Quay Quilters Exhibitiion Part Two

For more details about the group visit Quay Quilters Website. 

 

 

 

 

 

Quay Quilters Exhibtion

A few photos from Quay Quilters exhibition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will post a few more photos in the next few days.

 

 

Stars

At the beginning of the year at the Quay Quilter's AGM, our president April set the members a challenge.  A small 15 inch wall hanging with the theme of 'STARS'.  The plan was to hang all the stars quiltlets at our exhibition.  We were all given the black background fabric and the instructions on how to finish our quiltlet.

As a last minute girl and our exhibition is only a few days away, I kept my stars very simple. Machine quilted using Rayon threads.  Members were encouraged to interpret the theme anyway they wished.  

   I will post a picture of all the stars hanging together later in the week.

Hampton Court Palace

It was another hot summer day today.  My mother and I had a lovely walk around the Hampton Court Palace gardens.

The walled kitchen gardens.

 The main entrance to the palace.

I love the chimneys.

The formal gardens at the back of the palace.

The sign for the palace's shop. 

I took my mother to the quilt show to see my quilt.  She knows that I sew and a quilter but the quilts at the show just 'blow her away'.

National Quilt Championships Sandown Park

I drove up to Surrey yesterday to visit my family.  This weekend is also the National Quilt Championships at Sandown Park  What is Sandown Park?  It is a national race course.  From the stands you can see the roof of Hampton Court Palace and beyond to London.

I have never visited the quilt show at Sandown before so did not know what to expect.  I was surprised as the quilts were nicely displayed and the traders had plenty of spaced to move to view their products.  There was lots of places to sit and rest.  All the doors were open to allow visitors to sit on the stands, lovely to sit and have lunch.  A very large restaurant area and several to food vendors,  from drinks and a quick snack to hot meals.

It was a very hot day today but with the tiled floor and doors open make the hall cool enough to view the quilts and shop.  This is the best grosvenor show I have visited.  Why have I not been before especially as my family live less than five miles away? 

I entered my quilt called The Alameda Gardens to the National Quilt Championships.  Although I made this quilt some years ago I have never entered it into a national quilt show.  Without our quilts there is no show.  Grosvenor Show Ltd were very helpful and every quilter that enters a quilt get a free ticket to the show. 

Cushion

My Baby Girl make me a large cushion as a gift recently.  I love hand made cushions.

This cushion gives good support to my back whilst watching TV or sewing.  Thanks for the gift.  

Quay Quilters Sales Table

Quilt Exhibition

'Here We Go Again'

26th - 28th June 2014

Market Hall

Fore Street

Kingsbridge

10 am - 4 pm

Free Entry

 

The owl cushion and bags made by Sarah. 

This rucksack was made by Sheila.

These items will be for sale on the sales table.  All proceeds go to local charities.

Colouricious

Jamie Malden from Colouricious has been in Devon this weekend.  Jamie gave a wonderful talk yesterday at the Quilter's Guild day in Exeter.  She told us how and why she started her company Colouricious. We learnt about the history of block printing and how to use the blocks.  She had boxes of finished items she had made with her fabrics.  She is so inspiring.

Then she came to teach a block printing workshop at Exe Valley CQ today. What a delightful time we all had messing about with fabric paint and wooden blocks.  It was my kind of heaven. I have met Jamie many times at national quilt shows and purchased  hundreds a few printing blocks!  I received her weekly Colouricious newsletter every Monday morning.  Jamie has made many 'you tube' tutorials. 

Thank you Jamie for a wonderful weekend.

 

Congratulations

My Baby Girl has been studying BA(Hons) Art Textiles at Plymouth College of Art for the last four years. This evening was the preview evening for the Final Degree Show.

Congratulations and well done to Hannah.  Your father and I are very proud of you.

If next year you are visiting Plymouth in June, go and visit Plymouth College of Art degree show.  If it is any thing like this year, you in for a real treat.  Plus it is free entrance but make sure that you have a couple of hours to view all the work.  And wear comfortable shoes as the degree show is on all four floors of the college.

Well done to all the students and tutors at the college, you are all amazing.   

Another Birthday Quilt

This is the second quilt that I helped my Baby Girl make at the beginning of this week.  I can show you today as she give it to Donna yesterday as her birthday gift.

Once again she used the Accuquilt go to cut the blocks. She machine pieced and machine quilted on her Janome Memory Craft  5700.  

Happy Birthday Donna.

Work in Progress

I have been working on some new workshop samples that I will be teaching next month.  I cannot show you the projects until I have taught the workshops.
I have been layering up some previous workshop samples ready for quilting.  When I teach I always have several finish samples and some 'blue peter' samples.
The first photo is a disappearing nine patch cot quilt top made using only three fabric for the blocks.

The second photo is a simple large block quilt top using one pattern fabric and plain fabrics for for blocks and borders. 

I have tried several methods for layering up my quilt tops from using curved pins, large stitch tacking with thread to using tiny plastic tacks over the years. The method I use now is spray glue 505.  I lightly spray the wadding and apply the backing.  Then I spray the front of the wadding and apply the quilt top.  I use a large ruler to make sure that my blocks and borders are straight. Always spray in a well ventilated room. I can layer up several large quilt top or lots of small project with one small can of 505 spray.  If you can feel the glue on the wadding you have too much glue, spray very lightly.   

I love this method because the layers do not move as I machine quilt.  I always put a new needle in my sewing machine at the start of a new project and replace it after only eight to ten hours of sewing.  This is really important.  A new needle is the cheapest part of your sewing machine and can cause the most damage if neglected.            

I will leave these quilts hanging over the back of the sofa until I get time to quilt them, which will be after the exhibitions and my holiday.   



Birthday Quilt

My Baby Girl asked me to help her make two small quilts for birthday gifts for two of her dear friends.  She chose seven  fabrics for each quilt.  Using the Accuquilt Go she cut 6 1/2 inch squares.  The size of each piece of fabric dictated how many squares were cut.

She arranged them in a pleasing order and stitched them into rows using a quarter inch foot on her sewing machine.  As this was a quick project, she added no borders.  Straight line quilted a half inch from each seam using a walking foot.  

Mitred binding using a binding tool were added to finish the quilts.  

I can only show Stevie's quilt today as it was her birthday yesterday.  Happy Birthday Stevie.   

Quay Quilters Exhibition

Quay Quilters Exhibition

'Here we go again'

26th - 28th June 2014

Market Hall

Fore Street

Kingbridge

10 am - 4pm

Free Entry

All money raised will be given to local charities.

Here are several reason why you will want to visit the exhibition.

These owl pin cushion were made by Sheila.  You can buy them from our sales table!!

I have been demonstrating how to make items for our sales table at most meetings.  Today I showed how to make simple pencil cases. The above case was made by Rachel.  Her first attempt at making a case inserting a zip.  

Thank you to Sheila and Rachel. 

There are lots of items to buy from our sales table at the exhibition.  See you there..