Arts Festival!

Last night was our monthly meeting for SVQ, and what a great night! Liz Brooke Ward (See previous post) came along to show us her work which was fabulous, she grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in the Cotswold's and her work is inspired by Nature, Landscape and her Husbands job - he a Microbiologist (I think!!) which basically means he looks at and photographs Lichens through a microscope! Here are a couple of shots I took of her smaller pieces, unfortunately I couldn't get her larger pieces as she was surrounded by our members after her talk.

Based on the Lichens, this is about 2' square and is embroidered entirely of french knots

This smaller piece is a Journal quilt, one of 12 made over a year, for this one she asked her friends for buttons plus a quotation which meant something to each of them, the buttons are stitched to little pockets with each pocket resembling the button, inside these are the relevant quotes printed onto little cloth strips which each have a button hole in, the little strips are on tiny wooden sticks to resemble scrolls and can be taken out and buttoned to the pocket. (I thought this was very clever! sorry about the fuzzy picture)

Today 4 of us have been off to the Town Hall to set up the exhibition for the Arts trail (see previous post) we arrived bright & early (well late actually as someone had put temporary traffic lights on the road to Thornbury (the cheek!) We had quite few exhibits some scrounged from last nights show and tell (more on that later) and got to work putting the stands together, putting the table in place and hanging the exhibits, once we had finished it was time to take some pictures which you can see here... then once that was done we headed off for a much needed Cappuccino before heading home. I'll leave you with these pictures and tell you more about our Show 'n' Tell in my next post

Extreme left

Left side

The table with all the 'little' pieces on

Centre Back

Right Side

Extreme right

Oh almost forgot my Tuesday WIP, as I promised myself I sat in the conservatory in warm sunshine working on the Row Robin 

the view from the window

 LOOK I'm even hand quilting!

While I sat there enjoying myself this little beauty came to visit, I had put out some finely chopped cheese rind earlier and she just kept coming back for more so I grabbed the camera, pressed the shutter and hoped.

See you all soon!

L

DECISIONS! DECISIONS!

Today is a day for decisions, I was up early, the sun is shining and its feels like the time is ripe for this. I have finally decided on a date to Retire from teaching, now that's not too say I won't agree to help out at my groups etc but as far as organising courses/classes this is it!!! 

Which leads me to the 2nd decision made today. Some of you may remember last year I made a resolution to actually finish some of my UFO's  instead of starting new projects and I did actually finish 3 or 4 pieces. The (feeble) excuse for not doing more was that I was too busy with work related projects and doing mini workshops for various group etc and in part that was true. However yesterday, I went through the workroom and unless they are hiding in corners or behind the cupboards (and not including the Hexie projects I have 'inherited!) I have assembled ALL the UFO's in one place, this box contains the part made tops and smaller project, some of which are actually workshop samples.

This is the most complete project yet to be finished, this one was started in 2005! AND has actually appeared in not one but two exhibitions as a WIP so this I think has to be the first one I tackle.

A Row Robin with SVQ, I only joined in as there were not enough members interested to make it viable, however with a few late entries we made it to 7 girls willing to give it a go! The 'brief' was decided on by the participants thus; 2 rows 6" high, 2 x 8" high and 2 x 10" high, and had to include blocks/rows made using strips, triangles, paper piecing and applique with 2 rows free choice, Once the quilt tops were complete the originator would add borders if desired to complete the quilt top before quilting it. 

We chose our own colours, and supplied up to 1mtr of fabrics, (including sashing) everyone had to keep within the colour range chosen by the originator. We made our own first 10" row (which is the 3rd one from the top here, 'Farmer's Daughter' block from Joen Wolfren's book 'Any Block Any Size', and put it in a Shoe box, numbered labels were stuck on the boxes with only the organiser knowing which box belonged to who. 

We then swapped boxes at the monthly meetings by taking home a box we had not had before. After making a row we had to add it to the top or bottom of the piece in the box. Through out the whole process I kept a diary of thoughts etc, and I am so glad I did as now I can look back and see what was going on in my head as I tackled each row. Unfortunately there were only 6 rows but 7 of us so there was one quilt we each did not get to work on, this was a different top for each member, and due to some conflict one member dropped out meaning there was one quilt we did not see completed. Some of the completed quilts went on show at the next Exhibition.

Laura's Quilt. I made the top row

Maureen's quilt. This was the one I did not work on!

Anne's quilt I did the applique row at the bottom

So now it's lunchtime and I'm off to eat, then hopefully, I will get to sit in the conservatory and work on my quilt.

Happy Stitchin!

Lorraine.