Modern Quilts at the Festival of Quilts

When looking at the quilts I found myself attracted to what I consider to be modern quilts.



This one reminds me of a Gee's Bend quilt.



Love the improvisational piecing in this one.




This quilt almost looks as if it has been woven.



This close up shows the interesting use of raw edge appliqué.



I found this one fascinating. All those little strips!



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Festival of quilts 2012

This summer has been a difficult one for me due to the deteriorating health of my mother. However I did manage a short visit to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England. As usual the quilts were the highlight for me! I concentrated on the modern and scrappy quilts with piecing being my main focus.

Look at this gorgeous Hexie quilt!


Beautiful fussy cutting and use of stripes. The centre of each hexagon rosette is made up of tiny fussy cut triangles. A piecing triumph.
It is called hexagon revolution, made by Sarah Gill of Cambridge England. She used a lot of recycled fabrics, including socks.



What about this gorgeous pineapple quilt? It looks as if recycled shirts could be involved.
The quilt is called 5850 - is this the number of pieces I wonder? It was made by Jilly Meredith from Bridgend as a family gift.


More FOQ quilts to come soon!

Red and White String Hearts.

I love scraps! I just can't help it - often the leftovers from a project excite me more than the original project.

Recently I have been playing with red and white scraps left over from one of my classes.

I started by making rectangular string blocks or 'bricks' as they are sometimes known. I then made these into hearts by adding white triangles.

 This produced lots of 'bonus triangles' which were just asking to be made into scrappy flying geese. These are 1.5 x 3 inches and will make great borders.

 Anthea has asked me to do a workshop on these string hearts at Quilting Antics in Settle. She has given me scraps to work with - here are some of the string bricks I have made.

Don't they look lovely when they are all trimmed and ready to turn into rainbow hearts!

Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee

I know this post is a little late as it is nearly a week since the official Jubilee celebrations. Yesterday I was reading Barbara Brackman's blog and she had devoted a post to the Jubilee. She was talking about panels to make Jubilee quilts and I suddenly remembered the Cath Kidston bag I had been given for my birthday. This bag is double sided and made of quite lightweight calico so it could be easily unpicked and the panel used as the centre for a quilt.

On the subject of Corgis Barbara has designed a superb Jubilee panel that you can find in her special Jubilee post  here. If you are not a regular reader of her blog I can highly recommend it, it is one of the most interesting quilting blogs in my opinion. 

I also have a Jubilee pin given to me as a birthday gift from my eldest son. This is also from CK and was much admired when I wore it over the weekend.

For those of you in the UK you will know how disappointing the weather was over the Jubilee weekend - in fact our whole summer so far has been a wash out. But we did get the bunting out in the garden. Cilla is posing in her favourite garden chair and in case you are wondering - yes that is the insides of an old washing machine made into a wood burner.



How many things can you make from a recycled cotton shirt?

I know that I have not shared much recently - life has been hectic and most quilting has been work related making sample blocks and quilts for classes.

However this is a little treat I have been meaning to share for a while. All the items in the following photos were made by Maureen, a creative and prolific quilter who attends my Tuesday class and does not have a blog of her own so it is my duty to share her work with you all.

She started with a red white and blue men's shirt that she bought at the International Quilt Day Event.

She added some plain white and blue star fabric and made a quilt.

 Here is a close up.

 Then she made a bag - here is one side, note the button holes in the handle!

 This is the other side - the label from the shirt has made the flag on the yacht!

 Then she made a cushion.

 A couple of pincushions made from the scraps!

 And finally this cute little fella!

 Look at his coat with tails made from the collar tips!

Awesome work Maureen!

Malvern Quilt Show

This weekend we have visited Malvern Quilt Show. Geoff came with me and did his best to enjoy himself! He also bought me my birthday gift of EQ7 which I am looking forward to getting to grips with!

We have been to the venue before as it is where Vanfest is held every September, but it was our first time at the quilt show.

I have really enjoyed our weekend away, we met up with Anthea and Rachel from Quilting Antics for dinner and drinks last night, but I did not feel that the quilt show lived up to my expectations.

As this is my blog I can express my opinions without fear of hurting anyone's feelings.

The venue was not as good as Harrogate, my local quilt show. The cafe was tiny and expensive (£1.80 for a small cup of tea!). There was another cafe just outside but that was also quite small.

The hall was cramped in my opinion and there were not enough competitive quilts. Also lots of quilts I had seen before at other shows and many were not shown to good advantage. There were also not many modern quilts or quilts with the 'wow' factor. I know this is very subjective and many of the quilts were made to very high standards but they were just not speaking to me.

It made me realise, that even with all its faults you cannot beat the Festival of Quilts and that Harrogate comes a close second.

 I did buy some great fabric though, this is the latest from Alexander Henry.
This will become cushions for Jonathan's next student flat - 16th floor of a high rise near Leeds Uni - the 'penthouse slum' as it is known!

And for those of you who wished you could have been there here are a few snippets of the quilts......

 How can I resist wonky trees and houses?

 This one was made with recycled fabrics - the hand quilting on it was stunning!

Piecing over papers in Civil War Fabrics - what's not to like?

As usual I didn't agree with the judges - good job I'm not one - that would be controversial. I don't think a single first prize went to an amateur quilter which is a shame because it might just put people off entering. 

Baskets, Leaves and Trees - more Civil War Blocks on point.

In my Tuesday class we are making more blocks for a small quilt. The purpose of the class for this term is to learn how to make a quilt with blocks 'on point'.

My starting point was the Apple Tree Block from Barbara Brackman's Civil War Quilt blog but then I played around with basket, tree and leaf blocks to come up with 13 blocks which play nicely with each other and are meant to be set 'on point'.

This is the layout I have decided upon.

 This is my first layout with the 'heavy' tree blocks on opposite corners but I think that the new layout above looks more balanced. I did think about remaking some of the blocks but that's not in the spirit of patchwork is it? 

Here is the starting point - the Apple Tree Block

Next is sashings - although these are not needed in an 'on point' quilt I like them to define my blocks. I did not have enough of my first choice fabric so am now auditioning a couple of fabrics.
The fabric I have used for the blocks is partly Barbara Brackman Civil War Reunion and Woodrow Studios William Morris.