Festival of Quilts

It was  9:50 am and I was already in the queue waiting for the doors to open to the quilt show at the NEC, Birmingham. I stood listening to the quiet hum of excitement as everybody made conversation with those around them. People had travelled from far and wide. I had a couple from Spain to my right, a whole group of ladies who had flown over together from Ireland on my left, and I could hear German being spoken  not far behind me. There was a good mix of veteran show-goers and newbies alike, the veterans all singing the show's praises and telling the novice attendees what to expect.

At last the doors opened and we made our way in. It was 2 years since I last went to the show, but thankfully the layout was much the same and I could head to the stands that I most wanted to see.

Nik from The Cotton Patch in Birmingham had designed a kit for a quilt that I wanted to have a close look at, as I had only seen it on their blog. The real thing was just as nice as I had hoped it would be ( I just love the Dan Bennett fabrics) so I grabbed a kit before they ran out, along with some extra yardage of some of the included fabrics so that I could make mine a bit bigger. This will be just right for my newly acquired guest bedroom!

My other favourite purchase was a Moda Pure Jelly Roll. I intend to make a new quilt for my own bed with this. I always find Moda fabrics appealing, and its nice to get away from the citrus colours that have been around a lot this year.

Walking round the gallery of quilts soothed my soul after the frenzy of the shopping area, and here are a few of my favourites

I forgot to write the name down, but I think this was called Ol' Blue Eyes, and I admire anyone who can do this with fabric!

                         Echinacea purpurea - one of my favourite plants in a quilt - how wonderful!

Spoonfed Love - there seemed to be far fewer mixed media quilts at the show this year, which is a pity because they are firm favourites of mine.

And finally Little Nannie's Quilt - quilting in its most natural and lovely form -  oddments of fabric, all as far as I could tell, hand pieced and handquilted - simply beautiful!

House and flowers quilt

Oh dear! I have been such a bad blogger lately.
I just don't know where the time goes. I think about blogging - just don't get round to actually doing it.

I have spent a large part of the past week thoroughly enjoying myself, making a quilt. Not an organic one (those will hopefully materialise soon). This quilt is for my youngest son and his girlfriend, who hope to buy their first house soon.
Just over a week ago, we took a trip to our local quilting shop to get some inspiration for their quilt. I just love  shopping for fabric (or anything come to think of it) when there are no set criteria - just walk in, have a browse and buy whatever jumps out at you.
Well what jumped out at us was a Moda Hunky Dory jelly roll strip, sitting all alone on a shelf. The colours are probably a little more "girly" than my son would appreciate on a bed quilt, but hey, I can add more blues to the outer edges.
I have only done the centre so far which has some pictoral sections - two houses, some flowers and this wonderful bird.

Appliqueing him, adding a button eye and some very long zig zag stitch legs was definitely  my favourite bit so far.

The flowers below the bird and again in the bottom left corner are not finished yet. The next stage is to add a lot of random strips to either side of the panel to make it more square, then there will be a frame and a blueish border - a nice theme for a first home quilt, I think. 

I'd better stop blogging and get back to quilting.

Cats sleep anywhere (even on my new quilt!)

A few weeks ago I bought a kit for a quilt at the Festival of Quilts, NEC, Birmingham. I don't usually by kits but I knew I would never get round to making one like this unless I had it all to hand, so I splashed out. It is made from brushed cotton and the seams are left raw, snipped at regular intervals and then the whole thing is washed and tumble dried so that the raw edges fluff up and becone a feature of the quilt. As the evenings have become progressively cooler my kids were urging me to complete it as they wanted to huddle under it whilst watching TV, so I set to and did just that. Until that point I had been working on it sporadically. (hence the reason for the paper pieces with numbers on - I needed to remember what went where!).

As I pieced together the strips I laid them on the floor and as always at least one of my cats came to check up on what I was doing. This is Saffie - she thought she was going to get first dibs on this quilt. I'm sure she was sitting on pins!

I finished the quilt and laid it over the back of the sofa, and feeling very pleased with myself went to get my camera........by the time I came back, our other cat Ruby had claimed it as hers - sorry kids - you just weren't quick enough to get that quilt - its going to be a chilly winter for you!

Hexagon Quilts

I've just taken a wonderful trip down memory lane as I read Posy Gets Cosy's last post about hexagon quilting. If you are, like me, somewhat older than a "spring chicken", do take a look. If you crafted as a child, the chances are you had a go at this.
We always had one of these types of quilts on the go during the summer holidays. As it was hand sewn in small pieces it was the perfect activity to do whilst sitting on the lawn in the sun. We cut the hexagons from old magazines and used all the dressmaking scraps to make the quilt. I remember there was a half finished one in my Mum's wardrobe for years. I guess it must have been thrown out when she was no longer able to sew - what a shame. Seeing her post has given me some great ideas though - the sun is shining - so guess where I'll be this afternoon!

The Travelling Quilt

This is the quilt that Laura has been making that I promised to show you.

The quilt set off with them on their travels on Sunday. They will spend three months touring Europe in their prize possession, the red camper van, otherwise known as Bertie.

There were times when we thought she would be busily sewing her round way Europe instead of sight seeing as it just didn't look possible to finish it in time,but finished it is and it is fantastic!

A traditional quilter would hold up their hands in horror, the seams aren't turned under, they are all top stitched in different stitches, there is a whole variety of fabrics from wincyette to jersey to cotton. But it is a memories quilt, which will hold both stories of their past and all the tales from the travels. It will wrinkle when it is washed, and parts will fray, but that is all part of the charm. Some of the sections are made from old T shirts that neither would part with as they were long term favourites, old pyjama bottoms, old quilt covers and scraps from other projects. There are hand made embellishments such as felt flowers and birds and little appliqued people. It truly is a work of art.

I believe they are in the vicinity of Paris at the moment, trying to pack as much sight seeing as they can into a few days before the pace slows down to savour the flavour of true rural France, then Spain and Italy and so much more. They have their hand made journals to entrust all the memories to, of course, but I suspect the quilt will be the item that is pulled out many years from now, to remind them of the adventures they had in Bertie the van, discovering Europe