2014 Workshop Diary...

Hello everyone and welcome,

Here is our new workshop list for 2014, you will notice we have four new workshops to tempt you...

Begin Patchwork 6 week programme
Fraddon Village Hall  10am - 4pm
Thursday 27 February   Rail Fence & Quilt-As-You-Go Method
Thursday 13 March       Prairie Queen & Rocky Mountain
Thursday 3 April           Log Cabin & Courthouse Steps
Thursday 10 April         Building Blocks & Complete Outstanding Blocks
Thursday 1 May            Joining Blocks & Borders
Thursday 15 May          Binding & Label

This course is open to both beginners and more experienced quilters who wish to join us for a day, to brush up on their patchwork, try a new block or method.

Day Workshops
Fraddon Village Hall  10am - 4pm
Thursday 5 June              Recycled Logs (NEW)
Thursday 3 July               Marvellous Markals (NEW)
Thursday 7 August           Fabric Collage (NEW)
Thursday 18 September   Manipulated Fabric Wall Hanging
Thursday 9 October         Strip Cushion
Thursday 6 November      Mixed Media Wall Hanging (NEW)
Thursday 20 November    Square Strip Cushion

Creative Craft Weekend at Degembris Manor Farm, nr Newlyn East, Newquay
Friday 7 February to Sunday 9 February  Ever Decreasing Square Quilt or Wall Hanging

Our workshops would make an ideal Christmas gift, so why not nudge the person who buys for you or treat yourself, we also do gift vouchers which can be used towards a workshop.
Our workshops cater for all levels of ability, in 2014 you could learn a new skill and make new friends.

Back soon
Sue

Open Day report...

Wow what a day, Carolyn and I were overwhelmed with the number of people who joined us on our Open Day, we beaver away in solitude most of the time so it was good to hear such lovely comments.

It was a joy to put our college work on show, which is normally packed away in boxes, our personal sketch books were also on view and everything received favourable responses.
Thank you to everyone who came, we really appreciated you being part of our first Open Day.

Nothing can be achieved without help sometimes and we are the luckiest two girls to have such amazing friends, so on behalf of Carolyn and myself we have a list of thank you's...

Yesterday Fran, Kathy, Margaret and Hannah gave unselfishly of their time to run the kitchen, on the door and our shop, not only that they had also made scrumptious cakes, leaving Carolyn and myself free to chat at length to our visitors. Rebecca, for keeping our web site up to date and little Eli who always brings a smile to our faces. Thank you so much ladies we appreciate what you did for us immensely.

Next we have the men, forget women lib (sorry girls) but when needed they step up to the mark!
Our lovely husbands (I disagree with the long suffering badges) and Carolyn's son, who put up with us trying to decide how to arrange the room in the morning and dismantle everything later.

Keith who skilfully made all the wonderful quilt stands and is always there with a helping hand.

Roger and his camera who has taken a vast array of photos for us, which will be a valuable resource for the future and a lovely record of our special day.

Last but not least, our ever trusty caretaker Victor who is always so helpful, thank you also for the kind donation.

Thank you men, what would we do without you x.

Our visiting stalls holders, Coast & Country Crafts & Quilts, Phoenix Cards and Lancaster & Cornish, thank you for your donations and for joining us on our open day.

We mentioned in an earlier post that we had an offer of Patchwork Books to sell in aid of Help for Heroes, the books attracted a lot of attention and were very successful, thank you Debbie for donating your Mother's books.

Our final mention are to the fantastic students that come to our workshops and allowed us to show their beautiful work, you all did us proud. Thank you for supporting us by coming to our workshops.

As I said, we had a lovely busy day but I did manage a few snaps to show you before we get Roger's, taken in a rush and some a little blurry so I apologise for that, but it's a taster...

some of our workshop display

view of our students work and their Begin Patchwork Quilt 

Carolyn and Sue with our new Recycled Logs Quilt behind us

Carolyn

Sue's 5' college quilt with our Ever Decreasing Squares Quilt

Carolyn's 5' college quilt

Sue's - Journal quilts

Carolyn's - Journal Quilt

sorry, so blurry - our lovely Fran with our shop

our lovely Kathy and Margaret, sorry missed Hannah 

a few visitors enjoying tea and cake

Not a great selection of photos but we'll post some of Roger's when we can.

It was lovely to meet members who belong to groups that have already booked us, we look forward to visiting you all in the new year.

If there was anything you saw at our Open Day that you would like us to do as a workshop, just drop us an email and we'll do our best, in the mean time we look forward to seeing you at one of our future workshops.

Carolyn has all the figures so we'll share the amounts raised when everything is totted up.

Thanks for getting to the end of this long post, back soon.

Sue

Tea & Cake...

If you happen to be out and about tomorrow, why not pop in and say hello...yes it's our Open Day at Fraddon Village Hall. It only seems a short time ago we started to think about an open day and raising funds for Help for Heroes in the process.

We've both been busy making cushions, books and framed textile art pieces to tempt you, along with our usual stock of recipes, purses, pencil cases and cards, so you may pick up a Christmas present or two.
If you're stuck for a gift idea why not surprise someone with one of our gift vouchers, or better still put it on your Christmas list!

We have a visiting card stall and two fabric stalls, we also have a donation of Patchwork books to be sold in aid of Help for Heroes.

Along with all the goodies we have new workshops to show case and a full list of workshop dates right through till November.

So there's plenty of reasons to pop in, as well as being in the warm and surrounded by our students beautiful work, we have tea and cake and you will be helping a very worthy cause.

Hope to see you tomorrow, we're open from 11am till 4pm

Bye for now
Sue

Just a quickie...

Here are a couple of Box Framed Fabric Collage pieces for our Open Day sales table..

Fabric Collage

Off to Carolyn's later for a little 'turtle' day fun and Open Day prep.

Back soon
Sue

Oops...it's been a while...

Sorry we've been a little absent from blogland lately, but rest assured we have been busy.
To bring you up to date here are a few snaps, starting with a very enjoyable Ever Decreasing Squares Workshop. These are destined to be cushions by taking a small section from our quilt pattern.

Kate with a 'fussy cut' centre pattern

beautiful fabrics chosen by Cynthia

Our next workshop was Marvellous Markal, in case you didn't know I'm rather fond of Markals. We had a wonderful group of enthusiastic ladies, from an artist, to embroiderers and quilters who all turned out an amazing volume of work. Some had chosen to work on our cushion design, while others worked on a number of prints to develop into various projects.

In no particular order you can see some work from Jenny, Debbie, Rose, Fran, Edna, Debbie, Karen and Linda. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished items and hoping to show some at our Open Day in the students gallery...please ladies! Thank you to everyone for allowing us to show your work here.

After an enjoyable day we refreshed ourselves and tootled up the A30 to Launceston, to show our work to a packed room at Flowerpatch Quilters. We took along some work from our City and Guilds Course, it was rather good to see pieces again that are normally tucked away in boxes. With an attentive group who joined in asking questions, we had a jolly good time and some lovely comments about our work which was very nice indeed. Thank you ladies for making us so welcome at Fowerpatch.

That was our last workshop for 2013, so at this point I would like to say a huge thank you on behalf of Carolyn and myself to everyone that joined us this year for a workshop or two. We really appreciate it and you make all the background work, sampling and planning worthwhile. We've enjoyed meeting you all and hope to see you at our Open Day or on a future workshop.

As you know our Open Day is drawing closer and things are gathering pace. We've had items delivered for the student gallery and a very kind donation of Quilting books to sell, with the proceeds raised going to Help For Heroes. Our very generous friends have offered their help on the day and even to bake cakes for us, there can be no better class of person than craft people.
Carolyn and I have been making variations of our cushion designs to sell, here are a couple below based on our Square Strip design.

variation of our Square Strip design

We've shown you in an earlier post the beginnings of a Recycle project that's new for 2014, that is now finished although we're not going to unveil it just yet, but I will show you a sneak peek whilst it was being quilted...

new for 2014

One of the advantages of working with a colleague, apart from working with a good friend, is that we can bash our heads together and come up with new ideas and designs, that is just what happened on a recent 'turtle' day.
We've wanted to do a recycled project for ages and have been saving a variety of materials and clothing. Once we had the design idea we started preparing the various elements and at the end of the day it was left in the sewing shed for me to work on, (now don't tell Carolyn, I have built up lots of brownie points because she thinks it was a chore, but actually I had a ball). So we're rather excited with this quilt design, we've used recycled fabrics but it will work just as well with patchwork fabrics and a wonderful way to use up the 'stash'. Carolyn has also been working on a Recycled Cushion version of the design (do I have to share my brownie points now).
It will be on the website soon and if you can't make it to our Open Day we'll be sure to post some photos.

I'd better stop now as I've been here far too long, I must blog more often!!

Bye for now
Sue

Up-dates and no.2 man...

I thought I'd start with a recent photo of the splendid Mr Pheasant the no.2 man in my life, still visiting after at least eight years...

Mr. Pheasant

Next Diary Dates -

Ever Decreasing Squares Workshop - Thursday 7th November at Coast & Country Crafts & Quilts, Perranarworthal 10am - 2.30pm

Marvellous Markal Workshop - Thursday 14th November at Fraddon Village Hall 10am - 4pm.
After which we're off to Launceston in the evening to give a talk at Flower Patch Quilters.

Transfer Dyes Workshop - Friday 29th November-Sunday 1st December at Degembris Manor Farm, Newlyn East, nr. Newquay.

Open Day in aid of Help for Heroes - Thursday 5th December at Fraddon Village Hall 11am - 4pm
Please try and pop in, it's such a worthy cause and a good excuse for tea & cake.

We've been planning our 2014 workshop programme, starting on Thursday 27th February with our Begin Patchwork 6 Week Course at Fraddon Village Hall.

We have the hall booked for a number of dates in 2014, so if you would like to request a workshop or method, then please drop us an email and we'll try to work it in.

Have a great weekend, thanks for dropping by,
Sue
Our donation link..  www.bmycharity.com/CarolynRichards

Today's Fabric Collage Workshop

We had eight lovely ladies join us today, some having been on workshops with us before and some that were new to us, but all had an amazing stash of gorgeous bits to add to their Fabric Collages, which as usual gave Carolyn and myself itchy fingers.
Everyone was happy to experiment and try something new, colour was added with paints, printing and painted Bondaweb.

Here's a selection of photos to share with you...

 

Here are the Collages at the end of the day, ready to have the finishing touch added. Starting from top left we have...Penny, Gill, Fran, Patricia, Edna, Debbie, Margaret and Jenny.
Our ladies worked at such a speed, all started adding embellishments and hand stitching, even getting as far as attaching the facings to finish the edges.
Thank you for such a lovely day ladies and allowing us to share your fabulous work here.

I'm going to finish with a photo to show you one of the amazing quilt stands that a very good friend of Beyond Patchwork has made for us...

Thank you so much Keith from both of us.

Hope that wasn't too many photos for you to wade through, I did try and edit .
Back soon
Sue

Mis-spent Sunday?

Well, yesterday I thought I would get busy making some Chelsea Buns and a few items for our Open Day on 5 December.

I haven't got a photo of either as I am sure that you would not like to see my first attempt at a Chelsea Bun since I left school, far too many years ago!! They ended up being a little dry, although they started off being rather too wet!  I an not sure that I will be trying them again, at least not any time soon!

The Fuchsia boxes were more successful and are looking pretty good!  We are going to use some of the fabric that we dyed a couple weeks ago for the lining and I think that will be perfect.

As we have mentioned before we are giving the entrance fee of £1.00 to Help for Heroes, and now have a link to the charity page should you like to take a look www.bmycharity.com/CarolynRichards

A little taster

We are looking forward to the Fabric Collage workshop on Thursday a t Fraddon Village Hall.  We have a couple spaces left should you like to join us too.  All our contact details can be found on our website Beyond Patchwork

Thanks for reading

Carolyn

A little teazer!

Well I think that is all our weekends away for a short while!

This weekend we popped up to see our son & daughter-in-law for the weekend.  Alison came to our Strip Cushion workshop in the summer while they where here and she is now addicted!!  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the new cushion that she has made since the workshop, but is lovely.  She is understandably, rather proud of herself, which she should be!

We had a great time collecting conkers with our grandsons.  The competition to find the largest one was intense and we decided in the end that we all had won!!

While I was there I had a little play with a new piece of work for our Open Day.  It is another Fabric Collage, using some pieces from the Oliver Twists Threads selection that she gave me for my birthday.  This is only a small section as I am keeping the whole unveiling for our Open Day!

A little bit Blue!

We have just scheduled some dates for our Begin Patchwork 6 week course in 2014.  It will start on Thursday 27 February and run through until Thursday 15 May.  Full details can be found on our website.

Thank you for reading.

Carolyn

Busy times!

Unfortunately I was unable to help at the Trelyn Exhibition, but I did manage a quick pop in with my parents just before we drove up to Salisbury for our daughter's Graduation.  It was a lovely sight, the hall was full of fabulous work.  Everyone had worked really hard on the quilts and on putting the displays together.  I felt proud to have made a small contribution to it, and would like to thank Sue for all her hard work on the Beyond Patchwork display!.

We had a wonderful time at the Graduation, it was wonderful to see our daughter achieve her dream, she is now a Primary School teacher and is loving it.

As Sue mentioned we had a good day on Tuesday, catching up with the dreaded admin, and then starting on our Recycle quilt that we have been planning for a while.  It is looking good and we are excited that it will be on show at our Open Day.  

We also made a few plans for that day too, and would like to say 'thank you' to those of you that have offered to help on the day and for lending us your works to display.  We will be in touch.

To get some inspiration for some new work, I have been looking through some of my photos from this year and thought I would share these two taken on our weekend break to Germany in January. 

Painted Wall in Konstanz - Germany

We visited the city of Konstanz, a beautiful place on the banks of Lake Konstanz.  The buildings are very authentically German and they paint the walls with borders and patterns and I was very impressed.   Also who couldn't be impressed with these doors!!

Beautiful old doors in Konstanz - Germany

Food for thought I think!

Thanks again for reading.

Carolyn

2014 prep...

Hello everyone,

Now that Trelyn Quilters exhibition is over, it's time for us to concentrate on our Open Day on the 5th Dec and preparing new workshops for next year.
Our 'turtle' day on Tuesday started with a catch up of the bookings from the exhibition, arranging dates to book the hall and compiling a workshop programme, which we always find exciting.

Next we caught up on our 'turtle' challenge which we've posted about in the past, I'm happy to say we have finished them, but I'm sorry to say I'd never took a photo, so I'll have to post that next time.

I do have a sneak peep for you though of a new workshop we're working on. It's still on the design wall but it's coming along nicely. We've been saving a variety of fabrics to use in a Recycled Quilt...

Recycle quilt - detail

We'll keep you posted on the progress but in the mean time, start saving your cast-offs if you want to join us next year.

Here are the painted pieces I showed you last time, all finished and turned into book covers ready for our Open Day.

Free machine painted books

We had a fabulous response for our Fabric Collage Workshop at the exhibition. If you wish to come along we still have a few spaces, it's on Thursday 24th October at Fraddon Village Hall 10am - 4pm, all the details are available on our web site.

I'm going to finish with a beautiful cushion that was made on our Retreat weekend at Degembris Manor Farm. This is our Manipulated Strip Cushion design and Margaret won 1st prize at the Feock Show with this stunner.

Margaret's Manipulated Strip Cushion

I think you'll agree that's something special to finish on.

Thank you for reading, we appreciate your company.

Sue

Quilts, Quilts and more Quilts...

As promised here is a peek at the quilts being set up yesterday at the Trelyn Quilter Exhibition...

Carolyn's 70's quilt

beautiful selection

1st prize raffle quilt

teddy bears picnic and chairman's challenge

Mr Woodley had far too much fun!

Beyond Patchwork display

another beautiful selection, that's including Mr Woodley

After my panic that my quilt wouldn't make it to the exhibition, I thought I'd better show you that it did and here it is...

Celtic Heritage

Christmas corner

This is only a small selection, there are 70 quilts in total on display and the comments from visitors today have been wonderful.

I think you'll agree we have such talent in our group, it's always amazing when everything comes together, you walk into the hall and you're surrounded with all that colour.

I must say a huge thank you to all the husbands who gave up their time yesterday to put up the quilt stands, sterling work men. See you on Saturday for the dismantle!

Thank you to everyone who stopped for a chat today and to all the ladies who are interested in joining us for workshops, it was lovely to catch up with you all.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing these photos, I'll try and put some more up next time.

Back soon

Sue

Time to chill and Diary Dates...

I needed a bit of calm time this afternoon to collect my thoughts and the best treatment for me is to do a little painting onto a free machined piece.

free machine and painting

If you've ever done this workshop with us I'm sure you'll agree, it's a very restful technique. We'll turn these pieces into book covers to stock up for our Open Day.

I've mentioned before that Carolyn and I belong to Trelyn Quilters and that they are having an exhibition at Fraddon Village Hall starting this Thursday, in aid of the Phoenix Stroke Appeal.
We'll have our Autumn workshops on display, along with workshop info. Unfortunately Carolyn can't be there, but I will on Thursday, Friday afternoon and Saturday so please come and say hello, I'd love to meet those who read our blog.

The reason I needed to chill today was because I took my Celtic Knot quilt into the cleaners last week. It was far too big to handwash and no way could I dry it, so I thought that was the best option. Best laid plans...when I phoned to ask what time I could collect it on Tuesday (the day it should be ready), I was told it would be Wednesday. So, along with taking No.1 man for his hospital appointment, helping to set up the exhibition and baking for it, it's going to be a late night attaching the hanging sleeve as well. It will all be worth it and I'll make sure to take some photos of the exhibition to show you next time.

Here are our Autumn Dates...

Fraddon Village Hall
Fabric Collage Wall-hanging - Thursday 24th October
Marvellous Markals - Thursday 14th November
Open Day - Thursday 5th December

Coast and Country Crafts & Quilts, Perranarworthal
Ever Decreasing Squares Quilt - Thursday 7th November

Creative Craft Weekend at Degembris Manor Farm
Transfer Dye Wall-hanging - Friday 29th November to 1st December

We look forward to seeing you at any of these dates, all the information can be found on our web site.

I'm collecting the hanging frames for the quilts in the morning, but now I'm off to attach a quilt label.

Thanks for reading, back soon

Sue

A feast for the eyes!!

I forgot to mention in my recent blogs about my trip to London that while at the Tate Modern, with my daughter & son-in-law, I saw this painting by Kandinsky. 

"Swinging" by Kandinsky

As anyone who knows me will confirm, since embarking on the City & Guilds course a few years ago, I have become a firm fan of Kandinsky, so it was an absolute delight to see 'Swinging' in real life! 

 I love his use of shape, line and colour and I an regularly inspired to use his influence in my own work.

"Varied Rectangles" by Kandinsky

Most recently his "Varied Rectangles" was the inspiration for my "Seeds" piece for Textile Maids.  

"Seeds"

Thanks for reading.

Carolyn