A few goodies

Didn't buy much at Sandown quilt show today - it's a small show, and I haven't been quilting much lately, so I don't really need to top up my stash at all. I bought three pieces of novelty fabric which were in a sale bin and one pack of fat quarters with a purple theme, which I thought were really pretty. I also bought this pattern to make a Bubble Pod and two FQs to make it up for Sarah (she chose the FQs for that).

She bought a purse/bag (very small like a purse - just big enough for phone, keys, card - but on a long strap - good for going out), I bought a cool shirt and a necklace as well, but they aren't quilting related!

A little fabric in

...but only a little. These two charm packs are all that I bought at the quilt show yesterday - just done so little sewing lately I wasn't that inspired by fabric. These packs were both from New Threads, my friend Meg's shop (which reminds me, there was an excellent fabric with a Venetian scene which I did want to pick up as well), and I spent quite a while - in the quiet moments - catching up with her. A definite plus of the show!

Quilt Show

The National Quilt Championships at Sandown (unfortunately, less impressive than it sounds, these days) is just down the road from me, so I always try to go, even if only for a few hours (which is usually enough). This year, I even got around to enterring a quilt - if no one does, there won't be any to see, right?  It used to be a bigger, more impressive show, but between a move from Ascot a number of years back and the advent of the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in the summer, these days, there's a lot less to see. A shame, really, especially as it's literally a 15 minute drive for me...

A trip to Farnham Maltings

Almost didn't make my annual trek to the quilter's show and fabric sale in Farnham this year - I just drove to and from Brighton yesterday, I am at the end of a rubbish cold and my friend who I often go with couldn't go this year. But I decided to do it anyway as I really needed backing fabric for a couple of quilts - and I'm glad I did. I picked up backing for the two t-shirt quilts (the stripes at bottom right), for a wedding quilt for later in the year (the elephants) and for a baby quilt I need to do soon (the flamingos). Also picked up a couple of yards of cheap cute fabric for Project Linus, some fat quarters (the spots will be binding for the t-shirt quilts) and a fun half metre piece with a major league baseball theme. Think I might make a cushion from that. Success all around!

A little talk at the library

Our local library does a monthly "Craft and Chat" session, which sometimes involves making things and sometimes is just a talk. I've done a talk about my quilts twice now (today was the second) and I think the organiser is going to do another later in the year for my mini-quilts and other small fabric artwork, etc. It's fun - not that many people, so it's easy to just talk...

Fabric in...part 1

Went to Farnham Maltings yesterday, home of the annual quilt show by Farnham Quilters (and others) and The Big Fabric Sale.  There are lots of bargains (by UK standards at least) to be had, and it's often where I pick up backings for quilts, or cheap prints to use as borders for Linus Quilts. Sometimes I also have specific other things to buy.  This time, I was on the hunt for something suitable for a baby quilt for friend - nothing I have made up already is quite right, so my task was to hunt for a focus print and some coordinates...and here they are - more fabric than I will need for the quilt itself, but the tonals will be very useful in stash. Now I just need to make and quilt it (I have a few months, so it's not a problem). 

Sandown III

And finally, the rest of my haul - these nautical and beachy fabrics were calling my name - not sure what I will do with these but I will actually keep them out on my work station as a group (might go through stash to see if anything else works with them) and plan to do something with them this summer. 

And these were some "just because" purchases - a charm pack, a couple of metres of fabric I liked (which actually were a good bargain as well), some funky half metre pieces which were less of a bargain, and a set of 15 coordinating fat eights - again, these will probably go to a single project, at least to start with, rather than get integrated into the stash generally...

Sandown II

I used to take loads of photos of quilts at shows -and I still take some - but I'm never too sure about posting them, with copyright issues and all; mostly they are just for my reference anyway - ideas I will probably never make, but you never know...  But instead, I'll show what I bought - these are all quilt backs bought at cheap(ish) prices - £4/metre (one at £5). Three of them are for specific pieces which I've scheduled longarm time for, the other is for stash...

And these are 4 different 1 metre pieces - again at bargain prices - suitable for fun borders for Linus quilts. 

And here are all the bargain FQs I bought (one piece is a half metre but it was in a bargain box, too). They were all good value, but the best bargain was the stack of 10 novelty FQs at the back for a tenner. Lots of fun stuff to play with when I'm in the mood for Linus scrap quilts!  And some stuff for general stash as well. 

There's a bit more - fabrics which weren't bargains per se, but which I just liked - but that's for tomorrow.  It may seem a lot, but I do only hit one or two shows/shops per year most years (and this past year I didn't even get to my favourite bargain fabric experience...)

Sandown I

Lots of stuff to show from my day at Sandown, so I'm going to spread it out over a few days. I had a lovely time browsing the quilts on display and shopping and chatting with some friends - particularly Meg of New Threads Quilt Shop, who I've known for about 13 years, ever since we were in a Birthday Block Swap together and Benta, who I've not until now met up with in person, but with whom I've been in bloggy contact for several years...  I had a great time chatting (a lot of it about university, especially with Meg, who has put 5 kids through uni, some of them through several degrees, so has a lot of experience with it all) and browsing and what not and look what the lovely Benta brought me...

Awesome!  Thanks again :)

A little (or not so little) talk about quilts...

My local library has a monthly craft feature, run by the Friends of the Library - sometimes it's a practical thing, sometimes it's just a talk, and the co-ordinator, whom I have known for years as our kids went to school together, asked me ages ago if I'd be willing to do a quilt talk (not a how-to, more of a trunk show).  Well, I'm pretty good at talking, and I have a lot of quilts I can show, so I said ok - today was the day. I took a big pile (several, really) of quilts, and kind of made it up as I went along. I showed a few to start, then we looked at some simple patchwork blocks and talked about construction and the stages of that. Luckily, I happened to have things in all stage of construction lying around the house - who'd have guessed!

Not many photos, unfortunately - we just put a table in the middle with some chairs around in a circle and I'd laid all the quilts out, sort of in a sensible order, on the table, and I peeled them back as I went.  The smaller art quilts, etc.  I sort of had out to the side, and we talked about those too and  about different kinds of community quilting (especially online, virtual stuff), like Block of the Month projects, Online Bees and Challenges, The Block Lotto, Quilt Swaps, Round Robins, and so on. It was really good fun, and I think the ladies who came (there were about a dozen - and yes, they were all ladies) - enjoyed it - I hope so!  Although it wasn't a practical session, one lady did bring along a hexagon piece she'd been working on for many years, with scraps of kids' clothes and other meaningful things, so we did have a quick chat at the end about what she might do to kind of finish it up  - I think it was a bit of a Topsy patchwork - it just grew!

I'm going to go back at some point later in the year to talk about ATCs - that will be a little show and tell, but also we'll do some practical stuff - probably do some round robins because that's sort of easier, and more social. 

Just a few quilts from the Great Northern Quilt Show

Being up in that part of the world, for a change, I had the chance to attend the Great Northern Quilt Show today.  I didn't take a lot of quilt photos (I don't tend to much anymore, between having been at this quite a few years and copyright issues and also being lazy when I'm at shows) but here are a few quilts I particularly liked for one reason or another. Please note that I did not make any of these quilts, nor do I have any rights to the images. I've credited the maker each time - if you are interested in their work, you should try to see if they have websites!

This quilt is one of many in the show by Chris Marriage, a longarm quilt from "up north" as we call it down in London... I've seen her work before, and she had a section within the show featuring her quilts - I liked a lot of them, but this one in particular, which is called Nebula, particularly struck me. I really enjoyed the colours and also, all the different fills she used...

This quilt is called Line Dancing and is by Maureen Crawford (I think  - my photo of the label was a bit blurry). I liked this one partly because I just enjoyed the colour and the movement, but also, the idea struck me - this was a row quilt, but instead of joining it in a traditional way, she's set it all diagonally, joined half the rows perpendicular to the other half, and finally, sliced the whole thing open to add the curved flying geese at the end - what a great idea!

This piece is The Little Lost Coverlet by Louise Clayton, and is a replica of a coverlet the maker's husband found in a skip (dumpster) many years ago - I liked the simplicity and the way the blocks are all different sizes - I'm thinking this would look great with shirt fabric and similar. If I were going to make something like this, I would quilt it a lot more, but I understand why this one isn't, as coverlets aren't really quilted...

This is the rather stunning Dreamcatcher  - Caught a Dream by Birgit Schueller, a German quilter. I just enjoyed all the work in this one - the quilting was great, though the other photo I took of some of the vegetation didn't really come out.

And finally, Postcard from Venice by Susan Lax, which does such a great job of looking like medieval floor mosaics...  I also liked the composition of this one, though, with all the different kinds of floor tile mosaics inserted into a small space. And I liked the diagonality, if that's a word...

There were many more quilts there, but as I said, I only took photos of a few of them, even though there were lots of others which I enjoyed looking at. Normally when I take photos at quilt shows, I never do anything with the photos  - often not even look at them later, so I hope you've enjoyed seeing these few, and I hope the makers don't mind my sharing their lovely work.

Fabric in

Went to Sandown today (National Quilt Championships), which, despite the official name, is actually a fairly small show, but it's local to me and I was collecting a quilt as a favour for a friend, so it made a nice afternoon. I looked at some quilts, and bought some fabric - it's only the 2nd time this year I've bought fabric (first was at Farnham Maltings in January), so I don't really feel guilty about it!  And I've been making good progress working through some stash stuff.  Most of these fabrics were sale price, though the amazing Alexander Henry Day of the Dead Tarot Card style fabric at front here, wasn't. Had to buy some anyway, though. The owls and birdies are both 60" wide fabrics, so I may use them as backings.

Loved these orange themed fabrics - the girl cutting said they'd sold loads of the fabric (which also comes in a pale background for the one with writing and a pale background with oranges, like the black one I bought.) 

And indulged in some FQ sets which were on sale, including an 8 pack of WOW (white on white) which I use a lot of, and often run out of.

And a few Moda FQ packs, which weren't particuarly on sale, but which I liked anyway. 

Fabric in...

I can't go to a quilt show without buying some fabric, and this was no exception. However, I did stick mainly to tonal fabrics, trying to buy where my stash is particularly sparse, like purples and yellows and some white-on-white.

I also stuck to the cheaper sale selections of fabric - I didn't pay more than £1.50 for any of these FQs and as little as £1 for some of them. These are the same FQs, but displayed attractively with the aid of my lovely helper...

These are the only non-tonal ones in the bunch - the two in front are for a specific project (a bag, by request) and the others are prints I liked which made up the numbers in sale offers (e.g. £1.00 each or 6 for £5; £1.50 each or 4 for £5 and so on...).  The only other thing I bought was some cross-stitch patterns, which I will show another day - though I was tempted by a little clip-on light and magnifying glass combo - I don't quite need it yet, but I can see in a few years' time, it may well come in handy!

A few quilts from Sandown

Alex and I popped over the National Quilt Championships at Sandown today - it's only about 15 minutes from us (the girls were busy elsewhere, though).  It's not a large show, but it was enjoyable (partly because it's not a large show - it could be bigger and still enjoyable, but some of the really big ones just hurt my brain after a while). There were several exhibits of quilts by a single artist, in addition to the ones in the general judging categories and the challenges. I haven't taken many photos, partly because I never seem to actually USE any of the photos of quilts I take, even for inspiration, and partly because I don't like to blog lots of photos of other people's quilts, especially when I'm not sure I can keep track of who made which one.   But here are a few where I do know who the artist is, so I feel ok showing them.  This first piece is by Annette Morgan, whose work I really like. Funny thing - I saw this from across the room and was immediately drawn to it - when I saw the name on the label, I thought well, at least my taste is consistent!  The quilt you can see a sliver of to the right of the photo is hers as well - the one to the left, I think not, though it's in similar colours. 

These are both detail shots from the quilt above - I just really like the squares and rectangles in different sizes, and the way they are quilted - in addition ot the colours. This quilt is both geometric and quite random at the same time, which I like.   Her work is wonderful - if you aren't familiar with her, do go check her out. 

Ferret, a longarm quilter who does amazing work, had an exhibition of some of her quilts (quite a few, though not one of my favourites - her cows!) there - I've picked out just one to show, although I like many of them. This one (Phoenix Rising) is a good example of one of the things I like about her work - from a distance, this is a lovely quilt of a Phoenix with lots of interesting colour gradation, etc. But it's up close where the quilt really begins to amaze, I think - have a look at the quilting detail in the photo below...

all around the Phoenix, there are red flames quilted, and further out, black quilted onto black.  And the quilting on the bird itself is amazing. The photos on her own website show the quilting even better - do go have a look!

This is a detail of a quilt by Lesley Brankin, who I've known for many years (since before Alex was born) - we were members of a birthday block swap together a long time ago.  The members of this group stayed in touch for quite a long time and some of us are still good friends to this day. I haven't seen Lesley in a while, but I really enjoyed seeing her piece at Sandown - it's really lovely. 

And this is a quilt which I just liked - I took about 5 more pictures of quilts I just liked, but this is the only one where I remembered to also take a photo of the blurb, so I'd know who the artist was.  The quilt is called Dance, and is by Rebecca Handyside. As far as I can tell, she doesn't blog or have a website, but she's made a nice quilt - I enjoyed looking at it!

American Museum in Bath

A few quilts from the collection at the American Museum in Bath, where we are visiting. The quilts are all behind glass, which of course is very sensible, but it means they don't photograph as well.  Sarah was impressed with how modern this school house block quilt looked.

I'm always a fan of log cabins.

This is a block I might well consider making.

Another log cabin - pineapple style this time.

And this one was in the other part of the textile collection - lots of rugs and Navajo textiles. This is a penny rug - made from wool and felt circles - wish I had a better photo as it's amazing.

Sandown (National Quilt Championships)

I did take some photos of quilts, but didn't keep track of whose was whose, so I'm not going to post them. I only took a few, anyway, as I find I don't tend to look at quilt photos again later, usually.  Instead, I'll show you what I bought - which is what you really want to see, anyway.  I bought these interesting fabrics from Finstall Fabrics, a new-to-me vendor. I really liked the abstract prints and the solids are actually quite highly textured.  

 I didn't intend to buy much - if any -  fabric, but I couldn't resist some cheap FQ packs  with cute prints. Perhaps augmented with some tonals from my stash, these will all make nice baby quilts or similar. 

I did buy this book, which has a huge collection of 9" blocks, both pieced and appliqued (and some which combine the methods) - I don't know that I will use many of the applique ones, I love some of the geometric pieced ones, and think I might well use them in some small quilts. 

And I bought some cross-stitch patterns. The one above is actually a full kit, but the other two are just patterns. I have a lot of autumnal and wintery cross-stitches and I really needed a few spring-like and summery ones.  The one gardeny one I did recently, I gave to a friend as a gift!