The Festival of Quilts 2014

I can hardly believe that another year has flown by and I am getting ready to head off to The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.  I'll be going with my sister Claire, my good friend Anne and the best thing of all is that my daughter Catherine will be coming down from Manchester for the whole time.  I haven't seen her since the new year so it will be fantastic to spend some quality time with her.

As usual we are making patchwork bags to take with us.  Instead of the usual one bag, this year I decided to make two.  A handbag and a tote bag to carry my purchases.

Here is my handbag.

And here it is with the tote.

They are both made with fabric from the Paris Flea Market range by 3 Sisters for Moda and I quilted them with Aurifil 40wt thread 2845.



 

 Sorry about the photo quality.

 

I am taking a class with Kimmy Brunner about Sit-Down Long Arm Quilting so I'm really looking forward to that.

 

Then on Friday we're all going to the Designer Supper which features Nel Whatmore.

Claire and I went to this last year and it featured Tula Pink who put on a fantastic presentation and gave us all an insight into her design process and her work.  She was very entertaining and a lovely girl.  So my recommendation would be to go to this event if you can.

 

So that's all for tonight. 

By the way, I would have posted more photographs which were fine on my computer but then took on that moire effect when I put them on the blog and I couldn't get rid of it.  Anyone have any tips on how to prevent this as I've not had this problem before?

 

Bye for now.

 

Sandra 

 

 



 



 

Aurifil Thread Carousel

My eldest son Kevin is just about to start the final exams for his A Levels and last night he brought home his final piece for Technology to photograph.  For the project, I was his client and he designed something to hold my thread.  It's a thread carousel with a little drawer in the bottom and I think it's wonderful. 

As Kevin knew that Aurifil thread was my favourite and that I use it for piecing and quilting, he designed the carousel to fit the size of the Aurifil spools.  I love to see the different colours of the threads and the spools are easy to lift off and on.

 When Kevin finishes up at school this will take pride of place in my shed.

 

Bye for now.

 

Sandra

Retirement Quilt

At around this time last year I was asked by the girls at Strathfoyle Women's Activity Group if I would make a quilt for one of their colleagues, Ann Watson, who would be retiring later in the year.  After some discussion and a bit of a Show & Tell they decided that they would like me to make the quilt called Stepping Stones from the book Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  Duck-egg blue, pink, grey and white were the colours decided upon.

So when I went to the Festival of Quilts last August the very first purchase I made was this beautiful fabric. 

Paris Flea Market by 3 Sisters for Moda

 

I quilted a stipple design with Aurifil 40wt thread.   This is my favourite thread and it quilts like a dream, no problems at all.

 

 

 

 

I didn't use the dark pink, yellow or green from the jelly roll.  Instead I added a couple of pale grey fabrics.

 

 

I must apologise for my photograph.  The lighting makes it difficult to see the pattern on the quilt.

 



 

So Ann retired at the end of March and here she is being presented with some of her presents and with all the girls, past and present, from the group.

 

 

Bye for now.

 

Sandra















Quilting My Scrappy Nine Patch Quilt

Firstly, I have to apologise for not posting for so long.  Things just seemed to run away with me.  My daughter went back to university, the boys went back to school and my classes started. 

I had been quilting my Scrappy Nine Patch on my frame and was really enjoying it.  Firstly, I used my new longer ruler, that I had bought at The Cotton Patch in Birmingham, to quilt in the ditch and stabilise everything.  It was fantastic, much easier than the shorter one I had used previously. 

Ruler, channel lock and zinger

I had also bought the channel lock and zinger for my scissors which were very handy.

I had quilted everything on my quilt except the half-square triangles when my machine went a bit wacky.  With the help of Liz, Alan and Geoff at The Cotton Patch, hopefully everything is now sorted.  So now I am in the final stages of finishing it.  I still have to rip out some of the bad stitching and also finish putting on the binding.  Again, I have learned a lot whilst quilting this one. 

As always, I have used Aurifil 50 weight thread in both the top and bottom of my machine.  Aurifil is a very high quality thread.  It quilts like a dream and there is little or no lint build up.  I would recommend it to everyone.  I bought this wonderful Aurifil Shade Card whilst I was at The Festival of Quilts.  Now, I'll always be able to order the exact shade of thread that I need and maybe some others that I just love. 

Aurifil Shade Card

 

The quilting can be difficult to see on the front of the quilt but I'll show you some of the photos anyway.

I used the piecing as a guide so that I didn't have to mark the quilt.

The same pattern was used in the narrow off-white border as was used in the large outer border, although it was twice the size.

I took these next photos with the quilt draped over the frame.  This is the quilt from the back. 

This shows the quilting in the ditch which was used to stablise the quilt and the single curls used in the half square triangles.

This shows the centre of the quilt.

Overall, I think I learned a lot of new things with this quilt.  It was a lot of fun.

 

Well, I'll have to go now as the boys are waiting for dinner.

 

Bye for now.

 

Sandra

 

The Festival of Quilts 2012

I have returned home from the Festival of Quilts after having a wonderful time with friends yet again.  I was exhausted but very happy.

I saw some gorgeous quilts and some amazing quilting.  I hope my photographs do them justice.

'Autumn Blues' by Alexandra Nikulina
Russia

'Sun-turn' ("Kolovorot")
by Loskutnye Zabavy Patchwork Studio
led by A. Nikulina
Russia

'A Square, a Stripe, a Triangle'
by Loskutnye Zabavy Patchwork Studio
led by A. Nikulina
Russia

I seem to be a big fan of Russian quilts and this was true last year as well when I liked Marina Maminova's work.

When I saw this next quilt, I said to my sister that it was like the swoon quilt made by Camille Roskelley whose blog I follow. 

'Swooning' by Kay Bell

Well it is.  Kay was apparently part of the online sew along group with quilts made from Camille's pattern.  The quilting here is hand guided freemotion on a longarm and is amazing!

Hand guided freemotion quilting

This next quilt won 3rd Prize in the Group Quilts Category. 

'Scandinavian Journey'
pieced by Jo Colwill of Cowslip Workshops
and quilted by Sandy Chandler of The Quilting Company

I loved the neutral palette, stars and again the quilting was great.

Another onlooker placed her hand in front of the quilt to show how small the background grid quilting was on the quilt. 

I love the circles on the spine of the feather.

I got some lovely Aurifil threads from the New Threads Quilt Shop and as Aurifil is my favourite thread, I also bought a thread shade card.  I have used the card already to match thread for a baby panel that I bought at the show. 

They had an amazing selection of Aurifil thread.

'Greek Fossils'
by Ferret

 As always, Ferret's quilt was amazing!!!  Hand guided longarming and trapunto.  It won 3rd Prize in the Traditional Quilts section. 

'Flower of 13115 Pieces & Peace'
by Hiromi Yokota

This quilt was made by hand of 1cm hexagon pieces.  Each individual hexagon was hand quilted.  Amazing!!!

Well those were some of my favourites from the show.  I hope you enjoyed them.

 

And finally, on the way home from the airport, this is the wonderful sunset that we drove into.  What a lovely way to finish off our trip.

 

 

Bye for now.

Sandra

 

The Festival of Quilts

I came back from the Festival of Quilts late on Saturday night, exhausted but happy.  It was fantastic as usual.  Lots of amazing quilts, exhibitions and stands.  I am really pleased with all my purchases and I will put some of these in a later post.  The holders of some of my favourite stands kindly allowed me to photograph them for my blog, so here we go.

Fiddlesticks Fabrics

 I bought some wonderful fabrics here.  Karen's shop is in Ballyclare so I'll have to visit soon.

The Aurifil stand had some good price deals for the show.  As I always use it for piecing, I treated myself to a cone and a couple of pretty 40w threads for quilting.  

Aurifil

I had a lovely chat with Sherry of Irish Quilting magazine which proved to be very popular.

Irish Quilting

 I also met the very gracious Jennie Rayment who kindly allowed me to photograph herself and her quilts.  I bought two of her books, 'Foldy Rolly Patchwork Pzzazz' and 'Serging for Softies'.

Jennie Rayment

The Irish Patchwork Society had a wonderful exhibition to mark their 30th Anniversary and one of my favourite pieces from this was by Elaine Doyle called 'Birchfield'.  I also met lots of the girls from the Eastern Branch.

'Birchfield' by Elaine Doyle

The Tentmakers of Cairo had a wonderful exhibition.  It was mesmerising to watch the gentleman sewing with such speed and skill.

Cairo Tentmaker

Cairo quilt

One of my favourite exhibitions was by a Russian girl called Marina Mamonova.  Her quilts had so much texture and I found her work very inspirational.  The photographs won't do them justice.

'Broken Dreams'

'Bay of Joy'

'Bay of Joy' close up

The circles above were made with woven strips.  It gave so much texture to the piece.

I was delighted to see that an Irish girl had made this amazing winning quilt.

'Dear Jane, It's the 21st Century'
Valarie Mullally, Ireland
Winner Contemporary Quilts
2nd Prize Amateur Quilt of the Year

My friend Margaret Ashford from Derry made this amazing miniature four-poster bed with the little married couple reading the papers.  One is our local paper The Derry Journal and the other is Irish Quilt and Craft Magazine from The Fennel Shed.

Relaxing

 And finally, the winner of the miniature section was a wholecloth quilt, with trapunto and free motion quilting.

Kumiko Frydl
'Blue like a Wedgewood'

These are just some of the things that I liked at the Festival of Quilts this year.  Another brilliant show. 

See you soon.
Sandra