2 JQ's

Here are two of the journal quilts I've finished and posted onto the contemporary web site. I used transfer dyed, hand dyed and indigo dyed fabrics to try and recreate a painterly feel.

                                                        Sicily Tiles 1

Sicily Tiles 2



I mentioned in an earlier post that we had been away, we took ourselves off to Sicily, it was a special holiday to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. As usual my camera never stopped clicking and I came home with some lovely images to use as inspiration for a very long time. Two such photo's were of beautifully hand painted tiles that adorned the weathered walls everywhere.
I used an A4 sketch book to draw the designs so I had the right size for the journal quilts, it meant I had to elongate the square tiles but that didn't affect the patterns.

I thought painting the designs and useing hand dyed fabrics, gave them the same hand painted look as the original ones. Now I have the designs I can get started on the next two JQ's.

Back soon

Sue

Progressing nicely

We had a fabulous 'turtle' day and stitched all day and I remembered to take some photo's. These are some of the blocks from the sample quilt for our Begin Patchwork course. 

They are now quilted and waiting to be stitched together. As we are doing a Quilt-As-You-Method there is no massive amount of quilting to do at the end and the pieces are small enough to fit easily under the machine.

                       

We think it's going to look lovely and will show you as soon as it's finished.

We also heard today that the Retreat Weekend web site has had over 200 hits in just a few days, what a wonderful response, thanks to everyone who's visited the site.

That's all for now, speak soon

Sue

Retreat Weekend and other news

We've had great response for our Retreats and the first weekend, which is a Manipulated Fabric workshop is fully booked. If you wish to do this workshop and missed out this time, we are repeating it on 11th - 13th Jan 2013. All bookings are made through Degembris Farm, but Carolyn and myself are always happy to answer any questions about the Retreat Weekends.
Hannah and Andy have worked hard and made a wonderful job of the brochure (which we can post if you'd like one) and put an advert in Patchwork and Quilting Magazine, so we hope to have patchworkers from far and wide visiting this beautiful part of the world.
They also have a dedicated web page as do we, so pop over and take a look for all the details of what's on in the future.

We have an extra workshop by request at FraddonVillage Hall on August 21st, this will be our Free Machine and Painting workshop. If you're wanted to try free machine quilting and were too nervous to have a go, or you would like to try new patterns, then this workshop will inspire you to create a variety of designs and start you on the road to mastering this liberating technique, with the added bonus of using paint to enhance your patterns.

We have a few places left on Tuesday 31st July at Fraddon Village Hall, on our Free Handcut workshop. This is another liberating method which we love to work with. We will show you how to free cut and sew beautiful curved seams that lie flat and give your work that wow factor.
You can find photo's of the workshops and all the deatils for booking on our web site or give one of us a call.

This blog seems to have been a serious affair but tomorrow Carolyn and I are having a 'turtle' day, so no doubt I will have something else to show you after that.

I have also been working on my yellow's for the next four journal quilts, I must admit it's taken me a while to find a theme but I've nearly finished the first two, and I know I'm very late. My inspiration has been some photo's I took on holiday so I'll put some sketch book work and the pieces up soon.

Thanks for reading

Sue

Exciting news..............

Hi everyone,

What's all the excitement you may ask, well, we've been invited to do four Creative Craft Retreat Weekends at Degembris Manor Farm, nr. Newquay, Cornwall.
This non-working farm, once arable, has been beautifully converted into holiday cottages and B & B.

Peaceful surroundings, country walks, fed, watered and all day sewing, heaven...........

Our dates are:-
16th - 18th November 2012
7th   - 9th   December 2012
11th - 13th January     2013
8th   - 10th February   2013
All the details will be on our web site soon.

If you'd like to find out more about Degembris Manor Farm there's also a link on our web site.

Hope you're having a great weekend.

Sue

Touch down........

Since getting back from our holiday, which was wonderful and very hot, (sorry did try to bring some sunshine back), I've hit the ground running, workshop the next day, group meeting, show & tell and youngest daughter and boyfriend arriving with a white van full of their stuff and two hamsters. We went to their lovely degree show before we left, they've finished uni now and I'm thrilled they are moving back to Cornwall, staying with us for a while and then starting their own adventure.

I have found some time to do a little sewing, we've always had great interest in our manipulated strip cushion, so I've finished a wall hanging for our Manipulated Fabric workshop at Fraddon on 4th October.

You can find all the details on our website.

Be back soon and thanks for reading.

Sue

Home Alone!

Working on another block for the Sample Quilt

While Sue has been away on holiday, I have been trying to catch up with a few outstanding bits..........I had great confidence that I would get my long list done!!

Sue is now back and my list is not much shorter!

I have though, made a start on the next 2 months in the Contemporary Quilters challenge.  I had thought that I would do a 'whole cloth' piece, but that has changed. They are not quite finished yet, so no photo, but they are coming along okay and I am reasonably happy.  The theme is Yellow for the next 4 months, which as my son has recently come home after 7 months away is reflecting my mood. Bright & Cheerful.

Unlike the weather at the moment which made today's workshop a little challenging, but even so, some lovely pieces of fabric were produced and we all had a good time.

Speak again soon

Carolyn

'turtle' (admin) day

Why does admin always take longer than you think. We had plans on our 'turtle' day to sew more sample blocks, but the day was swallowed up before we knew it. Anyway, we achieved a lot so it turned out to be a productive day after all.

We mentioned in a previous blog that we would open our Begin Patchwork course to day students, so as promised we have set out a programme list below......

Sept 4th:     Introduction - Rail Fence & Quilt-As-You-Go Method.
Sept 25th:   Prairie Queen & Rocky Mountain.
Oct 16th:    Log Cabin & Couthouse Steps.
Nov 13th:   Building Blocks & Complete Outstanding Blocks.
Nov 27th:   Joining Blocks & Attaching borders.
Dec 4th:     Attaching Binding & Label.

As you can see there are some old favorites but also some very nice new ones to try. If you fancy doing all or some of the course just let us know in the usual way, on an email or by phone, which can all be found on our web site.

Carolyn has put some new workshop photo's on our flickr site and her daughter has updated our web site, so if you haven't had a look lately pop over and check it out.

Now, I haven't finished any projects lately, so I thought I'd show you a couple of cushions you may not have seen, which I made a while ago for my eldest daughter.

The first one she requested was to be made in white with pintucks, prairie points and cathedral windows. At the time she was doing a BA Fine Art degree and looking at minimalist 3 dimensional work, number sequences, squares and grids. 

                                                        Nine Block Grid

The second cushion was to be made in calico with printed triangles, various stitches and couching, using wool and embriodery threads, beads and tassels.

                                                          Aztec Cushion

Both cushions were pleasure to design and make, and very much loved by the recipient.

Speak soon, Sue