A 'quilty' day out and a finish!

Tuesday was the day, the American Museum was the destination, I was picked up by Carys to travel via Bath to the Museum arriving around 11.45, after following some tricky road closure diversions.

Covered Wagon at the entrance 

We started in the Terrace restaurant with a nice cuppa and some 'heavenly' cookies, and met up with the others before heading off to the Quilt Room to sew. Once settled we all produced our sewing, all but 2 of us were working on our 'Sheep' pictures, with Carys hand quilting and Gaynor who was stitching some Sashiko panels. One of the Guides informed us that a coach party from Bridgewater was due in later so we quickly worked out a lunch rota to ensure there would be someone stitching when they arrived. 

The view from the quilt room is lovely.

and after admiring the view we quickly fell to stitching and chatting with visitors (I was very impressed with the number of Menfolk who popped in!) Later in the day we spoke with a lovely lady all the way from Melbourne, Australia who said she had just begun quilting.

I got all of my sheep onto the background and think they look quite cute... 

I now have to embroider all the features like legs, ears, eyes, some flowers on the grass plus some quilted clouds.

When I got home I came to the workroom to stow away my bits and bobs, the sun was just beginning to set over the houses at the back of the house, I love sunsets and they are just as beautiful at this time of year as any other what do you think? I like the way It forms a silhouette of the houses as it dips lower in the sky

around 6pm

15 minutes later

Other news on the sewing front, the Crazy panel is done, I decided that less is probably more in this instant, I added some French knots to the Pistil stitch,                               

                                                                  

 decided to leave the larger white flower on the Blue Brocade                                                            

and tried my hand at some freestyle embroidery with a tree on the solid blue patch in the centre                                                                

                                                               

so now it looks like this,                               

Just the edges to trim but I'm still undecided what to use it for though.  

Well that's enough from me for today, I'll be back soon with an invitiation....

Bye for now

Lorraine                               

Phwewww!!! what a fortnight!

Hello All!

I have finally surfaced from all the jollities over at Severn Valley HQ, and what a time we had, Saturday 21st September saw 23 members attending an all day workshop and dinner at Thornbury Golf Centre, I forgot my camera so I 'borrowed' these pictures from their website. 

The approach to the Golf centre, which is situated in an old farm and its buildings

The room used for the workshop

You can get an idea of the beautiful views we had all day and into the evening. We ate dinner in this room you can see it at the very end of the first photo.

Where we ate dinner

The workshop was led by the wonderful Clare Kingslake who gently led us through making either sheep pictures (excuse the threads they are the tacking threads around the sheep shapes)

or a Woven basket cushion front, 

Taken from a larger project in the book.

I succumbed and bought a copy of her book which she very kindly signed for me.

The dedication

I had chosen 'the sheep'! I love the way they take on character depending on the position of the heads etc,

'Ooh! What's that?'

or  'Quick look up there!'

On Wednesday 25th September we held a Members Past & Present social event as our monthly meeting , we were delighted to welcome more than 20 past members some from way back in the early days (including the lovely (and famous) Sandie Lush) and around the same number of present members, among the visitors there were 2 founder members and no less than 8 previous chairpersons at the gathering. The cake was amazing (again my camera was obvious by it's absence!!- Doh! must try harder) but as soon as I can get my hands on some 'piccy's' you will be the first to see them.

In the 2 weeks since all this happened I have sort of 'crashed' apart from some knitting and some hand sewing, (of course)  I've done most of the embroidery on the Victorian piece I started at WPQ

A spider's web for luck

The old lace is attached with single lazy daisy stitches and flowers made using straight stitch and French knots, plus some lazy daisy flowers and stem stitch as a filler on the solid fabric

Then today I learned a new stitch by adding some Pistil stitch flowers, I quite like the way they look.

So now it's almost complete, I will decide whether or not to leave on the 3D flower bits (White lacy one top left & small roses near Pistil stitch) as I'm not too sure about them, and find a filler for the dark blue bit in the centre. 

Then I'll have to decide if I want to stick pins in it, at 8 1/2" x 6 1/2" approx finished size it seems a bit big for that or find another use, I did think of adding some borders so I could perhaps make a Cushion Front, but I'm still thinking about it! All/any suggestions will be considered!!

Well I guess that's it for this time

Lorraine