where is the North Star? - Farncombe

This weekend I was the tutor for a residential (well mostly) course at the Farncombe Conference center (Cotswold Conference center now I think). The students were making their versions for my North Star quilt. The quilt is all foundation pieced and then joined using partial seams giving it a very random/organic look which is supposed to make you think night sky.

Having a mixture of abilities different parts of the class started in different ways. The experienced table went straight in with the borders. As these need the biggest pieces of fabric it makes sense to do them first. This way you know you will have the large pieces to do them and the off cuts can be used for the smaller blocks. However they are large so for the beginners I decided we should start with the simplest block the sky blocks.

The students did very well with the sky, most of them completing 2 sky blocks in the first session after dinner on the Friday. From there the beginners went on to the star blocks so I could teach them the partial seam technique. Again, as you can see, they did really well. Some of the 'beginners' went home with sky, star, and a decent chunk of border. The quilt at the bginning of the post is a combination of work from all the students. The four most experienced got their borders done and those are the ones in the mock up and the partial stars are mostly theirs as well.

I was surprised at how well all the pieces work together. The colour schemes are so different yet the play well together. I am very taken with the monochromatic red version of the quilt, which I wasn't convinced by when I first saw the fabrics. Now the border is together you can see it will be ver striking and effective when it's finished. My concern, other than my p**k issues, was that there just wasn't enough contrast to make the stars pop. I was wrong, there is and I can't wait to see the finished quilt.

Sorry this post (and others) are late. Life has been getting in the way. The posts will arive though, in their own time. I still need to get some images off cameras so I can share with you the highlights of this years FoQ, the gallery of Brigitte Morgenroth, her work was just stunning and I do have the photo's to prove it, if I can just get them onto the computer.

The last couple for this class

I can't wait to see these finished.

Another center

Center 2

Yay, we have another center done ;) and we still have 2 hours to go today.

First center of summer school 2

We are half way through the second summer school and lots of the students are now close to finishing their first pieces. I've finally done my second piece too ;)

Post FOQ recovery

I will post a bit about the show and my quilts tomorrow. but tonight I am glad to be home. Oddly I am now sad to have left my new friends and indeed some old ones. No you can't please me. I'm also missing the air con, the house it 31C. Too hot, far too hot.

Thank you so much to all the great people who helped me during the show. Especially to the lady who not only bought me an ice cream when I really needed one, but also carried my sewing machine and Greek Fossils to my car for me. You have no idea how much that meant to me. Really!

It was amazing to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a year or two. My little chicken stacker is going to Uni, how amazing is that? Will that mean she will lose her chicken stacking skills? There were lots of people there I had taught on courses and I lost track of how many had entered their quilts in various shows. I am so proud of you all, and I hope I will see more of your work out and about. After all without the quilters entering quilts the shows aren't much good are they :)

It's now way too hot for you to expect me to think, so I'm going to leave it here for tonight, except to say when I got home I had an email from the show giving me all the details of the awards ceremony. Doh! They tried, it's just a shame I wasn't home. They had reserved tables for us and everything, but I didn't get the message. Oddly it seems I hadn't put my mobile number on either. I must have been brain dead when I did that form, so apologies for saying they didn't contact me, they did.

Where am I?

I've been meaning to post this for years. I love this sculpture but everytime I forget. I hope you are impressed ;) This is the hotel I stay in ar the NEC, also known as I didn't have time to take any other pictures today. Ah dinner palls have arrived better go.

Dyeing.

This Monday was another private class. This time one of my students suggested a cfabric dyeing session in her home. That's brave but she isn't daft. Her house is having major building work done and she reasoned we couldn't trash it any more than thew builders ;) what a great attitude, and probably right. Of course when you demonstrate dyeing you end up with new fabric to play with, well after several hours of rinsing you do.

I was thrilled to find I had a shade of purple I've not had before. I am fairly sure now it is a water problem so we had used rainwater this time for all the dye. This should be softer than the local tap water. In fact quite a few of the coulours have come out different shades to normal, which I think is rather fun. It'sa left me wanting to travel around the country teaching dyeing. It would be an amazing way to collect different colours of fabric.

Most of my blacks this time are rather swampy, but I did get one run of 4 shades that look really promising. I also think I have a plan for the rainbow. They may be finding themselves in a quilt very very soon.

Machine quilting 1.5

These photos are from last Monday, sorry. I was down in Sussex teaching a class machine quilting. Most of the students had done some quilting before and thus asked for the technical information from Machine quilting 1 with the more advanced patterns. This is one of the really nice aspects of teaching small groups, being able to tailor the class to the students. It does help if one of the class has a nice big space for me to teach in, but of course there is nothing to stop individuals renting a hall so if you would like a private class with or without your friends get in touch. We will have a lot of fun and a lot of scope for customising the class.

Summer school

Now I've had a chancw to recover I thought it would be good to post some words about the summer school last week. This year Jenny decided to try something new over the summer when the Patchwork Corner workshop is usually unused. She thought she would try offering a more intensive five day course with food supplied so the students could concentrate on a project without worrying about anything else. We weren't sure if people would be interested but we tried the idea on some regular classes. The students were not only up for it, but they also knew what they wanted to do. Cool, saves me thinking of anything.

During the year students got increasingly excited. They had their books and were starting to come up with ideas for their own designs. Rather than running one 5 day course we realised we needed at least two to accomodate everyone. That was tricky. Between us there weren't that many options so the second course runs from a Sunday to a Thursday over the bank holiday at the end of August. Even so there is enough interest to run it.

Monday morning I arrived at the shop early only to find a couple of students had beaten me there. The lure of breakfast was strong. I was there by 9 every day from there in, even though the official start was 10am. After toast, fruit, pastries and yohgurt the students didn't seem too worried about actually getting down to work. Just as well I am a slave driver. A few had already designed their patterns and got straight on with printing their foundations but the rest needed to overcome their reservations about the dreaded D-word. I was so pleased when all of the got down top some serious playing. It's by far the best way to come up with a good mandala design. By lunchtime everyone has their framework organized, by the end of the day most students had all their foundations printed ready to start sewing.

Tuesday we had the breakfast idea sorted and were rewady to work by 10. Having the vatering area was reallt handy for teaching as we could all gather round one table. It was nice to have so much space to layout samples as well. For me Tuesday was quite hectic as I made sure everyone had their fabrics sorted and were getting on well with the foundaton piecing. It was also the time to make sure every foundation was pieced in the right order. Even though most of the students were doing really well with this, I didn't feel I could relax yet. If there were going to be problems this was the time.

Thank you ladies

Summer school is over so I am relaxing with Hendricks courtesy of my students. It's great, thanks.

Summer school day 4

Summer school day 3

Summer school day 2

Yesterday was the first day of the first summer school where we mostly worked on design. Today people have started sewing which is good. I found the design stage exciting but I think the ladies will enjoy the fabric more.

Prometheus is going to Houston

I've just got the news from the Houston quilt show that Prometheus has been accepted into the show :) Sadly Quiet Moment didn't make it in. YOu have no idea what a relief it is to know. The uncertainty is horrible and I am not good at waiting for anything.

If you would like to have a closer look at Prometheus, the quilt show made this slide show of it with a lot of the in progress and detail photos I took. I think they did a great job and I hope you will enjoy it. Here at The Quilt Show.

The last of the family quilts at Sandown

 Finally I am at my computer and it's working and I can get it to load the photos. Must be time to share the last of the 'family' quilts. For this post I'm adopting Susan Briscoe, or at least our quilt. It isn't quite as cheeky as it sounds, I did at least quilt this one. It is called 'I can only do so much pink in one go'. Susan says "After making a scaled-down replica of a quilt shown at the V & A's 2010 exhibition. I wanted to give it a modern twist. The fabrics are all from the Sultry range by Moda. There are 1536 1 1/2" squares in the mini checkerboard blocks"

It isn't actually too pink. I quilted it with green leaves and vines all over the non brown areas. In the brown Susan asked for a garden gate effect so it has brown curls in a wrought iron sort of style. These curls extend from the central area in the the brown sections at the sides of the quilt. We were both very pleased with how it came out. I was thrilled when people were admiring it folded up on it's way back to Susan at the Malvern show. For me that is something that really speaks volumes about the quilt. When such a small piece can inspire people.


Next quilt up is another one of mine. This is Quite Moment. I started this quilt last August and posted all the steps on here.  It's still being very tricky to photograph. Most of the image is in shades of purple, with the shoes in blue.  It seems that whenever I photograph it inside the colours come out wrong. I know I should choose colours that I can photograph more easily, but I like purple :)

 This is 'Stars Innit', made by Tet to test the new pattern Ferret Fractals, friendship stars. It seems to have been a very popular quilt. A lot of visitors came and talked to me about it. It is also the cover quilt of the pattern. It was made from fabrics in my stash, and we had hoped to be able to offer a kit to make on the same, but it would be only one kit. What do you think? Should I make up one kit for someone to make a quilt just like this one? I really like the border Tet designed for the quilt. I stopped with the stars, as for me that is where the fractal principle took it.  The border though does finish it nicely and I think I might have to get him to come up with a borders for the rest of m designs.

 This is my charity entry. I really don't like pink and there was no way I was going to make a pink quilt, but I couldn't let the charity down. So 'No effing p**k' was born. I knew this would never be a show winning quilt but I was determined to have fun with it. I tried out a lot of different threads, I tried blending two very thin threads as my top thread. It gets some very interesting results. Using a cotton thread with a metallic does support the metallic thread very well, but maintaining a good tension is tricky. It was certainly fun to have a play.

The background black quilting is many many patterns. I figured that this quilt would be recycled as a teaching tool, so if I come to teach you machine quilting expect to see this quilt. If you look back on my blog to May you will find a few close ups of the quilting.

 Remember that you can click on any of the images to see a larger version, where you should be able to see the background quilting quite well.

The other fun thing about this quilt was seeing what the fonts day to people. I could see several bands, and Blade runner (although none of the fonts are exactly right they have a strong flavour of something). My students spotted loads more familiar brands in the quilt. It's funny how distinctive a font is even when the word is completely wrong.

Finally, a rather special picture. I've wanted to be able to do this for a while and things just came together on the Sunday of the show. This is the model for Quiet Moment standing with the quilt. The rosette she is wearing is a Judges Merit that was awarded to the quilt. We have been trying to get the two of them together for quite a while but things just hadn't been working out. It was great to be able to use the free tickets from my entries to get her and her dad into the show. Even better she wore a branded t-shirt and was prepared to stand in for me while I was at the awards. I'm thinking it's a good sign when the model is prepared to stand with the finished quilt :) Oh and yes you are likely to see more quilts staring this model, just as soon as I have time to play. Speaking of time, I should be getting ready for tonights talk, where several of these quilts will be getting their next outing.

Quilter know thyself

Ho hum, I really should know myself better. The last few days I haven't been able to settle to anything for any length of time. I have managed to do a lot of washing and paper work but no t much sewing. That should have rung alarm bells. Some of the paperwork did need doing but normally I have to dilute it with fun stuff. Finally I realised the my paper work and washing obsession was the same as my loo cleaning probelm, there was something I wasn't doing.

I gave myself a stern talking to and figured out the problem. I have a test piece on the frame left over from Sandown, and I really wanted to play on it. I also wanted to get it out of the way and do a couple of quilts but I was doing 5-10 minutes then giving up. My quilting wasn't working, which was because the machine wasn't sitting flat. Duh! Well it's not the most fun job in the world because I have very little room to work in but the machine is now more level and useable. I'll get Tet to help me finish leveling it. I took the chance to play with some new stencils. I've not liked stecils because I find following the line really hard but today they went pretty well. I'm looking forward to using these in anger. I can't help wondering if Jennys quilt has improved my skills in this area.

My plan is now to get this off the frame and extract the last of the Ferret Bites then get on with some serious customer work. I just wish I had worked out the problem sooner. On the other hand I suppose taking a break and doing paperwork is good too. I'll have to get the rest of our Sandown quilts up on here too, but that will probably be tomorrow now.

Patchwork Corner quilts at Sandown

 I guess I should confess. I am mean and cruel and I beat not only my students but Jenny's as well. I've been trying for years to get more people from Patchwork Corner to enter quilts into the Sandown quilt show, partly because it's a really nice show and partly because there are a lot of good quilters there. It also seems daft not to enter when most of them go to the show anyway and entering gets you a ticket.

In the past one or two students have given it a go, and enjoyed the experience, this year was the best yet, with 8 quilts from the shop. This was helped a lot by the charity category. All the entry fees for quilts in the charity theme (In the Pink) were donated to Breast Cancer Care, it was a win win situation.

So on that note the first quilt I am sharing (with permission) is a small wall hanging. It was made by Karen Benge from a McKenna Ryan pattern. It's a lovely quilt and the picture doesn't do it justice. The quilt on the washing line is a separate little quilt and there are real pegs. It's scary to be responsible for it, but worth the effort.

The next quilt is a group entry. Unfortunately groups were not allowed to enter the theme category, but it wasn't obvious from the entry form. Looking at the show guide, there were a few groups who didn't spot that restriction and there was a larger then usual group category. Again the picture won't show you the half of this quilt made by the Thursday Morning Ladies. The blocks are very effective and were a great choice for a group project, but the detail in the machine quilting is mad. Do try clicking on the photo, but I don't think the tiny hearts will show. This was Jill's first attempt at machine quilting on a frame, brave or what? She did a good job and learned a lot. I love finding new frame quilters, they get all the fun little problems that you don't even think about until they happen to you. This quilt will be raffled for Breast Cancer Care, I'll let you know about tickets when I find out about them.

The next quilt is by Liz Norton, one of my Thursday night ladies. As soon as we knew the theme it was clear this quilt had to be entered. What I didn't realise until I saw it hanging was how good it is. Just look at how well it hangs. I wish I knew how she did it, I would love all of mine to look that good in a show. 

Another quilt that really pleased me is this one by Carolyn Meggison. She recently joined myWednesday morning class 'to learn machine quilting'. She meant it too, and her dedication is paying off. Those feathers are completely freehand and sewn on a quite basic little domestic machine. Watch out for the name, she has picked up machine quilting a lot quicker than I did and is rapidly soaking up not only everything I can teach her but all sorts of things she finds on the internet. I don't know how she got the lone star done so fast and to the standard, I only know I didn't teach her it. I can't wait to see what she enters next year.

 Ah, now this one is really cool. This is from the boss herself, Jenny. It was made as a sample for a new range of fabrics but then she realised it was pink and thus could come to the show. She doesn't read my blog so I think I am safe in saying she is probably the best piecer I quilt for, and this is the first time she has entered a show. Maybe we should be thankful :) This quilt was a bit of a challenge to quilt. The fabric is a very loose weave and with the blocks on point it likes to wander about a bit. I did go a bit crazy with the quilting. It's full on show quilting, with rulers stencils and all that fun stuff, and I loved doing it. I wish it had picked up an award, but the charity category was big and had a lot of very good work in it, so not this time. I hope Jenny can be persuaded to enter again, her work should be out there being seen by more people.

I'm not sure how I should describe Angela, she wears so many hats at the shop. She is in my Wednesday morning class, teaches her own classes (from her own designs) works in the shop and demonstrates machines. This is a quilt of her own design called 'I wish I was blue'. The centre was inspired by my second sampler quilt pattern which she enlarged. I don't like pink but this quilt shows how striking 3 fabrics can be when you have good contrast. There are hand quilted stars that you should be able to see if you enlarge the image by clicking on it, and a lot of machine quilting. Angela has been my star example of quilting with decorative stitches for years, as she swore she couldn't do free motion quilting. Then her students started mentioning that they wanted to learn to free motion quilt. Rather than put them off or send them to my classes (which would still have given the message this was hard and put them off) she decided she was going to master it. This is one of the great things about teaching. It's not a one way process. Your students can teach you so much both directly and indirectly if only you will let them. She is now encouraging the rest of the class to give it a go and is solidly hooked on the process. I did tell her it was fun and she could do it. I think she is now looking to try a wholecloth along with Carolyn, and several others.


Gill hasn't been able to come to class this term, but it didn't get her off the hook. She still entered the show with this little quilt. She was inspired by Ashley Newcomb, from the blog 'Film in the Fridge'. She found this to be a real learning experience, and seems to have enjoyed it, even the stressful bits. I was amused to discover that most quilters finish show quilts at the last possible minute if not a few minutes later. I thought it was just me. She also discovered that delivering quilts is fun. I haven't heard from her since we took the show down, so I don't know what she made of that. I know I really appreciated her and her families help loading up the van. Other traders were very impressed with how well they worked too.

Carol Brackley comes to a class with me on Thursday afternoon and is another student who has really taken off. When I first me her, she seemed quite nervous and unsure of her skills, now she is up for anything. She plays with all sorts of patterns and fabrics producing an impressive number and range of quilts. This quilt has four bows quilted into it in honour of the theme. Unfortunately her family were really busy during the show, so weren't able to see her quilt hanging. I hope they will make it next year, I can't wait to see what she is making by then.

So there you have it. Those are this years quilts from the Patchwork Corner crowd. It would have been great for one of them to go home with a ribbon, but I hope everyone enjoyed the experience of entering a show and seeing their quilt hanging. It is magic just to see your work displayed in an event like this. I know a couple of these students did hear people saying nice things about their quilts and that is an amazing buzz. They also discovered that the competing bit isn't really scary, you don't hear directly from the judges unless you apply for them, and on the whole people who visit the show are pleased you entered. After all if no one enters quilts there isn't a show. I hope some of you will join in the fun next year.