Christine Porter

This month we had the pleasure of a talk by Christine Porter.  She is well known in the patchwork world, having been editor of a patchwork magazine and author of several books.  She's particularly known for her interest in church tiles, and we were looking forward to seeing her work.  

Here is a sampler quilt from one of her books, 'Viva Venezia' which has patterns for all these designs inspired by tiles in Venice.  It was wonderful to be able to admire it close up.

One thing which was fascinating, was the way Christine used the tiles as inspiration for brightly coloured designs.  She had made several quilt series, where one was in the muted colours of the original tiles, then another, or others, were in bright colours, sometimes with value changes which made it very difficult to recognise the patterns were the same!  Wonderful. 

She brought lots of quilts, including her Sunbonnet Sue quilts!  We had a real visual feast!

Then came show and tell.  Chris had made this delightful quilt for the room her grandchildren use when they stay with her.  Lucky children.

Sorry this is on its side.  It's chickens! 

This beautiful foundation pieced quilt was made by Anne.  The colours are very subtle and warm.

Here is Emily's junk, made at a recent workshop. 

Here are three more.  I love Ann's slightly different take on the design. 

Gaynor had pieced this as a present, and Liz had quilted it in her usual superb fashion.  It still has to be bound and finished, but looks fabulous. 

Paula had great fun making this 'Don't Look Now' design.  She said it made her happy every time she worked on it.  I can see why, as it's delightful.

Liz had finished the little quilt she made from scraps.  It's so cute. 

Here's another 'Don't Look Now' design, made by the Linus ladies at Knit and Stitch.  We all made a few vehicles, and Ann put them together.  Great fun. 

This is another Mile a Minute quilt, made from scraps.  This time I restricted my palette to cream or white and pale. It's very delicate, but I think will make a nice baby quilt. 

Chris at the Leukaemia shop had had some damaged and rejected M&S pyjamas donated to her.  She kindly let us have some to make into Linus quilts.  This design is Disappearing 9 patch, and looks great.  The Linus ladies made the blocks, and Paula put them together. 

Here is another one, this time without pink!

And last but not least, a Linus quilt from Chris, using a novelty print very successfully.