Farne Designs at Flowerpatch

Valeri Bennett of Farne Designs came to Flowerpatch Quilter's September meeting and gave her talk "Quilting through the Years" and there were 50 years all told so a lot of beautiful quilts and textile artworks to see. Valeri started patchwork by accident when, whilst teaching textiles and embroidery at Beaford College, she was thrown in at the deep end and asked to teach a patchwork course too. She hadn't done any before and learnt as she taught, eventually doing her own designs as she gained confidence - exciting times! 

These are some of the works that Valeri showed us:

An exotic pincushion in cathedral window design

Three very different bags - the bottom right is decorated with beautiful ribbon embroidery

and another great love of Valeri's - crazy patchwork, where she can indulge her two passions in one - patchwork and embroidery

I love the leaves appliqued on the blocks and across the sashing. These are just two of the blocks so you can see the wonderful embellishing stitches

When making patchworks in the 1970 and 80s there weren't the selection of fabrics that we now enjoy so Valeri started to dye her own and dyeing fabric is still one of her favourite things. She brought along a huge selection for us to see and purchase along with dyed ribbons, crazy patchwork packs, kits, etc. All in all a most enjoyable and interesting evening and I'm definitely going to do some more crazy patchwork this winter. Thank you, Valeri for the inspiration.

Valeri's patchwork group Falmouth Progressive Quilters are holding their second patchwork exhibition at Bosvale Community Centre (off Hillside Road Boslowick) on September 23rd and 24th, 2016 from 10am - 5pm. 

The next Flowerpatch meeting is on 13th October 2016. We will be presenting a cheque to Karen Lang for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and she will tell us a bit more about the charity. Ashmead Designs will be there to tell us about their innovative templates for English paper piecing. Also Monica will be handing out the block packs for next year's charity quilt.

Sew much to Sew :) - Anita x

PS Cartwheels Craft Centre have a patchwork and quilting exhibition from 16th to 18th September 2016, 10am to 4pm at Penhawger Farm, Merrymeet, Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 3LW. All in aid of Little Harbour Children's Hospice in Cornwall.