Barbara Chainey at Flowerpatch

The Epworth room was packed with members and friends for a real treat at Flowerpatch Quilter's November meeting - a visit by renowned quilter Barbara Chainey and her talk "It's all in the Stitch". What a lovely self-effacing lady she is despite being an international speaker and quilt teacher. 
Barbara had brought along her private collection of old quilts many of which she had been given by other quilters who simply wanted to share their treasures with the wider quilting community. Barbara obviously adored her many and varied quilts some of which dated from as early as 1840, and each with their own particular personality, merits and faults. Some of the tiny, tiny quilting stitches had to be seen to be believed, and Barbara allowed us to inspect all the quilts closely and even to handle them. I took just a few pics:

We were delighted by the English paper piecing, machine quilting from 1880, info about dyeing, etc, etc all delivered with a great sense of humour. Thank you Barbara for a great evening.

St Marys Christmas tree festival in Launceston is almost upon us (4th to 13th December) and Dawn has designed some quirky decorations with an Antarctic theme for the Flowerpatch tree - all made by the members.

The next meeting is on 10th December at Cowslip Workshops. Please bring along sewing kits and a small embroidery hoop, if you have one, as Jo has devised some exciting sewing for us.

- Anita x