Wednesday 27 February 2008

Box Day

On Saturday 23rd February, we held one of our popular workshops. Seventeen people gathered to make a beautiful box under Di's excellent tutelage. Di is an excellent teacher, well-organised, methodical, encouraging and patient. Here she is checking that all is well.

We are lucky that the hall at Walcote has plenty of room for all to have the space to work comfortably yet companionably.

All the participants worked really hard all day, as you can see, to try and get their boxes finished. The drying time of the glue was a major irritation. Why does it take so long, even when you have used the whole contents of your peg bag to hold the fabric layers together and help it along?


The variety of fabrics which people choose for their projects is always interesting, and if Freud were there, he would have a field day, identifying characters and the inner workings of the mind. Some people chose beautiful fabric with sewing items on (a safe and suitable choice), some fabrics which were chosen for their colours (the arty choice), floral fabrics (the feminine choice), a stunning black and white fabric (the discerning choice) and some fabric with tea bags on it (the divergent thinker's choice!).



You can see how many pegs were needed to hold the layers together while they dried.


Here, Paula concentrates on the task in hand while Jenny has a break and a natter.
Di shows how the finished box base will look when it has been assembled. Unfortunately none of the boxes were actually completed on the day, despite all the hard work. However, the participants assured Di that they will complete them all for show and tell at the next meeting. We'll look out for them all.

Friday 22 February 2008

Friday 22nd February 2008

At our February meeting we were lucky enough to have a talk by Jenny Rolfe. She is a member of the Midlands group of five quilters, TextileARTS, which was set up in order to exhibit their work. While still thinking of herself as a quilter, she is currently working with fabrics, which may be dyed or painted to give them a contemporary feel, but always with dense machine stitching.


She started the evening by showing us a selection of gorgeous quilts, many of which she was generous enough to pass round for us to inspect more closely. Her work is meticulous, beautifully quilted and embellished. Most of her quilts were designed to be wall-hangings, and we recognised several which we had seen in national exhibitions or in patchwork magazines.


Some people felt the need to admire her work very closely! It was certainly very inspirational.

After her talk, Jenny set up her machine and gave a tutorial on machine embroidery. She made it seem very easy! I think it's one of those skills which has a certain mystique about it, but actually demands lots of practice. There is no secret about how to machine quilt or embroider, just the willingness to put in the hours of stitching and practising which are required.


Since Jenny is running a workshop for us on 15th March, she had brought along some samples of the kinds of things could be achieved on that day for all to admire.


Gill had had a bout of spring-cleaning fever, and had had a clear out of quilting books and magazines. This attracted a lot of attention from those deluding themselves that they needed more quilting patterns and tips! There was also a rummage bag of fabric for those poor souls who have no supplies at home. Quilters are always happy to adopt stray pieces of material which will 'definitely come in' one day!

Bunty and Andrea unveiled their ideas for a group quilt to be displayed at the NEC in August. Twenty five people have agreed to make a block for this, on the theme of The Seasons. Each block will have a foundation pieced background and a Bondawebbed tree and then each participant will have free rein to embellish their block in any way they desire, in order to depict their designated season. All blocks must be returned by the next meeting to give Bunty and Andrea time to join them together for the exhibition.

The evening ended with 'Show and Tell'. Here is Bunty's stunning 'Stack and Whack' quilt.

Gaynor showed her lovely 'Card Trick Variation' quilt which has turned out so big that she had had to unpick and modify it to make it fit her bed!

Lynda thanked all those who had bought the 'Green Book' as it had raised £140 for Macmillan. She also reminded us that National Quilting day is on March 15th, so get your needles ready!