Storytelling at Flowerpatch

We had a really unexpected treat at Flowerpatch Quilter's June meeting. Not only were we joined by Julia and Sue of Cartwheel Crafts Centre, who brought along some wonderful fabrics and notions from their shop near Liskeard; we also had the pleasure of the company of Diana Mullis - storyteller extraordinaire.

Diana, who is the resident storyteller at the Eden Project here in Cornwall, has two passions in her life - story telling and textiles, and she combined the two to give us a delightful and entertaining talk, encouraging us to look for stories in the quilts that we make. After all "every picture tells a story" and why not our quilts? Even the fabrics that we choose to make up our quilts can have their own stories and connections - like why we chose them, where we bought them, who we were with at the time, or maybe they were given to us by a friend, or had a previous life as an item of clothing. All these types of things go together and connect to make the story of a quilt and thinking of the story can encourage us to finish our projects - we all like to know how a story ends!

Diana brought along a very personal piece of textile art to show us. Every beautiful piece of fabric, thread, ribbon, beads, etc. makes her think of a story in her life. I'm only sorry that I couldn't take a better picture of it - even I am reflected in the glass!

She also showed us fabric fragments that she had made with Tyvek which was painted and then altered with a heat gun

And some lovely pieces of dyed silk.

We were treated to two textile related stories during the evening which evoked much laughter and spontaneous applause!

Thank you, Diana, for such a super evening, and "thank you" to Julia and Sue as well.

Cartwheels Craft Centre have their Summer Fair on Saturday 24th June 2017, 10am to 4pm. That's at Penhawger Farm, Merrymeet, Liskeard, PL14 3LW.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom quilts "Finish it up Friday" and here are a few finishes from the meeting.

Firstly I think it's about time that I showed you our Flowerpatch charity quilt for this year.

It's called "Autumn Gold" and we are raising money for Cornwall Blood Bikes.

Secondly, these are some more zipper pouches made after our April meeting:
Nina's is top left and Annette made the other three.

I just love the fabrics that they've used - especially Nina's dragonflies and Annette's cute ducklings.

And the final finish is a quilt made by me and my friends - Dawn, Phyll, Sheila and Ann, which we showed to the meeting as it is being raffled at Penheale Gardens, near Egloskerry this Sunday 18th June 2017. We call it the Newspaper Quilt as it is "black, white and red all over!!" ... sorry, blame Dawn for that one!

This pic was taken before quilting and binding.

Our next meeting is on 13th July when we will have an exhibition show and tell
That's all for now
Anita x

Stitch and Flip Cushion

Are bloggers supposed to be expert at the subjects they write about and thereby instill confidence in their readers? I think not. Sometimes it's more encouraging to realise that we're all floundering around  trying out things and not always succeeding .... which is why I thought I would show you my stitch and flip cushion.

I'm not at all sure that I like it, but I do like the idea of it which is what I would like to share with you.

It is made by the stitch and flip method in the same way as we made the zipper pouches at our April Flowerpatch Quilters meeting. There is a tutorial here. This time I have used lots of curtain and upholstery fabric off-cuts. Once the front of the cover was made I decided to embroider on some leaf shapes using the seams as the centre of the leaf. I really love Sue Spargo's  appliqued and embroidered leaves and was thinking of them at the time. 

I added a red border and made up the cushion by my usual simple method ( there is a link to my printer friendly pdf file here ), using thick curtain fabric for the back.

So there we have it and  I'm sure it will get a lot of use and I will learn to love it........ in fact it's growing on me already!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts "Finish it up Friday"

Keep smiling - Anita x