Snow, Cabin Fever and a giveaway.

Here are the inevitable snow pictures! Everything I have tried to do this week has been cancelled due to the white stuff and now I feel that I have a dose of what can only be described as 'cabin fever!'
These photos were taken by Geoff on Wednesday and things are not much different now. Our street is treacherous due to compacted snow and ice and we live on quite a steep hill.

Fancy a camping trip? Ironically we have just acquired one of those 'camper covers' but who knows when we will be able to use it!

What about a nice sit on the patio?

This weekend I was supposed to be at college for my City & Guilds course. This also has been cancelled - although I don't think I would have attempted the drive to Skipton anyway.

The down side with this is that I don't get to spend time with my classmates, Rachel, Anne-Marie and Hazel. This is a real shame as we have become good friends over the 3/4 years I have known them.

However you can get to know Hazel a little bit better by heading over to her blog where she is having a great giveaway with 3 prizes all relating to the Quilt Show.

Teenage Angst - Final Layout

Well winter is well and truly here in Yorkshire and yesterday I had to cancel my patchwork classes due to snow. Today is even worse with probably a foot of snow falling overnight. So today I will continue with my sewing on teenage angst.

The photo shows the final layout of the blocks and I decided to change a couple of them.

I put a black circle in the centre of this one as I felt it needed some black.

I changed the rail fence block as I thought it was too heavy. I like it much better now.

I will try to take some photos of my progress as I have now joined all the blocks together and hope to add the borders today. I have also made a couple of blocks for the back.

Had a good trip to the knitting and stitching show in Harrogate on Sunday but had a nightmare journey home as the snow started falling heavily in the afternoon. It took us 5 hours to get home instead of the usual 1!

The 12 blocks of Teenage Angst.

If you regularly read my blog I apologise for the lack of content in the last month. No real reason - just didn't feel like sharing I suppose. That doesn't mean I haven't been quilting of course!
Progress is being made on Teenage Angst and I am hoping to have it ready to give as a Christmas gift. The photo shows the initial layout of the 12 blocks before sashings added. Since this photo was taken I have altered two of the blocks and started the sashings. Today I am going to work on a couple of blocks for the back.

I actually love pieced backs - I suppose you could say it is my latest fad - along with mug rugs! (more of that later). My feeling is that if you have to join backing fabric because your quilt is too wide you may as well put in a few blocks to add interest. Also it is a great way of using sample blocks or those that didn't make it onto the front.

Snow has arrived in Yorkshire overnight which is a little too early if you ask me! It is very cold but sunny - winter shouldn't have started till Dec 1st but looks like it had other plans. Tomorrow I am going to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate so looking forward to lots of retail therapy!

Diamond Blocks

Recently I have been working on Jonathan's university quilt which is titled 'Teenage Angst'! It was started in 2003 when I began a couple of the inevitable Lynne Edwards Sampler Quilts. Strictly speaking this is my second quilt after I started quilting in 2002. One of these days I will have to show my first quilt also made for Jonathan titled 'The Road to Baghdad'!
The colour palette is very restricted - black and grey which matched his mood for most of his teenage years.
It will be 12 blocks and the corners will be foundation pieced diamonds - designed by Jonathan himself.
Here is a view of the paper side of one of the 4 blocks.
Foundation piecing is the only way to get those points to meet at the bottom!

The fabric side after trimming.

Background expanded.

Borders added.

Soon I will show all 12 blocks although a couple of them need small adjustments.

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.

Anthony and Natalie's Wedding

Since I last blogged I have been very busy - my patchwork and quilting classes have started again and I have enrolled at college for my last year of City & Guilds.

On September 18th we attended my nephew's wedding - actually it was a blessing as they got married in Thailand in August.
Here are the happy couple with their parents outside the church.

Here is a photo of 3 generations, my father in law, husband and my two boys. Jonathan has now started his degree at Leeds and is enjoying it although findind it difficult to get a job to supplement his student loan.

Rob has started his media course at the local college.

My favourite quilts at Harrogate

This first quilt is made by my friend Joan. It was made for her Grandaughter to celebrate family holidays in Southwold. Hence it is called 'The Southwold Quilt'. It is completely hand made, pieced, appliqued and quilted.
I was disappointed that the judges did not recognise the skill that had gone into this quilt. I did manage to persuade Joan to enter and I am really glad she did - the quilt looked stunning Joan!

My other favourite is this traditional tumbling blocks quilt made by Gill Young. I have a love hate relationship with tumbling blocks and I will make one someday probably for my eldest son who loves this design and used it in his graphic design studies.
When I go to quilt shows there are some quilts which just shout out to me and this was one of them.

Here is a close up - as you can see the black diamond is always in the same position but the others seem to be completely random.
This quilt won the award for Scrap Quilt and Judges Merit.

Harrogate Quilt Show

Last Friday I visited the Harrogate Quilt Show which is much smaller and very different from the Festival of Quilts. I just wish that the only two quilt shows that I attend regularly were more than two weeks apart.
I exhibited three quilts in the show - no rosettes this year but I was pleased to see my quilts on display. The quilt above has been on the blog a few months ago but I only got it finished in time for the show. I really like it probably because I love improvisational piecing but I know a lot of quilters just don't get it! All the fabric started as a pale blue and white stripe but I overdyed it in all those bright colours. It is a medallion style quilt - another one of my favourites.

The second quilt was in the cot quilt category and you haven't seen this one before. It started as a sample for my Tuesday classes and then grew from there. The stars are liberated and the whole quilt is quite heavily quilted as a FMQ workshop sample. All the quilts that got rosettes in this category were very traditional this year so obviously mine didn't fit in.

The final quilt was my black and white miniature quilt that you have seen before.

I haven't shown many cat photos recently so I thought I would share this one of Gizmo helping me quilt the striped quilt!

My favourite gallery at Festival of Quilts - DeAnne Hartwell-Jones

As promised here are photos of quilts from my favourite gallery - welsh quilts by DeAnne Hartwell-Jones. As you may know I love Welsh medallion quilts and this lady is a prolific maker of them and the amazing thing is that they are all hand made, mostly by the piecing over papers method.
The other great thing is that she also makes quilts out of the traditional Welsh wool and guess who came home with two big bags of offcuts from the Welsh woollen mills?

Here you can see the papers still in the back of this quilt.

This lovely quilt is made from Welsh wool flannel, lovely colours and great use of striped fabric.

Lots of lovely medallion quilts.

This courthouse steps quilt is also made out of Welsh wool - foundation pieced by hand.

So much inspiration for me to make my own Welsh Quilt - I have three planned in my head already!

Two more quilts from the Festival of Quilts.

This weekend is one of those long holiday weekends here in England and tomorrow is a bank holiday. So in true tradition the weather has been dreadful! We have been away since Friday at a VW festival in Derbyshire and at lunchtime today our marquee decided to fly away due to the gale force winds. About 10 people helped us to try to rescue it and the VW models that we sell and we did eventually get home safely. So now I am having to have a 'lie down' before finishing the bindings on my competition quilts for Harrogate.

I have been amazed by how many people have been reading my FOQ reports so I have decided to share some more of my photos and thoughts.

As you know I am a Dear Jane fan and came across this quilt in the contemporary quilt category. It is called 'Confederate Jane' and was made by Penny Chattey of Stevenage. The pattern is based on the confederate flag.

Here is a detail shot - it looks as if the blocks are painted which seems like a great idea to me as some of them are a real challenge to piece!

This next quilt was one of my husband's favourites due to the subject matter. (We send a lot of our toy cars out mail order). He particularly liked the inclusion of the red rubber bands which are controversial as some posties litter our streets with them.

The quilt is called The Romance of the Envelope made by Charlotte Soares of Richmond.

Still have to share the photos of my favourite gallery from the festival. Wonder if you can guess which one I liked best?
Clue - she lives in Aberaeron, Wales!

Some of my favourite quilts from Festival of Quilts 2010

I would like to share photos of some of my favourite quilts. None of them are winners and most of the winners did not inspire me very much. I am not saying that the judges made a mistake, they were just not my choice.
I will start with a Dear Jane because I always love to see them - this one is called Frugal Jane and was made by Cathy O'Neill from Ireland.

Detail of a hexagon quilt made of triangles of striped fabric. I am interested in the use of striped fabric in quilts and I thought this was a lovely example. Made out of recycled fabric, made by Alison Davies from Nottingham.

A quilt made from recycled shirts - loved the use of different shapes in this one and the hand quilting. Called 'Where have all my shirts gone?' by Rosalind Gregory and Joan Herrington.

And finally Elvis - probably my favourite, just made from squares but so effective. Called Kingsize, made by Gabrielle Collard from London.

Festival of Quilts 2010

Just returned from the Festival of Quilts at the NEC Birmingham. I visited the show for 3 days, Thursday, Friday and today. It is the first time that I have visited for more than one day and I have really enjoyed it. Even so I don't think that I saw every quilt!
The first thing I did on Thursday morning was to visit my pieces in situ just to make sure they had arrived safely and that they looked ok. I was pleased to find them looking great and not out of place, meaning up to standard.
Of course I did not win a prize but entering and seeing my pieces on display has given me confidence to keep entering more shows. I heard some good comments when I was standing near them and someone took a photo of my quilt so that was positive!

Here is my miniature quilt on display, top row 2nd from left. You can see the winning miniature quilt here - it went on to win 'Best in Show'.

And here is my sewing machine cover in the Quilt Creations category.

Here is the winner of the Quilt Creations -a puppet called Dirty Bertie made by Sarah Bailey.

Second place went to this doll - 'Child of the owl clan' by Marie Roper.
I think that this category must be difficult to judge as it contains quite different items, wearable art, bags, shoes, books etc but it is also one of the best categories in my opinion.

So lots more to tell in future posts. Didn't buy much fabric or supplies but have bought a new sewing machine which is about 3 years overdue. Spent lots of time talking to old friends and new. Lovely to see Pat and Paul from Cornwall, Sue from my embroidery group, Sandra from Leeds, Annedore from Germany to mention just a few.