many of us made teddy bears this year as Jennie C had donated two huge rolls of fur fabric. I was completely out of my comfort zone with this, but found that I actually enjoyed it! Chris's instructions and tips were brilliant. I'm only sorry that I didn't get a better pic of them having their picnic.

Finally, at our October meeting we gave Children's Hospice South West a cheque for £1500 which was the money raised with our Ruby quilt raffle and sales at the exhibition, etc. Such a good charity to have supported. This is the link if you'd like to read more about them - CHSW

Thank you for reading and happy sewing

Anita x

More Quilts from Flowerpatch 2023

Here are some more quilts from Flowerpatch Quilters, August 2023, exhibition:

This is a very special quilt, made by Marie, for two reasons. It is her first quilt - and what a difficult pattern to be starting with! Also it is in memory of her Father who served in both the Merchant and Royal Navys. Well done, Marie.

Next we have two quilts by Elizabeth. The first is called "Something Blue"

and the second is "Rainbow Moments" - lots of scraps from 20+ years of quilting.

I complimented Elizabeth on her unusual whipped quilting in circles and she said that it was to hide the marking which she couldn't remove!! Now there's one to remember :)

This is Chris's "The Quilt the Grew" - she just couldn't bear to leave any of the cat panels out and the quilt "grew" to accommodate them all.

Here is Anita H's "Round Robin" quilt. she made the centre square and her friends sewed the borders. I love this soft green.

This is a quilt that we made for the Linus Charity. We started it at one of our Flowerpatch evening meetings by sewing the small circles divided into quarters. Once we had all these and the larger quarter circles I sewed the quilt together. I quilted along the seams by machine and around the circles by hand.

Next is Iris L's "Buds and Blooms" which is based on a design by Angela Attwood

and Margaret's "Hearts and Flowers" made for a grand-daughter and quilted by Sandy Chandler

These two are both made by Ruth. the first is a "Softly Falling Snow" - a pattern by Fi Bowman

and this is the "Alphabet Quilt" which is a pattern by Helen Godden and is painted using inktense pencils.

Finally two from Jo - "Zarafa" the giraffe who I just had to look up on Wikipedia having not heard of him before. It's a wonderful, true tale which you can read about with this link: Zarafa

and a medallion quilt "Regency Blues"

Two lovely quilts both beautifully quilted by Sandy Chandler.

More smaller sewing from the exhibition next time

Anita x

Larger Quilts at Flowerpatch 2023

 Here are some of the larger quilts on display at Flowerpatch Quilters exhibition in August 2023.

This is Liz's "Colourful Host of Diamonds"  - a cheerful quilt made during lockdown

and her "Hearts 'n' Flowers" - inspired by one of Jo Colwill's quilts and machine pieced by Sandy Chandler of the Quilting Company.

Here is Melody's "Windermere" - a Di Hall Ford pattern and a quilt made in her memory. It was also beautifully quilted by Sandy

and another of Melody's quilts "Coming Home" - made for her grandson who is a Liverpool FC fan.

Two quilts that couldn't be more different!!

This is Pippa's "Mosaic Garden" - designed by Louisa Goult of Sewmotion. I love Pippa's wavy line quilting to contrast with the squareness of the design.

Here is Ellen's "Lockdown Squares" which was quilted by The Quilt Room in Dorking. I love the graduated grey fabric as a border.

This is Ruth's "Countryside Animals" which was inspired by a Janet Clare monthly quilt-a-long. It is a very large quilt and I apologise that I couldn't get quite far enough away for a good photo! Ruth free motion quilted it with her domestic machine.

One from Jennie: "It kept growing bigger!" - this was machine quilted by Jennie on her Bernina

and finally, "Christmas" by Anita H - a quilt that she designed herself.

Lots of lovely little details in this quilt.

Yet more quilts to come next time - Anita S xx