Show quilting

I can't believe that the Show is now only 2 weeks away. It's being held at Yealmpton Resource Centre, Stray Park, Yealmpton PL8 2HF, and anyone who happens to be in the area on Friday 30th or Saturday 31st July is more than welcome to come along an see us. We're open 10-4 on both days, entrance is £1, and once costs have been covered, we'll be making a donation to Devon Air Ambulance.

Entry forms were duly sent to all our members, with a return by date of 20th June...by which time, I was looking at having to sew 24/7 to make sure there would be something to exhibit. Luckily, more forms arrived and we've now got more than 100 entries. I'll be showing 4 quilts, a table runner and a cushion. Most of them have been featured on here, so here's a quick re-cap:

Japanese Glass

Chocolate Box

Chocolate Limes

Autumn Table Runner

Carp Cushion

I Spy Pirates

This last one is a work on progress for friends who are expecting their first baby in the New Year. They both do triathlons for the Pirate Ship of Fools triathlon team, so I'm planning to FMQ lots of I Spy charm Tacks in the quilt, but I have to draw a skull & cross bones to include as well.

As well as working on pieces for the Show, I've been sewing like a wild thing on other pieces. I've taken the plunge and am trying to sell some of my quilts...the machine really needs to pay for itself, and making curtains and soft furnishings for people isn't as stimulating as quilting!

I've added corner squares to a pack of Japanese charms I bought from Susan Briscoe a couple of years ago, and I'm planning to trim them to make snowball blocks, then assemble them into a 9x11 grid, add a couple of borders and quilt in a sashiko style.

I made a summery tessellated top last year (could be the year before...) and this weekend I've added the final border to it:

Someone's asked me for a quilt, so I'll offer it to her first once it's finished.

My Japanese taupes quilt also has a new home lined up for it. I just need to make another set of blocks using a second jelly roll, jumble them between the two sets, border, layer and quilt it. I'm thinking squares in a stone variegated thread. Lesson leanred from working on Japanese Glass: buy two reels of thread. I ran out with about 18" square left to quilt, at 2130 last Tuesday. Luckily, I was able to order another reel from Barnyarns.com, which came on Thursday, so no real break from working on it.

Ack, can't find photos of the other 3 pieces on either computer, and camera batteries are dead, so I'll have to update that bit later.

Working faster than I can keep up with...

The only thing with visiting a quilt show is this time I've come back with my bags stuffed with stash and my head stuffed with ideas. I got back a week ago, and have so far finished piecing the hexagon quilt, an autumn table runner and a charm pack cushion cover top. No photos as this is a quickie in between updates!

Photos and more sewing

At last here's the pic of the silk flower hanging for my mother in law! The dark blue border is some hand dye I bought in Birmingham last August and couldn't bear to use up, but I like the contrast between the two blues in the hanging.



I couldn't work out how to quilt it as I didn't want anything over the main vase, so I've just gone in the ditch around the border, and the gentle meanders around the outer border. There's hand applied beads and sequins on the flowers as well I think you can just about see them in this picture.

The other thing I've been working on recently is from this book:



I saw a link on someone's FaceBook page to a customer quilt that he was working on and absolutely loved the kaleidoscope effect on the quilt. I looked at it for ages and could kind of work out how to do it, but not totally. I'd got as far as layering 6 identical cuts of fabric, then slicing them into triangles, each pile of which would be identical, but couldn't see how I'd get them sewn together after that. Anyway,I took a gamble and bought some fabric at the same time as the book and crossed my fingers that it would be suitable, and enough!!



These are the semi-finished hexagons: I'm not going to say any more about piecing them as I think the author deserves more of us buying her books.



I could do with setting myself up with a design wall so I can place the hexagons and live with the arrangement for a while before finalising it, so until I get that sorted, I'm holding fire with the quilt. I love the variety of tones in the hexes, it's hard to believe they all came from the same piece of fabric!!