Antique quilts in Missouri

Managed to visit quite a few antique malls today. I managed to buy a quilt, a quilt top and 4 feed sacks but all the photos below are of interesting quilts which I didn't buy.

This was a lovely dolls bunk bed with two star dolls quilts - $42.

A large tumbling blocks quilt with hexagons on the back!

Crazy crumb liberated quilt backed with an old curtain. Very nearly came home with me at $25 but just a bit too much damage and much too heavy.

Lovely feedsack Ohio star quilt top - $45 - but just a bit too much staining and damage. Very tempted though!

I made a friend in one of the antique malls!

Love this quilt block - I might have to copy it - this one was $100 - just a little too steep for me.

This quilt above was the star of the show - hand pieced and quilted cathedral windows - click on photo for a close up - with graduated shades of blue. Stunning, would love to own it - $745.

Lovely bright, tied quilt.

One of the malls showing all the booths, taken from the first floor.

Hello - I'm back again!

Not really sure why I lost my blogging mojo - lots of excuses - all important - but I am still here and I am still quilting!
Since March I have been working hard on my final two City & Guilds pieces, desperately hoping to have them completed before the end of this month but it didn't happen.
My Tuesday patchwork classes have finished now for the summer and we had a fantastic end of year celebration and 'show and tell'.
I have also made a baby quilt for a dear friend's grandson, 15 yards of quilted bunting for another dear friend's daughter's wedding and two lots of birthday bunting for two lovely little girls.
I have been on holiday to Scotland last week and visited the Loch Lomond Quilt Show for the first time.
So as you can see I have been very busy but the good news is I have lots of photos of all these things and hope to share over the next couple of days.


The significance of the photos in this post is that these are two of the inspirational photos I have used for my City & Guilds pieces. I am making a red wholecloth quilt based on designs found on Welsh Celtic crosses and I am also making a 'Golden Wedding' wallhanging for my parents.

Their Golden Wedding anniversary is 15th July - so still a bit of time left!

The wholecloth is nearly finished - just four cornerstones left to quilt and millions of ends to bury!

I am in that strange pre-holiday limbo at the moment as we leave for a very special holiday on Tuesday (00.30 hours). We are flying to Chicago at 11.00 Tuesday to travel to California and back in a hire car, returning to the UK on July 1st. Our house will be turning into a teenagers hostel and so I am busy packing, washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping etc.

I hope that you will be able to join us on our special 'California Trip' (in the words of the song) through the blog. The first two weeks will be Route 66 in its entirety and then we return via Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska. It is Geoff's 50th birthday treat so lots of car stuff! Plenty of quilty stuff too!!

Edinburgh Museum of Modern Art

Last week we were on holiday in Scotland and we visited Edinburgh which is a spectacular city. The purpose of our visit was to go to the Museum of Modern Art and the Dean Gallery. When we arrived at the Dean Gallery I was surprised by the neon message! I really liked it - in fact I do like the use of words or messages in art.

It reminded me of my son's piece that he did at college.

We went to see the surrealist exhibition Another World which was excellent. Details here

A Textile Weekend

At the end of September I had a textile weekend with my friend Lynne.
On the Saturday we went to Farfield Mill Sedbergh to hear a talk by Alice Kettle and see her new exhibition Allegory.
The photo is taken from their website and shows an example of her work. She is known for her machine embroidery and the talk she gave was excellent.
On Sunday we went to the Textilia III exhibition at the Piece Hall Halifax. The work which impressed us the most was by Janet Browne.
The photo is taken from her website.

She does raw edge applique building up many layers and then cuts away the background areas.

Lovely hexagon quilt from Wales.

I always enjoy looking at hexagon quilts and I have a couple of examples in my collection of antique/vintage quilts. I also have a lot of hexagon fabric pieces of vintage Laura Ashley fabric and an unfinished quilt top made of them!
This is a quilt on display at the moment in the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre and it is a really interesting example.

As it says below it is made of silk and velvet. I love the use of the black background and the way she has appliqued each 'flower' onto a black velvet hexagon. I think this is a great idea as it separates each flower giving them more impact.

As you can see she has embroidered around each flower - I assume this is to attach it to the black hexagon. The embroidery stitch looks like a fly stitch to me.

Some of the fabrics have disintegrated and the papers are shown underneath. This is the strange bit - I wonder why she left them in when the quilt appears to be finished?

Here is the entire quilt. A fabulous example of a hexagon quilt.

Philippa Naylor Workshop - Precision Piecing

Last Saturday I attended a workshop with Philippa Naylor who visited our embroidery/quilting group here in Barnsley.
I finished the sample last night so here it is....
Not quite as precise as it could be but better than I have acheived in the past. I used hand dyed fabric which I really enjoy working with.

I have picked up quite a few tips which I will use in the future. For example - pressing seams open can help to improve accuracy in complicated designs, try to use finer cotton fabrics for intricate piecing and never underestimate the importance of correct pressing!
I also learned how to make mitred borders which is something I had never tried before.

We had a lovely day, Philippa is an excellent teacher - try to get to one of her workshops if you can!

This is a photo of the room we use - loads of space, we are very lucky!

On Wednesday Philippa returned to talk to our group - four ladies had finished their samples.

Philippa is on the left with her pile of magnificent quilts. She gave a very inspirational and interesting lecture about her life in Saudi Arabia and her quilts.

Liberated Quilting

This is the book I have waiting for ever since I discovered Gwen Marston's style of quilting last year. I had it on pre order from Amazon since Christmas and it arrived a few days ago.
It is an excellent book and has loads of ideas I am looking forward to trying.

It also goes well with my liberated stripes quilt which is still not quite finished.
What have you been doing with your time? I hear you ask!

Well.........

Since Christmas I have taught my first 3 patchwork and quilting workshops which went very well. I have been to College for a weekend for my City & Guilds. I have also made my first fabric postcard which I can't share until it arrives at its destination.

Also, almost at opposite ends of the spectrum I have taken a workshop with award winning quilter Philippa Naylor in precision piecing! I have not completed my workshop sample yet but will hopefully report soon.

So as you can see I have not been too lazy - except perhaps when it comes to updating my blog!

A visit to Rob Ryan's Exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

The snow is still really thick here and driving on the side roads is treacherous especially after dark. However my son Rob's school reopened today and we are trying to carry on regardless!
Today is Geoff's birthday and we decided to venture to Rob Ryan's exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Most of the exhibits were closed and access to the sculptures in the park was only for those with long wellies!
However Rob's exhibition was open and more than lived up to expectations. If you are in the Yorkshire area before Feb 21st I thoroughly recommend it. Admission is free but you do have to pay to park.

Rob Ryan is an artist famous for his papercuts and screen prints. You can read more about his work and the exhibition on his blog. He has made loads of vinyl stickers for the windows at the sculpture park which are really striking - I really love his birds!

These window pictures were too big to take proper pictures of but you get the idea!

I first heard about Rob's work in an article about Clothkits in Sew Hip Magazine as he has designed some fabric for them.

The other reason we knew about his exhibition was through the Arts Council Own Art scheme which we watched a TV programme about. This is a scheme where you can have an interest free loan to buy contemporary art.

The photo above shows our first purchase of original contemporary art which we will buy through this scheme.

I also bought this limited edition card only available at the exhibition. I love it because of the birds and its connection to sewing!

All this was followed by a fish & chip lunch so it was a good birthday for the birthday boy!

Photo manipulation

This weekend I have realised that I need to get on with my homework for college next weekend. The topic for this month is image transfer and one of the first things I had to do was digital photo manipulation using computer software.
I didn't know where to start with this but luckily Hazel came to the rescue with some free internet software that you can find here.

So I started with a photo of Jonathan my eldest son and tried to get some Andy Warhol effects.
This was the best one.
Then I used a photo of one of my 1960s plates I am using for my personal theme this year.

This one is using the 'pencil sketch' effect which I think would be great to 'colour in' with machine stitching.

This effect squares the image up so you could translate it into patchwork blocks.

And this is one of those crazy effects that are great to play with but I am not sure how I would use it!

Happy Halloween!

As we were driving from York to Whitby we passed this pumpkin farm and just had to stop. It looked more like the USA than North Yorkshire.

The farmer said it had been a bumper crop due to the wet weather in July and August and the dry sunny weather in September. If you look carefully at the top of the photo above our vintage camper van is in the background.

The pumpkins at the top of the photo above, in the wheelbarrow are 'blue' pumpkins which are supposed to be great roasted - I bought one of these and one traditional orange one. The ones on the wall have been spray painted black and gold!!

Today I have been making pumpkin pies and baked pumpkin cheesecakes for the Halloween party we always attend. I discovered that the best way to cook pumpkins is to cut them in half, remove the pith and seeds and then roast them in the oven cut side down. It only takes about 40 mins and then the skin just peels off. I can't believe how much flesh I have got from one medium size pumpkin - enough to make 5 large cheesecakes/pies and 2 pounds of pumpkin flesh put in the freezer.

Pictures of the sashiko exhibition York

Since my last post I have found a link which shows pictures of a lot of the sashiko textiles on display at York. This was given to me by Susan Briscoe who is well known for her work with sashiko.

Did you know I was a fan of Cath Kidston fabric?

Of course you did!!
Look what has just arrived - this new Cath Kidston book called 'Sew'.
What makes it really special is that it comes with free fabric to make your own Cath Kidston bag. I just love Cath Kidston bags!! You even get the label to sew on to it when you have made it.
All this cost just £9.24 and if you buy it here you get free worldwide postage.

Sorry about the advertising of a well known online bookseller but I just had to share this information and hopefully you won't mind me getting a teeny commission if you do decide to buy it.

More Quilts by Ingrid Press

The more I have reflected on my visit to the Festival of Quilts the more I have not been able to the work of this lady out of my mind. She was present in her gallery and how I wish I had spent more time talking to her and asking her about her work. All I actually did was comment how much I loved it and asked her permission to take photos.

I have looked her up on google and found very little information although quite a lot of bloggers seem to agree on how impressed they were with her work.

This is what appeared in the Festival of Quilts catalogue

"Ingrid works with cloth (which is often re-cycled) and fibre. She likes to arrange things - mainly in rows and grids. She sees beauty in repetition. Texture is also important and is achieved through dense machine stitching of the quilts and through the materials and weaving methods used when making her small vessels. Making things gives her a feeling of being connected to many generations of crafts people all over the world.She subscribes to 'Less is More' and tries to keep her work calm and rather simplistic, which is helped by the use of a limited colour palette."
And here are the photos I took of some of her work. I love the use of colour, the use of recycled fabrics and the dense machine quilting.

Hope you like them too.........