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Well I'm really getting ahead of myself this year!! Most years I sew a little something to add to my collection of homemade Christmas decorations, but this is usually a last minute affair when there's less than a week to go!
I've recently seen two lovely tree decorations that take my fancy especially as they both involve a folded circle and I have tried them out already - Angels and Squares
I used a circle 4" across to make mine but this does make the squares a bit teeny at only 2", so possibly a 5" or 6" circle would be better (depending what you have handy to draw around).
I cut two contrasting squares of fabric ½" larger than my circle (the corners of the square give you something to hang onto while you're sewing) and marked one of them on the back using my circle template - a small bowl. When you mark fabric with a pen or pencil it's helpful to lay it on a piece of fine sandpaper to stop it moving about.
I put the two fabrics right sides together and sewed by machine on the marked line, starting and stopping with a back stitch to secure, and leaving a gap through which to turn the circle the right way out. Curves like this are easier to sew if you use a small length stitch.
I trimmed off the excess at the corners and turned the circle the right way out, giving it a bit of a press. Then sewed up the opening.
With the circle you can make either an Angel with this link from Selimut-ku
(For my angel's wings I used a heart cut from cheap 2oz polyester wadding which I had ironed between two sheets of paper to make it stiff and thin)
or a folded decoration with this link from Katrina's Tutorials - do have a look, Katrina's are so pretty.
Both of these are really quick and simple to make and might be ideal for Christmas craft stall sales.
Happy Sewing - Anita x
I so enjoyed entering two of my quilts - Scrap Quilt and Large Quilt, in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. The reason? I got to visit so many different blogs that I wouldn't have otherwise discovered. In fact I have spent many, many hours reading interesting quilt blogs and not had the time to write my own!! Bloggers are so generous with their methods and tutorials - my head is spinning. Thank you to everyone who left me lovely comments about my quilts.
October is the start of a new quilting year for Flowerpatch Quilters and begins with our AGM. We gave ourselves a big pat on the back for another successful exhibition in August and for raising £2,500 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association with our quilt raffle and stalls, etc. Karen Lang came to the meeting to accept the cheque and gave a very informative talk about MND and the Association, for whom she has raised funds in the past. Here is a link to our picture in the local paper
AGM matters were dealt with swiftly and then Suzi Argent told us about her new venture - Ashmead Designs. She has developed a new method for doing English Paper Piecing using her pre-cut templates (called Hexiforms) that don't have to be removed after sewing and before quilting, as you do with the paper ones. A brilliant idea! It made me think about the foundation pieced hexagons that I have done as I can see that I'll have a tedious time removing the papers from them.
Suzi had brought along lots of different shapes of Hexiforms, some delightful kits to make Christmas decorations and examples of some of the English Paper Piecing that she has done.
Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule, Suzi, to pay us a visit.
Dy V showed us the progress that has been made with our entry for the Cowslip Workshops "Through the Window" exhibition in June next year. So good to get things started nice and early and Dy has a small team of ladies to help her.
Monica B is organising the making of the charity quilt this year and has a beautiful design in Autumn colours including apples, pears and grapes. Members collected packs to make up parts of the design and I think there are still some packs left over which will be available at the 10th November meeting. Subs are due at this meeting and remain at £15 per year.
We are delighted to be welcoming Louise Nichols in November to give a Talk about her designing, sewing and fabric printing experiences. Not to be missed.
Happy Stitching - Anita x
PS Cartwheel Crafts Centre have their Christmas Craft Fair on 5th and 6th November.
Just in time to enter another quilt into the Blogger's Quilt Festival - this one in the category for Large Quilts (finished size 79" x 86"). I love this quilt and it's the one most often on my bed. I swap it for another sometimes but always come back to it - those cheerful quirky flowers make me smile.
I like the way that the pattern is so much simpler than it first appears with the square blocks being sewn into a larger square of four before the quilt is put together.
In my original post I have explained how each of these is in turn rotated and I show another quilt sewn up in a similar manner. Rotating Flower Blocks Quilt
Here is a small A4 quilt called Liquorice. Although it isn't actually made up of square blocks, I have arranged the "sweets" in the same way as the quilt above.
So these are the four sweets in the top left hand corner and you can see that next to them I have sewn the same four sweets but have rotated them, and next to these another four rotated again. So reading from left to right like the lines on the page of a book, the white circle with a button in the centre appears in a different corner each time (for four times) and then you start over.
I think this method produces a nice balance to the quilts without me having to make lots of difficult decisions about placement.
Do go along to the Blogger's Quilt Festival and see all the lovely quilts entered.
Happy browsing - Anita x
I've just been reading about this year's Blogger Quilt Festival run by Amy and thought I would enter one of my scrap quilts - possibly my favourite still and such a simple design.
Yet again it's one of those quilts that I started without knowing quite how large it would end up, just sewing a few 4", 5" and 6" squares; adding in more different fabrics as I went along, until finally I ended up with sufficient for a double bed quilt! I waited until there were enough squares (and a few rectangles) before I sewed any of them together, so that I could move them hither and thither until I was happy - that was an exciting hour ......... or so, then very carefully put them in piles, one pile for each strip, ready to sew them up.
This is my original Simple Strippy Quilt post and a link to a printer friendly PDF Design a Simple Strippy Quilt
Do click over to the Blogger Quilt Festival and feast your eyes on some of the entries - there are lots to choose from.
Be inspired - Anita x
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.
It is a month now since the Flowerpatch Exhibition and if you missed it I thought you might like to see some of the quilts that were on display. There is always a huge diversity of quilts, cushions, bags, wall hangings, etc.
The following are just a few of the entries.
These are bed quilts by Elizabeth S., Ellen, Wendy and Jennie
And bed quilts by Melody, Jennie, Ellen and Pippa
Two more bed quilts by Sue M. and Jennifer - apologies that I couldn't get the whole of the quilts in the photos.
These 3 wall hangings are by Joy, Pippa and Liz B.
And small quilts both by Mary
I'm sure you can see what I mean by the diversity. I could never get bored with doing patchwork - but it's just so hard to decide what to do next. That's why quilters always have so much WIP and so many UFOs!!!!
I'm looking forward to our meeting next Thursday 8th September, when Valeri Bennett of Farne Designs is giving a talk - "Through the Years in Quilts".
Happy Sewing - Anita
Just a very quick post this time - I got a bit excited this morning when I randomly laid out all the big hexagons that I have made since I wrote about making donuts in March.
They're looking really interesting ... or do I mean weird! Some still don't have their centres.
This is how the big hexagons are made by sewing diamonds to the donuts.
I'm hoping to make enough for a quillow after the success of the one in my last post. That means I've probably done a third of them, but there's no rush as this is the project I pick up when there's nothing more pressing to sew.
Happy Stitching - Anita x
